“You have to work on your weak points!”
Sep 22, 2020·Nordic Combined
It had been five years that Austrian Falko Krismayr was involved with coaching Nordic Combined when the Finnish team announced the 40-year-old as their new jumping coach last winter. For today’s TUESDAY TALK, he spoke to fondoitalia.it’s Paolo Romano about his athletes, the training setup and his philosophy.
Can you tell us how your cooperation with the Finnish team came to be?
Falko Krismayr: The first contact with Petter took place at the beginning of last December. He told me that there would be some changes in his team in the following season and he remembered me as not a very pleasant person to face in competition when I was coaching the Austrian team, so he asked me if I had the time and opportunity to join the team.
I was flattered that he offered me this position but my life had changed very much, I have my company in network marketing and I wanted to enjoy my time outside of coaching but then Petter did the smart move to invite me to their training camp in Ramsau just to watch the boys and give them some jumping advice.
Somehow, in Ramsau watching the talented guys on this team triggered something inside me. So I changed my decision and accepted their challenge, trying to help these fantastic guys. So last February I officially joined Team Finland .
How is your new life going with the Finnish team and studying the Finnish language? Tell us about your first months.
Krismayr: I still live in Austria. The system we have agreed together requires that my home is still here in Tyrol, because I have my family and children here, so it is not possible to move permanently to Finland. But we found a good rhythm in our training program with the athletes who come here to Austria for a few periods and me sometimes going to Finland.
Where I live, near Innsbruck, the jumping hills are very close and we have all the facilities to train properly to improve in jumping. Other good jumping locations like Garmisch, Oberstdorf, Bischofshofen and Ramsau are only two and a half hours away by car, so with good opportunities to grow our team on different hills. But it is also very useful to jump in Finland which offers sometimes more challenging wind conditions because in the competition you never know what conditions you might find. So we are trying to find the right balance between the two countries.
As for my Finnish, at first I was eager to learn new words and phrases, but it's quite difficult to learn a complicated language in such a short time. I'm making progress, I can order a dinner at the restaurant, but I'm not ready for a full conversation yet. (laughs)
Let's talk about your new athletes. With Eero Hirvonen, one of the team leaders has had major problems in jumping in the last two years and battled a knee injury. How is he doing these days?
Krismayr: The bad thing is that, due to the Covid-19 situation, he had to delay a knee surgery for six weeks this spring and it finally took place at the end of April, which postponed the start of his summer preparation.
However Eero is working incredibly well now. I'm pretty sure we'll see him jump to a good level and I'm also sure we'll all have more fun watching him jump. It's hard to say why he jumped so badly, but the first thing that comes to the eye when analyzing the data was his slowness in the run.
This was the main problem to be solved with him. If you are about two kmh slower than the others, it is almost impossible to reach long distances. What we are working with him and the rest of the team now is to build a flight with good pressure immediately after the takeoff and not just during the flight. With him we took the first steps in training by improving this movement after the takeoff by implementing his feeling in the jump.
You also have the young talents Perttu Reponen and Wille Karhumaa, who were promoted to Team A last fall. How do you see the potential of these two athletes?
Krismayr: Wille has good ski jumping skills and I'm pretty sure, even if I don't know how long it will take, that one day he will fly really well. I haven't often seen young athletes like him work so hard to be successful. He is very focused, he is a hard working guy and I know from my experience that if you have this attitude, success will eventually catch up with you. This year is a bit of a challenge for him because he is now in his year of military service. We'll see where he stands in the fall when he's done with the army. We will evaluate Wille's level in perspective, with the World Championship in Oberstdorf ahead of him.
Speaking of Perttu, I think Nordic combined fans will have a lot of fun with him in the future when they see him jump. He is a very talented jumper and is making great strides right now. He's only 18, so there will be ups and downs, it's something we have to consider, but I think Perttu will have some good results next season.
You are working closely with Janne Ahonen who takes care of the preparation of the equipment. Is there also an exchange of information between you two regarding the jumping technique?
Krismayr: Yes, and not just for the equipment. Janne was one of the best ski jumpers ever and having him on our team is a huge asset. Sometimes, when we're sitting together, I like to have his opinion on what he thinks about how our boys jump. It's really valuable to have the feedback from one of the best ski jumpers in the world.
Looking at the current dominance of “ski jumpers”, do you think that the Nordic Combined Committee should change something in the future, for example by changing the rule of four seconds per point?
Krismayr: The rules are the rules. You need to deal with them in the best possible way. Finland now has a team of very strong cross-country skiers and it would be easy to say: "Ok, FIS should change the rules, bringing more benefits to cross-country skiers."
But the correct way is to teach them to improve their jump so that all problems are solved. And then the opposite would happen if the rules brought more disadvantages to strong jumpers. Instead they would just get better in cross-country. Just wanting to change the rules is the wrong way. You have to work on your weak points.
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