Nordic combined: Minja Korhonen’s former coach dies
Last winter saw an explosion at the highest international level for 17-year-old Finnish Nordic combined skier Minja Korhonen. Junior world champion, gold medallist at the Youth Olympic Games and winner of her first World Cup podium, she is constantly progressing and is one of the great hopes of the discipline.
This summer, however, she suffered a major blow when her lifelong coach at the Siilinjärvi Ponnistus club, Joonas Ikonen, died suddenly aged 37. Junior world champion in ski jumping in 2005 in Rovaniemi (Finland), he lost his life in a boating accident on Lake Siilinjärvi in Northern Savonia.
“He was an excellent coach and I have a lot of good memories of him, says Minja Korhonen, his pupil for around ten years, inIlta-Sanomat. It was great to train with him and I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”
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- Planica: Minja Korhonen world junior gundersen champion, top 15 for Marion Droz-Vincent
- Rovaniemi: Minja Korhonen and Ilkka Herola become Finnish champions
- Finland’s Minja Korhonen, aged 17, is voted best young European athlete of the year
- Tragic death of a former jumper
