portrait: Janne Ahonen - coming back for good
Janne Ahonen – coming back for good
The 37-year old Finn from Lahti is one of the most popular ski jumpers of all time. His name is said in the same sentence with Adam Malysz, Matti Nykänen and Gregor Schlierenzauer.
And besides Noriaki Kasai he's one of the longest active athletes nowadays.
He won the prestigious Four-Hills-Tournament 5 times in his career, making him the most successful participant there ever.
His personal coach since this season is Hannu Lepistö, who also helped Adam Malysz to gain extraordinary results – so we bet we will see some major ones from him in the near future!
He has 2 kids named Mico and Milo, both share his hobby of motor racing – pretty successfully just as their dad, who also became Finnish champion for this.
Janne has 17 starts in Olympics on his account, 2 of them brought him silver medals with the team (in Salt Lake City and Turin)! He also started 32 times in Nordic World Championships, where he reached the podium 10 times, 5 of them on the highest step (2005 for the last time)!
Until today he was part of the incredible number of 392 World Cup competitions, in which he took a place on the podium 108 times. That means that about every 3.5th race ended up really successful for him! No wonder that he counts 36 victories in the World Cup, making him one of the most successful athletes ever. -Not even counting his 10 victories with the team to that.
His last victory was celebrated in Oberstdorf in 2010 with the team and in Bischofshofen individually in the same year.
By the way: His podium places of 108 are the most that were ever accomplished by a jumper!
Also ski flying is one of his strong parts. He owns 5 silver medals and 2 bronze medals from Ski Flying world Championships (won between 1996 and 2008).
Additionally he is 4-time Youth World Champion (in 1993 and 1994) and also 4-time Finnish champion (2008, 2009, 2010 + becoming vice-champion on the normal hill in the same year).
While other amazing athletes never made it to a Four-Hills-Tournament overall victory, Janne Ahonen grabed it 5 times (in the years 1998/99, 2002/03, 2004/05, 2005/06, 2007/08)!
Of course, he won the World Cup overall as well (in 2003/04 and 2004/05).
When he started his fantastic and victorious path, some of his competitors weren't even born. He debuted in the World Cup in 1992. He gained his first World-Cup victory in December 1993 in Engelberg. Besides he is the first jumper to win 6 WC competitions in a row (in 2005)! Also winning 12 competitions in one season has been a record for him that lasted for some years until Gregor Schlierenzauer beat him with 13 wins.
He was the first man to fly over 240m (in Planica) but as he couldn't stand this jump, Bjørn Einar Romøren remained world record holder.
His season 2006/07 was without any major success for him and rather disappointing. But in the next season he returned to old fame winning 4 competitions and the Four-Hills-Tournament. Next to this he gained 2 medals in the SFWCS before announcing his retirement on March 26th 2008. Two days later he became Finnish champion for the first time.
He started to work as a sport expert for a Finnish TV channel afterwards.
On March 8th the following year he told the world about his comeback – finalized with two Finnish national titles before the World-Cup season started. The Finnish team was absolutely happy about his comeback as he already became 2nd in that season's FHT. Sadly, he grabbed the 4th place in the Olympics that season and missed an individual medal again.
After 2010/11 has been disappointing for him, he retired again.
There have been some troubles for the Finnish team to be competitive and also some material changes that obviously applied to Janne Ahonen. So saving his team made him come back again as he announced on January 10th 2013. Head coach at that time has been Pekka Niemelä, who put faith in Ahonen and gave him a place in the A-team.
After this comeback he reached the podium in the Summer-Grand-Prix in Klingenthal with a 3rd place.
We haven't seen him much this season as he was in training most of the time in the 1st and 2nd third but now that the circus headed north to Lahti, we're excited to see him compete as local hero!
The Finnish team wouldn't be the same without him and seeing him jump is still a pleasure for everyone, worth podium places or not -that doesn't matter.
Janne Ahonen, who always seems to be calm, thinking, hard to reach and even grumpy from time to time, has given us some rare smiles already throughout the years – and we all hope for him to find the results he needs to smile for us again!
- by Peggy Kierstan
