Gymnastics | Maisa Kuusikko, who excelled at the European Championships, is on her way to the top: “This gives you really good self-confidence”

17 years old Maisa Kuusikko is steadily rising towards the top European level of balance sheet gymnastics.

The Tampere native showed at the European Championships in Munich that the result a year ago in Basel was no accident. Kuusikko, who finished 13th in the Basel match final, was now 11th.

Her personal ranking is the all-time best result of a Finnish woman in EC competitions. According to the young gymnast, there is an everyday explanation behind the level lifting.

“Probably the repetitions I do in training have yielded results”, guesses Kuusikko, who trains no less than 28 hours a week.

There are eight training times a week. In addition to each weekday evening, the calendar includes two weekday morning workouts and one Saturday workout. Sundays are free.

“Training includes maintaining fitness, strength, stretching and practicing movements. And when it’s competition season, we try to hit the series as much as possible.”

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“Probably the repetitions I do in training have produced results.”

Clump of spruces with his score of 52.198, was the best Finn in the EC quadruple. The Finnish team finished tenth, which guarantees a place at the World Championships in Liverpool.

“I am really satisfied with how the competition went. This gives you really good self-confidence and an extra boost for training,” says Kuusikko.

The quadruple event of floor gymnastics consists of vault, balance beam, beam and beam.

“I am most satisfied with the season where I got the record points [12,866]. The boom left a bit of a dent in my teeth,” he recalls.

“I did a sustained series on the boom, but there was a lot of room for improvement. I missed one move because I noticed that the start was crooked. I saved it by not continuing it.”

Kuusikko got a score of 12.533 from the boom.

“I have a three-set movement like flick-whip-whip, and I noticed that the first flick went sideways, so I only did one whip. It was kind of a wobble, but I still made it to the end of that series. But there was clearly room for improvement.”

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“It was kind of a wobble, but I still made it to the end of that series.”

The six the purity of performance has gone forward by leaps and bounds since the EC competitions in Basel. He has been able to make his sets almost world-class.

The difficulty coefficients of the movement sets raise the starting points high and enable success. The movements are honed with the coach in several stages, first using protective mats. The final step is to fit the movement into a sequence.

“I have a lot of moves that I’ve practiced, but they haven’t made it into the series because other better moves have been found,” says Kuusikko.

“When the right movement clicks, you just start practicing it more and more.”

Decisions about new things and business series were already made at the beginning of the year, i.e. long before the European Championships.

Kuusikko, who represents Tampere Gymnasts, studies at Sammo Central High School. The athlete who attends high school for four years is now starting his second year of high school.

“In high school, I have been able to make my own lesson plans and have been able to attend morning training sessions. It’s been really great. Combining school and gymnastics has gone really well.”