Skiing Finnish champion Katri Lylynperä researched where she sleeps best – the result may come as a surprise to many: “It’s like a little bubble to us”

Imatra

When On Sunday in the Imatra Finnish Championships, the competitors kept the frost between the qualifying sprint and the winning stage. Who is the future Finnish champion? Katri Lylynperä took advantage of a kind of secret weapon.

The national team skier Lylynperä slipped in his own bed about 150 meters from the finish line of the Ukonniemi ski stadium.

How was this possible? Lylynper had a personal base and a sleeping area: his father’s camper.

In these during the race, Lylynperä spent the night at a hotel near the competition venue, but a motorhome would have been an option.

It would actually have been a more familiar solution for 28-year-old Lylynpera than staying in a hotel, as he is an experienced caravan rider.

Lylynperä said he was considering at least a half going to the last race night in a motorhome, because the sprint qualifier started on Sunday at nine in the morning. It would have provided an opportunity to sleep a little longer and perhaps better.

Lynx has been used to sleeping in a motorhome since he was a child. National team skiers closely monitor their recovery from competitions and practice. It also includes measuring sleep quality and heart rate.

Lylynperä says that he measures the quality of sleep very actively.

“Nightmares are good in a motorhome. Coaches have been of the opinion that one should not sleep in a motorhome because there will be too bad a night’s sleep and no recovery. But they have had to admit, as the measurements look different. My recovery has been in a motorhome at its best, even better than at home, ”Lylynperä, who lives in Suokkamo’s Vuokatti, tells HS.

This time Dad Jarmo Lylynperä drove a motorhome from Sastamala to Imatra mainly as a break and warm-up space for his daughter. Of course, she also came to help and encourage her daughter and her skier’s wife Juuso Mäkelä.

It was nice to retreat to the motorhome Lylynperän for a moment to warm up between the winning qualifier of the sprint and the batch stage.

“It’s harder to lie in your own bed than somewhere on the dressing room floor just when there are the most outfits.”

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“It’s pretty relaxed there and it calms down.”

Katri Lylynperä says he has grown into a caravan. The family once toured skiing and orienteering together in a motorhome.

“My big sister also skied and navigated, and as a family, I rode the races in the summers and winters. It was apparently also easier for the mother to run the family’s daily routine in competitions. The food was put in. ”

Especially in orienteering competitions, the motorhome was a practical place to stay.

“When the kids and dad were navigating, the camper was easier when everyone had starts at different times in the races. For example, cross-country weeks and Lapland ski races were often toured with a motorhome. Anyway, we used a lot of motorhomes. ”

Lylynperä thinks that the motorhome is homely and comfortable.

“Once you get used to it, you know how to act in the ways it requires. Those who have not rented a motorhome at all as a child easily find those spaces small and somehow cramped. At least I’ve experienced it being pretty laid back and calming down there. When the facilities are small, there is no extra movement, so calming down is quite effective. ”

Lylynperä estimates that he will spend the night in a motorhome at about 80 percent of domestic races. He last spent the night in his father’s motorhome at the Taivalkoski Finnish Cup in November, because it would have been a relatively long drive to the hotel accommodation. The parking lot of Hakunila Sports Park in Vantaa is also a familiar place to stay.

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“The motorhome is like a little bubble to us.”

Corona time has brought a new kind of additional attraction to caravan overnight stays.

“There will be fewer contacts in the RV. It’s like a little bubble to us. Current motorhomes heat up with gas, and if there are a couple of nights at the race, it doesn’t really even need electricity. The toilet and shower have to be found somewhere nearby, so a few nights will go pretty well. ”

It’s important for athletes to get food soon after the race so the recovery gets off to a good start. Lylynperä can enjoy home-cooked food cooked by her mother and warmed by her father in a motorhome much earlier than, for example, in a hotel restaurant.

“And you don’t have to go there to the locker room just when there are really a lot of skiers there. Of course, I use changing rooms when I take a shower, but at certain times there are a lot of people in them, so I can avoid them for a while. ”

Childhood of the caravan destinations, orienteering competitions began to be sparse after Lylynperä decided at the age of 12 that skiing was his main sport.

In the skiing, the youth Finnish championships and other medals came in the darkest of clouds, but even in orienteering, he still won the Finnish Sports Association’s championship and one Finnish Championship medal.

“Jukola’s message has remained on the calendar. When skiing sometimes stops, orienteering is the kind of sport where you could possibly return to competition with even a small investment, ”says Lylynperä, who says that his father is a very active visitor to the gym.

In skiing Lylyperä’s best international achievements are the eighth place in the sprint (p) at last winter’s World Championships. In the World Cup, Ruka came to the top in November when he reached the final of the sprint for the first time.

The first Olympics of his career are now ahead, although the selection of Lylypera for the Beijing Games is unlikely to officially begin until the week ahead.

“The victory was to be taken, and it is now taken.”

In Imatra, Lylynperä took the second general series championship of his career in the same place and in the same sport as the first three years ago.

This time there was no decent fight for the championship, as a club friend who reached a few promising performances in the World Cup Jasmin Kähärä crashed into the lead after 1.4 miles midway through a tight bend.

Lylynperä said he was disappointed that Kähärä lost the game.

“The victory was to be taken, and it is now taken. I would have liked to get to compete hard with Jaska, and I was expecting a hard fight to that end. I would rather win by skiing than having one fall off the bow. ”

Alun originally Lylynperän was scheduled to compete in Imatra on Friday and Saturday. There was a change in the plans because, he said, there was a surprise message from the coaching ladder that a personal sprint would be relevant to his Olympic selection.

In Yle’s TV interview, Lylynperä said he was “pretty angry” all week.

Lylyts had the notion that Olympic selections would be made on the basis of evidence given at the World Cup. This season, he achieved the best mc in his career at Ruka after being fifth in the traditional sprint.

In the Olympics, sprinting is free. In December, Lylyperä failed in the frost of Lillehammer (36th), but in the Davos sprint, which was skied high like the Olympics, he was 20th.

“I had pulled the load of the pre-Championship training period quite far, and the recovery had been worse than expected, but I had thought it didn’t matter.”

Lylynperä said he definitely wanted to ski the club with an important sprint message on Friday.

“Then I took a few more days. I wanted to come to a slightly more recovered state to ski sprint, which is hard to ski well in a busy state. ”