Herola and Ähtävä Finnish small hill champions
Apr 01, 2019·Nordic Combined
On Friday, the Finnish championships in Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined on the small hill were held in Taivalkoski. Ilkka Herola became a double champion in ski jumping and Nordic Combined, the M18 champions was Rasmus Ähtävä.
Heavy wind conditions had forced the competition to be moved from the HS80 to the much smaller HS52. Moving from one hill to another caused difficulties for many and reshuffled the cards for many of the competitors Eventually, Ilkka Herola was able to adapt to the change best and jumped to the ski jumpung championship with a 47.5-metre jump.
“It was a bit different, a lot more of a race-like exercise. It was probably in 2011 that I have jumped such a hill for the last time” , Herola said with a sense of humour.
With a head start of 36-seconds on jumping runner-up Otto Niittykoski and one minute and 8 seconds on Arttu Mäkiaho, Herola was well set up to add yet another national championship to his merit list. The fast Finn dominated the cross-country race and in the end, he silver medal was taken by the Arttu Mäkiaho (2:47.0) and the bronze went to Ski Club’s Leevi Mutru (+3:15.0).
"Now I am mentally and physically quite at the end. It was a really long journey in the race today. I am really relieved, it's always great to get to medals at the national championships,” Mutru said after the race.
Youth Championship for Rasmus Ähtävä
Rasmus Ähtävä, who represents the Ski Club in Lahti, but is practicing in Vuokatti, led the M18 series in the Nordic Combined junior championships. With the fastest time of 7.5 km race, Ähtävä won the Finnish Championships 16 seconds ahead of Herman Happonen, Puijo Ski Resort, and Timi Heiskanen from the Ounasvaara Ski Club (+1:31.0)
The women's junior and senior championship competitions had to be cancelled due to the increasingly difficult wind conditions.
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