Athlete of the Week: Ilkka Herola (FIN)

“Good things come to those who wait” is a popular saying and also our Athlete of the Week, Finland’s Ilkka Herola had to be patient this season but was rewarded with an excellent weekend in Val di Fiemme.

The 25-year-old, who is known as one of the fastest skiers on the track and, in fact, also wore the red bib of the best skier in Val di Fiemme, steadily improved his ski jumping performance until he finally came into striking distance in Italy.

Often this year, Herola was a marvel to look at on the cross-country track but simply had to invest too much energy to catch to the top athletes to mount a convincing challenge for the podium in the end. Not so in Val di Fiemme.

On Friday, he did have a one minute and 28 second delay on leader Jarl Magnus Riiber, so the first place was out of reach event for lightning-quick Herola but with the next fast skier, Fabian Rießle, 50 seconds off Riiber’s mark, the battle for the podium was on in full force.

And battle Herola did. We have seldom seen skiing as impressive as what the Finn showed on that last long uphill on the course in Lago di Tesero. Herola sped up the ascent, for a long time even in the fast 1:1 technique and opened up a small but decisive gap on his pursuers: the second place was his, Herola’s first podium since Oslo in March 2020.

Herola and fellow fast skier and new red-bib bearer Eero Hirvonen followed up with a marvellous Team Sprint competition on Saturday: a new podium result for the well-respected Finnish Team Sprint duo. On Sunday, another podium or even victory was also in reach for Herola but the heavy traffic final sprint had the Finn relegated to rank 6, only +0.9 seconds off the winning time.

Nevertheless, with a weekend like that behind him and a home World Cup in Lahti (FIN) coming up next, Ilkka Herola seems to finally  have arrived where he always had the potential to be: among the very best in Nordic Combined - even if it sometimes took a while.