Laura Toivanen

Laura Toivanen
Full name	Laura Maria Toivanen
Association	Finland
birthday	21st July 1988 (age 32)
place of birth	Polvijärvi , Finland
Career
society	Kontiolahden Urheilijat
Admission to the national team	2009
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2009
Debut in the World Cup	2009
status	resigned
End of career	2019
Medal table
NFM medals 1 × 0 × 0 ×
National Finnish Championships gold 2011 Kontiolahti 3x6 km relay
World Cup balance
Overall World Cup	90th ( 2017/18 )
Sprint World Cup	79th (2017/18)
last change: end of career

Laura Maria Toivanen (born July 21, 1988 in Polvijärvi ) is a former Finnish biathlete .

Life

Laura Toivanen was born in Polvijärvi and lived in Joensuu for some time . In September 2013 she moved to Jyväskylä to study sports medicine. As a biathlete, she started for Kontiolahden Urheilijat, the sports club Kontiolahti . The biathlete Ahti Toivanen is her younger brother.

Career

Toivanen at the World Cup in Oberhof in January 2018

Beginnings in biathlon (2005 to 2009)

Laura Toivanen made her international debut in 2005 at the Junior World Championships in Summer Biathlon in Muonio . There she was 20th in the sprint, 19th in the pursuit and 17th in the mass start race. In the relay race, she was sixth with Leena Aalto and Riikka Aakula. In the winter of 2007 she made her debut in the European Biathlon Cup in Torsby , where she immediately scored first points as 29th in the sprint, and finished the subsequent pursuit as 21. In 2009 Toivanen competed in her first Junior World Championship in Canmore and was 39th in the Sprint and 45th in pursuit. At the 2009 Summer Biathlon World Championships , the Finn started with Mari Laukkanen , Sami Orpana and Jori Rantahakala in the mixed relay competition and finished eleventh with her team.

Debut in the World Cup (2009 to 2017)

In the 2009/10 season she made her debut in the Biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen . In her first sprint she was 114th, in the relay race 16. In the further course only appearances in the IBU Cup followed . At the 2010 European Biathlon Championships in Otepää , the Finn started for the first time in individual races in an international championship. In the individual, Toivanen was 40th, 34th in the sprint, 35th in the pursuit and 11th with Laukkanen, Sarianna Repo and Maiju Pöysti . In the 2010/11 season she started regularly in the IBU Cup and achieved her best result to date with an 18th place in the Martell sprint .

First Olympic participation and end of career (2017 to 2019)

In the summer of 2017, Toivanen was nominated for the Finnish World Cup team for the 2017/18 winter season together with Kaisa Mäkäräinen , Mari Laukkanen and Sanna Markkanen . At the first competitions of the season in the Swedish Ostersund they did not participate, from Hochfilzen but she was consistently on the World Cup team. In Antholz she was 33rd in the sprint with a shooting error and won World Cup points for the first time in her career. It also secured participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang . There she fell on the last lap of the sprint and damaged the frame of her rifle . Since the athletes have to bring the rifle to the finish line, Toivanen lost about two minutes on the last lap because she had to hold her rifle with one hand. Toivanen could have achieved a top 30 position without a crash, but she only reached 77th place and clearly missed qualifying for the pursuit race . In the individual race , she placed 49th with three shooting errors. She did not qualify for the mass start race.

Toivanen announced her retirement from active competitive sport on June 14, 2019.

Competition balance

Biathlon world cup

The table shows all placements (depending on the year, including the Olympic Games and World Championships).

• 1st - 3rd Place: Number of podium placements
• Top 10: Number of placements in the top ten (including podium)
• Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks (including podium and top 10)
• Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline
• Relay: including mixed relays

placement	singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	total
1st place
2nd place
3rd place
Top 10					4th	4th
Scoring		1			21st	22nd
Starts	10	27	2		21st	60
Status: end of career

Biathlon world championships

Results at biathlon world championships

World Championship		singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	Mixed relay	Single mixed relay
year	place
2011	Khanty-Mansiysk	49.	-	-	-	10.	-
2016	Oslo	71.	-	-	-	17th	-
2017	Hochfilzen	-	90.	-	-	15th	-
2019	Ostersund	78.	63.	-	-	22nd	-	-

winter Olympics

Results at Olympic Winter Games:

winter Olympics		singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	Mixed relay
year	place
2018	Pyeongchang	49.	77.	-	-	15th	6th

Web links

Commons : Laura Toivanen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Laura Toivanen in the database of the IBU (English)
• Laura Toivanens Blog (English)