Janne Ryyna"nen reigns
supreme at first snow competition
Finnish team veteran Janne Ryyna"nen hasn't
been in the spotlight much over the summer but now
that the winter is here, he's back with a vengeance!
The 25-year-old won today's Finlandia Veikkaus Cup
which was used as a first international dress rehearsal
by the nations of Finland, Estonia, Poland, Belarus
and Russia.
Ryyna"nen was already in the lead comfortably
after a jump of 95,5 metres and 123 points on Rovnaiemi's
HS 100 hill. Fellow Finn Mikke Leinonen held the
second position with 89,5 metres (113 p.) which
meant a time disadvantage of 40 seconds. Poland's
Kacper Kupczak landed 90 metres and accumulated
a total of 112 points which meant 44 seconds of
time disadvantage in the 10 kilometre cross-country
race.
His brother Szczepan, Estonia's Karl-August Tirmaa
and Ilola Anselmi from Finland split the fourth
rank and started only two seconds after Kacper Kupczak.
Usually known as a rather strong ski jumper, Ryyna"nen
did not leave the shadow of a doubt that he was
the man to beat in the cross-country race. With
the second fastest race time of 24:09,3, Ryyna"nen
lead the pack from start to finish. Mikke Leinonen
was not able to close the gap to his teammate, on
the contrary he lost some 30 seconds and finally
finished 1:10 after Ryyna"nen. The podium was
complete by Finland's new Nordic Combined hope Ilkka
Herola who didn't have a very good jump but improved
10 ranks with the third-fastest cross-country tome
of the field, finishing 1:14 after Ryyna"nen.
The best non-Finnish athletes were Russia's Niaz
Nabeev who finished fifth and Szczepan Kupczak as
eighth. The fastest man on skis today was Russia's
Denis Isaikin who used 24:04,6 for the ten kilometres
and improved his intermediate 31st rank to a final
15th. In total, 43 athletes from five countries
participated in the competition but with the Piho
brothers or Russian jumping sensation Evgeniy Klimov
some of the major players of the participating teams
were not on start so that a final assertion of the
team strengths will have to wait for the World Cup
opener in Kuusamo on the 30th of November.