Skiing The overwhelming victory in the Finnish Championships told Joni Mäki that after the illness, “there is still hope”

Imatra

Last World Sprint Medalist in Winter Sprint Joni Mäki has been one of the question marks for the upcoming Olympic ski crew for the past month.

At the Finnish Championships in Imatra on Sunday, there were signs that Mäki was returning to his tracks, even though there were no international opponents.

Mäki started the mc season perfectly, rushing to the finals final in Ruka for the first time and finishing sixth.

Next over the weekend, however, Mäki’s cleansing was completely gone in the frost of Lillehammer, and the cause was soon revealed by the flu that was coming.

“A day or two was the heat. More coughing was a troublesome factor. After that, we set off quite calmly. The first week was walking, and oxygen was taken into the body. It was a week so that nothing could be done. There was such a hard cough. It felt like the lungs were pretty shitty at that point, ”Mäki said on Sunday as a fresh and overwhelming Finnish sprint champion.

According to Mäki, he is now behind for a couple of weeks of “just ok” training, but he has hardly been able to do any hard power exercises.

Mäki now sees his situation in terms of the Olympics as “an ax has not yet been thrown into the pit”.

“Hope is still. Fortunately, there are still a few weeks that the condition can rise from this. I’m pretty confident. If it had gone under the bench, it would have been a lot to think about. ”

In Friday’s sprint message, Mäki suffered a surprising loss to a member of the national team under the age of 23. Miro Karppanelle, who won silver in Sunday’s race.

“I knew right after the qualifiers that today is a pretty strong feeling. I was able to try different tactics in the opening and semi-finals. It wasn’t as hard as it was on Friday, and the skis were a little better. He also got a little help from there. I thought it would be such a strong and decent difference to be able to watch the silver fight in the end, ”Mäki said.

The hill is not going to go to the Olympic preparation camp, which will start in a week at an altitude of about 2,000 meters in Seiser Alm, Italy.

“I was in Vuokatti to prepare. A decision was already made in the autumn. It would be a pretty long trip if you went to a camp that made it. However, it has been high in Beijing for quite some time that there will be no such fatigue towards the end of the Games, ”Mäki said.