The first official Finnish winter competition took place this Saturday in Rovaniemi – the traditional First Snow event. Ville Larinto won on the Ounasvaara ski jumping hill, defeating Janne Ahonen and Matti Hautamäki.
Larinto had two solid jumps of 95 and 97 meters, and was thus able to win the event with a 4.5 point advantage over Ahonen. Larinto was actually the only jumper who did well in the first competition round – he had a 7 point advantage at halftime. His 32-year-old teammate from the Lahden Hiihtoseura ski club had the longest jump of the event in the second round (97.5 ,), but his first jump was much shorter (91.5 m), and robbed him of the victory. Hautamäki had a disadvantage of 13.5 points to the winner.
“My competition jumps were as good as the training jumps,” Larinto evaluated afterwards. “I have some good memories from this hill, I wont a gold medal here in the Finnish Nationals last year.”
“In the first jump, I practically tripped on the table, it's happened to me sometimes in training. The second jump was quite good,” summed up Ahonen.
“My jumps have definitely improved since the summer,” said the satisfied third-place winner Matti Hautamäki. “I hope I can get a spot in the World Cup representation. Right now, there are many more candidates for those four spots than there have been in a while,” Hautamäki emphasized the Finnish jumpers' high form.
Janne Happonen and Harri Olli's results seem to come as a bit of a disappointment, Happonen didn't excel in the first round, but at least had the third longest jump in the final round, ultimately finishing in fifth place. Olli ended up at the bottom of the top 10, not having gone past the calculation point of the hill in any of his jumps.
Four foreign jumpers also participated in the event: Jernej Damian of Slovenia, Estonia's Illimar Pärn, and two jumpers from Japan, Kohei Takao and Takahiro Kubo.
In less than two weeks, the World Cup season 2009-2010 will begin in Kuusamo, Finland.
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