Herola underlines ambitions for winter, wins in Rovaniemi
Nov 25, 2019·Nordic Combined
Ilkka Herola was the winner of the international “First Snow Competition” in Rovaniemi (FIN) last weekend, which doubled as the Finnish national championships for the Finnish athletes. Also Italy’s Samuel Costa and Alessandro Pittin sent delivered convincing performances with ranks two and three. The international starting field consisted of athletes from Finland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Korea, Ukraine and Japan.
With 128.5 points, Herola had the best jump of the morning and started his race with a 10-second head start on Italy’s Aaron Kostner, who collected 126 points. He was followed by teammate Samuel Costa with 124.5 points and started his race 16 seconds after Herola. He shared his position with Japan’s Go Sonehara. Olli Salmela was the next best Finn with 119 points and a delay of 38 seconds at the start.
Even though Veteran Alessandro Pittin is known for struggling on the jumping hill, he showed a good performance in Rovaniemi with rank six (117 p.) and a delay of 46 seconds on the leader. In the PCR on the previous day, Pittin had even ranked second with 95 metres to Herola’s 97.5, an encouraging sign for the 29-year-old.
In the race Pittin was able to rely on his known cross-country strength and set the fastest race time of 22:32.3.However, he faced fierce competition from Herola, Hirvonen and teammate Costa, who had the fourth, second and third-fastest times. For Herola, it meant a start-finish victory with 12 seconds to spare at the finish line. Samuel Costa conquered the silver rank with a 9.6 second-advantage on Pittin, who in turn overtook and distanced jumping runner-up Kostner by 7.5 seconds.
Eero Hirvonen advanced from rank 10 after ski jumping to the final sixth place, taking the silver medal in the Finnish championships in the process. The third-best Finn was youngster Wille Karhumaa, who skied to position seven from rank 15 and beat Leevi Mutru by 0.6 seconds. Yu Koyama was the best Japanese on rank six, Lukas Danek represented the Czech Republic on rank 10.
Oinas takes women’s title
On the women's side, Annamaija Oinas was the only participant. The 17-year-old Oinas is hoping to get more rivals and preparing for the upcoming women’s Continental Cup series.
“I had a lot of improvement in jumping and the skiing felt okay, but when there are no other athletes, it’s hard to evaluate the performance. It was challenging technically as the conditions were really soft,” said Oinas who continued to invest heavily in the sport and her role as spearheading the sport for younger girls.
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