Skiing:: Perttu Hyvärinen was moved by his friend Iivo Niskanen’s decision

Perttu Hyvärinen (left) celebrated the relay championship once again. Picture: Touho Häkkinen

Inari

Puijon On Saturday, the skiing club won the SM gold in men’s relay skiing. The championship was a handsome gift for the skier of the opening leg Perttu Hyvärinenfor whom the post was the last of his career. He was allowed to finish the team competition as champion.

Hyvärinen was naturally delighted with the handsome achievement.

“It’s great to finish as a champion. Of course, the SC relay is a big deal for our club as well. We’ve seen some pretty great things from Kuopio in ball sports and cross-country skiing,” says Hyvärinen.

There is meaning in the words. KalPa is the reigning Finnish champion of men’s ice hockey and KuPS of football. In volleyball, Savo Volley is currently playing the men’s semifinals and Puijo Volley the women’s finals.

“Based on the results, Kuopio seems to be Finland’s strongest sports city at the moment, although we don’t make a huge fuss about it. When you calculate Ilkka Herolan and Eero Hirvonen still bring the medals from the Olympics.”

On Saturday Hyvärinen’s heart was especially warmed by the fact that the old gang was reunited once more. Iivo Niskanen already said on Friday that he wouldn’t have gone to Inari at all if he hadn’t skied the last relay of Hyvärinen’s career there.

Niskanen practically decided the championship for Puijo with his wild second leg bet.

Hyvärinen was pleased that a long-time teammate and friend decided to go along.

“This has been our profession for a very long time, but at the same time we have formed really close friendships. In general, there are a lot of people here from the Savo region and Kuopio on site. It is really important that we got Iivon to join us and make the social work we do visible,” says Hyvärinen, moved.

of SM skiing there would still be a 50 km intermediate start race for men on Sunday (p). Hyvärinen has not yet promised to participate in it, but does not rule out the possibility either. The five-kilometer run in Inari is very tough with steep climbs.

“We’ll see, yes, I’ll probably go. No one is terribly excited when the route is so hard. It’s great that tough tracks have been made, but why does it have to be in the middle of April? It’s already starting to get a little looser here,” Hyvärinen laughs.

All in all, Hyvärinen says that he is satisfied with his decision to quit.

“The time is ripe, now it’s nice to move on to other jobs. It’s very simple to jump out of this, everything has been taken out of the body.”