Week Seven - Finnish National Champs
4 April 2019
Kia ora whanau and friends! We’re in the last weeks of my trip ahh! Crazy how time flies. I hope you have enjoyed reading and keeping up with my journey. This blog has been a wonderful creative outlet and weekly task for me, I’ve totally found a new love for writing through it… This week we had the Finnish National champs take place at a lovely little resort called Iso-Syöte. They ran competitions for Moguls, Slopestyle and Big air. If you’ve seen my social media platforms recently you’ll already know the scoop, but I wanted to write a post on here regardless.
Straight from Italy I arrived home in Kuusamo on the 27th of March, I was exhausted from travelling and my shins were not in a good place after my days on Mottolino snowpark (read my last blog post to know more), so i’m sure you can imagine I had a great night's sleep that evening! In the morning we headed up to Ruka (where i’ve been training) because they have an awesome new landing air bag set up for us to use through spring. There were camera men and media crew on the slopes from the Finnish TV news, radio and paper to report about it. This is the first time an airbag like this has come to Finland, and better yet its the latest model in landing bag technology… This will be an incredible opportunity and tool for the development of current and future snowsports athletes in Finland to learn and perfect new tricks. A couple of our boys from the Ruka Freeski Academy were among the few to be first to test it out whilst being filmed for the news. Due to my shins, I chose not to hit the bag and just take my day slow and easy, and although it would've been fun to feature on Finnish telly, you got to listen to and respect your body. Nonetheless It was great to be there to watch and support the crew
That night we headed to Iso-Syöte, about an hour away from Kuusamo, the drive is pretty boring at night, however, our drive certainly became interesting and memorable when a good press on the breaks was required due to a herd of over 30 reindeer across the road (classic NZ sheep moment but 10 times cooler)!! They didn't run or seem bothered by the oncoming car, but instead just did their thing and calmly crossed the road in front of our shining headlights. I wish I caught it on video. My friend Kian and I were staying with some friends for the weekend in a gorgeous log cabin surrounded by a snowy forest (total movie scene vibes). Our friends are a lovely young girl and her father, from Estonia and I met them at the previous competitions around Finland. I’m truly thankful for their kindness and hospitality allowing us to stay with them.
First day on the slopes at Iso-Syöte was a practice day before the slopestyle comp. The sun was out, temperature was a lovely 6’c and the wind decided to join the party too… All of this contributed to what were very strange and frustrating snow conditions, making the course super challenging. The snow was very sticky and slow in most parts, but icy and fast in others… The speed for the jumps changed every run, no joke, every run! You would never consistently land in the same place, one run, you would knuckle the jump, next run you’d make the landing and another run you would hit the deck etc... There was no getting it right. But I kept pushing, because there's always a chance the course conditions could be the same on competition day, so you have to work with what’s in front of you. After a difficult morning in the park, we had some lunch and decided to keep skiing give the course another crack. At this point I was hitting the bigger of the two jump sizes switch (backwards)... One run I went in confidently, did a switch 180 and knuckled the jump. Next run I went into the jump with the exact same speed, switch again, but this time… I over shot the jump and missed the ENTIRE landing. I sent myself right to the flat ground, the gutter, in between the first and second jump. The crash was pretty big, both skis ejected, my body rolled, I was covered in snow, helmet and goggles wonky, the full package, I got wrecked… Luckily I had so much time in the air, I actually remember thinking how I was going to crash and what was the best possible crash landing I could do… My switch 180 over rotated into a 270, so I was coming down in the air side on, perfect position to roll from, and that's what I did, when I landed I tucked my head and tried my best to just let it roll. Some young girls came to my aid, picked up my skis and helped me collect myself. In the moments straight after the crash, my body was battered, but feeling in more shock than pain… Until, I noticed a lot of pain and throbbing coming from my right hand, I looked down and there was a huge lump on my lower thumb/wrist area turning blue/purple. As the pain escalated, the tears were flowing and I skied to the bottom as fast as I could.
We found my coach and headed to ski patrol. The patroler took a look at my hand and advised we go straight to hospital for x rays, the pain was agonising. At this time I tried to call my mum to let her know what was going on, it was around 2am New Zealand time and facebook said she was active. But 7 calls later, still no answer...The nearest hospital was about half an hour away. I felt terrible because my coach was in the middle of warming up a group of about 15 young boys to ski with and coach for an evening session when I came along and he had to just up and leave! My timing couldn't have been worse! When we get to the hospital they gave me some pain medication and put me in a temporary cast from a bandage and splint. They told us that they weren't doing x rays there so we had to go to the next hospital which was back in Kuusamo, about 45 minutes away from where we were… Inconvenient again I know! Drama!... Once we were at Kuusamo the hospital wouldn't let me see any doctor or get x rays until they had a financial confirmation document from my travel insurance basically saying that the costs would be covered. So I ring travel insurance, i’m not even going to go into details *rolls eyes*, but in short, it was frustrating, annoying, complicated, was on the phone for almost half an hour, speaking english to my coach who would translate and speak finnish to the hospital staff and vise versa, all of this whilst still having a swollen hand, in pain and crying. Suuuuuper awesome look… Eventually I saw a doctor and had x rays taken, the pictures weren't clear enough, so they told me to come back for further examination with a different machine on monday. In the meantime I was put in a cast and the diagnoses was a possible break in my hand. Side note - Funnily enough, whilst we were in the waiting room at the hospital, guess what came on the tv?... The news reporting on the landing bag at Ruka so we go to watch the footage of my friends hitting the bag!
Saturday was competition day for slopestyle, I had a difficult night sleep beforehand thanks to the cast and pain. However I was still determined to compete and planned to make my final decision based on the snow conditions of the course after skiing through it a few times. This was an interesting time for me because I normally ski with poles, but due to my injury I couldn't hold them so had to ski without. I felt sketchy and off balance when I was trying my trciks, sounds silly but If you ski with poles in park for so long and then suddenly drop them, you’d get where i’m coming from. The course conditions were not great, but they were at least 80% better than the day before. The weather was tough, we had strong winds and passing clouds, affecting the lighting on course. The snowpack was icy which could make the speed quite fast, but I felt a lot more in control of myself going into the jumps today. I decided to go ahead with competing because It would be my last comp in Finland, it was national champs, I was already so invested and most of all I wanted to prove to myself that I was strong and capable to push through with this injury and take on the challenge of skiing/competing without poles… During all 3 of my runs the weather was super testing, but for what I did have control over - my mind and body, I didn't let the weather affect me. Although, my hand and the thought of crashing or falling on it did make me nervous, but thanks to my drive and determination, somehow I was willing to take that risk… I mucked up my first run. Second run I put something simple down, so I had a safe run in place. And 3rd run I tried the tricks that I was wanting, but on the first jump I came up short and knuckled so I smashed my hand on the ground when I landed… This threw me off for the rest of the run but I never fell over so, again I put something down even If it wasn't what I was hoping for...Unfortunately because of my injury I wasn't a 100% on my game, which is ok because things like this happen, it’s apart of the sport and despite what happened I am so proud of myself for pushing through, landing some runs and walking away with another podium placing, 2nd place. So stoked!
The next day they held the Big air competition, I chose not to compete because of my injury, but I did stay to watch and support those who did compete. At the end of the day we had prizegiving and I had a neat surprise being called up to the podium for another 2nd place, I was unsure what It was for (because they were announcing everything in finnish) until my coach shook my hand and said this was the overall podium. Which meant that because of all my podium placings at the last 3 competitions I managed to grab 2nd overall for the 2019 Finnish National slopestyle series. This was unexpected because I thought I wasn't eligible for this award since a im not from Finland, but what a wonderful surprise! I am so happy! To make my day even better - all weekend a lovely young girl named Peppi whom I met at the last competition was there competing in the kids events, she must be around 9 or 10 years old… At the last comp, I won some brand new goggles but, I really didn't need them so I chose to give them to her instead and it warmed my heart to see how happy it made her. After prizegiving, Peppi’s english wasn't so good but her mum asked me if I could be in a picture with her daughter because the Peppi wanted to take photos with me! Ahh this made me feel so humbled and fuzzy inside! We took some pictures together on snow and straight after, another young girl wanted to take pictures with me too! So cute! They both left with huge smiles across their faces, same with me. Again, it just goes to show how being kind to others can impact people's lives and your own. It’s such an honor to be looked up to by these young girl skiers, I know that If there was someone like me, an older female skier wearing funky colours, talking to me, skiing with me and reaching out to me when I was their age I would have been so inspired. I can only hope that I do the same for them. Through these competitions I have met so many wonderful kids and parents, many of them asking me at prize giving if I will return again next year, and I truly hope that I can.
On Monday I had my final check up and xrays at the hospital, and thank the Lord everything came back clear, no break, the cast is off, just a nasty hematoma is what we’re left with. But I want to say that I am so incredibly thankful for this injury and how minor it is. Yes it was inconvenient to compete with but man, with the amount of height I flew with off that jump, my crash could have been so much worse. Easily I could’ve hit my head and gotten concussed or even done my knee. But this!? This is the best thing that could’ve happened and for that i’m blessed.
That’s all for my competitions here in the northern hemisphere, it’s been an amazing time with some fantastic results. I’m truly thankful to have had these opportunities and experiences in both the Finnish comp circuit and FIS competitions in Italy. Now, four shiny metal cups are in the post and on their way back to NZ! Wahoo!
Thanks again for reading and for all your continued support throughout this trip. I’ll be home soon, but I couldn't have been here without you!
Stay tuned.
Love from,
Laura Molly Jane Wotton :)
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