Sport through the lens

After two years or so, I was back shooting sport of my life… cross country skiing World cup in Rogla, Slovenia. And short spoiler for beginning… There are photos only of Finnish skiers…. with reason! ;)

Aino Kaisa Saarinen of Finland skiing during qualifications

I was racing myself for almost 20 years, but I never did anything special. I have a bit too big mouth, which of course I still have (proof will follow in a minute ;), so some people didn’t like it all that much, and sometimes this gave perfect reason to leave me home. Especially when results were on pair with others, more obeying guys.

Virpi Kuitunen of Finland skiing during finals

Skiers skiing during finals

But anyway… let’s not talk about past. Those 20 years were really great part of my life, so I don’t have any regrets. But that was past, and now is now. And I’m going to write about present, not past… about last 2 days spent in freezing cold of Rogla. And yes, just to make some people even more upset, I will be attaching only photos of Finns. See, here’s proof for previous statement :P Next to that, we do a whole lot of work for Finns, so that’s another reason. But in this particular case, I like first reason more ;)

Aino-Kaisa Saarinen of Finland skiing in Women 15km classic mass start

Winner Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland (L) leading group

Friday started with chaos. Noone knew anything, so I was prepared for worse skiing World cup I have ever been covering. Saturday morning continued same way, when searching for sub press center, which location was obviously top secret even for organizers… including security guy standing next to it. :) Yes believe it or not, he didn’t know what tent he is standing infront of. :)

Virpi Kuitunen of Finland skiing in Women 15km classic mass start race

Third placed Anna Haag of Sweden celebrating her medal

Another thing was weather. Snow storm, pretty bad wind, and temperatures around -16c, were promising interesting day. Add 5 hours of standing outside, and you get perfect day. But in reality it wasn’t even all that bad. After some chaos on beginning, things started to run smoothly, except for few “security” guys, who thought they can command anyone and everyone. But I’m used to them, since you can find them everywhere… from Greece up to Scandinavia, so this wasn’t anything so special.

Virpi Kuitunen of Finland skiing in Women 15km classic mass start race

Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland (L), Kristin Stoermer Steira of Norway (M) and Petra Majdic of Slovenia (R)

Sami Jauhojaervi of Finland skiing in Men 30km classic mass start race

As I wrote, things were running smoothly, there was a bit too little time between qualifications and finals, but I’m used to this too. Tracks were nice, racing was fun, and I went with a bit different photos. Once for a change, I could actually afford this, and on top of that, I had plenty of chances for this. And obviously our clients were also happy with this. Only complaint on the end of the day is about batteries. After women qualifications, one out of 3 batteries for my 1d was completely frozen already. I didn’t have any other chance then change it, and I started to wonder what will be till end of finals, since there was a whole lot of racing infront of us.

Skiers skiing in Men 30km classic mass start race

Sami Jauhojaervi of Finland skiing in Men 30km classic mass start race

But on the end, everything turned out great, batteries melted in my inner pocket, and I was able to finish shooting races without any problems.

Matti Heikkinen of Finland skiing in Men 30km classic mass start race

Sunday was perfect. Weather was cold but sunny, and surrounding was astonishing. Snow covered trees offered really great background for photos, and sun was adding some extra punch. So I was really happy with it. Even internet in sub press center was working better then on Sunday, and I was sending photos with about 1Mbps. So before we knew, we were out and on way home. Only car was completely frozen after 3 days at -15c, and we had some fun driving back home… without any water for cleaning windshield. But we survived, and it’s good I know those roads by heart :))

Winner Petter Northug of Norway sprinting

That will be all for this time. And I hope you liked photos of Finnish skiers. Yeah… me and my attitude… it might hurt sometimes, but I don’t quit :P And if you have some (in)appropriate comments about yesterday’s happening, feel free to write them. I hope I will have some good laugh reading them ;)

And of end, one more of Aikku ;)  Aino-Kaisa Saarinen of Finland skiing in Women 15km classic mass start race

For rest, you can see PhotoSI on-line archive or you can click on links below to go straight to photos of specific races:

Women sprint qualifications
Men sprint qualifications
Women sprint finals
Men sprint finals
Women 15km classic mass start
Men 30km classic mass start