FINN WOMEN IN SALIBANDY FINAL. Finland was runner-up in the World Floor-ball ("Salibandy" in Finnish) Championships, losing to Sweden in the final in December, 4-2,. Defeating the Czech Republic in the semis, 6-0, Finnish women attained their first final since 2007. Sweden is now a five-time World Champion, which Finland won in 1998 and 2001. Salibandy is an indoor game.
So far, only three Finns have been named to this coming summer's Olympic team set for London. These include 50-Km racewalkers Jarkko Kinnunen and Antti Kempas, both for the second time. Leena Puotiniemi has been picked to run in the women's marathon.
Kiira Korpi again became Finnish women's national figure skating champion on Dec. 20 in Tampere with 170.98 points. Juulia Turkkila was 2nd in 145.30 and Beata Papp 3rd with 129.20. Ari-Pekka Nurmenkari became the men's champ for the 8th time. with 162.52. Teenagers Mattias Versius and Bela Papp, both 17, made the podium with 161.43 and 152.69.
The Finnish Young Lions' (Nuoret Leijonat) hockey team made the bronze medal round of the junior men's (-20) World Hockey Championships at Calgary in January but was shut out for a medal by Canada, 4-0. The championdship went to Sweden in an extremely tight match with Russia which it won in overtime, 1-0.
In other winter sports, the best result so farfor Finns was in a World Cup snowboarding contest in Kuusamo in December, with Finland's Markus Malin the winner with 94 points. Steve Krigbolder of Holland was second with 88 while the host country's Aleksis Kumpulainen was 3rd with 83.3. Women's champ was Lucile LeFevre of France with 81.3. Eila Sultiala was the top Finn with a 3rd place 67.3. World and Olympic medallist Tanja Poutiainen's World Cup season's best result so far has been a second place in the slalom at Courcheville, France in December, -1.87 seconds behind winner Marlies Schild of Austria. .
Finland didn't do as nearly as well as in other recent seasons in the famous Tour De Ski cross-country series on Europe's slopes which just ended on Jan. 8th. Finnish men were nowhere among ranked athletes, and the women wern't up to the old standards of Virpi Kuitunen who won Tour de Ski twice. This time overall winner was Poland's Justyna Kowalczyk who took thechampionship for a record third time. Finland's best individual results were several fourth place showiings by Krista Lahteenmäki, Aino-Kaisa Saarinen,and Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja.
European junior 100m hurdles champion Nooralotta Neziri scored a 60-meter indoor sprint win in a Loppiainen (Epiphany) meet at Kupittaa on Jan, 7 in her second best time ever in 7.52 seconds (PB 7.47). The same day in Portugal, where numerouis Finnish track athletes are in winter training camp, Finnish hall-marathon record-holder Jussi Utriasinen won a 6.8km street run at Faro, Portugal in 18 minutes 46 seconds. In the women's race Johanna Lehtinen, Finnish women's steeplechase record-holder, was 2nd in 21:28, behind Russia's Martina Kovaljova with 21:15.
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