Mikko Ronkainen (born November 25, 1978 in Muurame ) is a former Finnish freestyle skier . He was on the moguls specialized disciplines, contained moguls and dual moguls. In both 2001 and 2003 he was Mughal World Champion, plus a silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics. In the World Cup, he won the overall ranking and the Mughal discipline ranking in the 2000/01 season.
Ronkainen took part in the European Cup from January 1996. He made his debut in the Freestyle World Cup on February 4, 1996, finishing 50th in Kirchberg in Tirol . The first World Cup points he won ten days later as the 25th of the Mughal competition in La Clusaz . The first top 10 placement followed on December 6, 1997 in Tignes . It took another year before Ronkainen could definitely establish himself among the best in the world. The first World Cup podium he succeeded on February 21, 1999 when he was in Madarao ( Myōkō ) second in the dual moguls competition. He achieved his first World Cup victory on November 27, 1999 in Tandådalen .
Ronkainen had his most successful World Cup season in the winter of 2000/01. He won at Deer Valley and Iizuna Kogen . He won both the Moguls discipline ranking and the overall World Cup ranking calculated from the average values. At the 2001 World Championships in Whistler , he won the Moguls gold medal, while finishing fourth in the Dual Moguls competition narrowly missed another medal.
At the beginning of the 2001/02 season, Ronkainen could not quite build on the performance of the pre-winter season. At the 2002 Winter Olympics , he finished 8th. He returned the favor in March 2002 with two World Cup victories in Inawashiro and in front of a home crowd in Ruka . Ronkainen was able to win another Moguls competition in the 2002/03 World Cup season in Sauze d'Oulx . In Deer Valley he managed to defend his Moguls world championship title on the occasion of the 2003 World Cup.
In the winter of 2003/04 Ronkainen achieved three World Cup podiums without winning. Three more podium places followed in winter 2004/05, including a victory in Voss . Ronkainen started the 2005/06 season unconvincingly, but at the 2006 Winter Olympics he managed a significant increase and he won the silver medal. At the end of the season he won in Inawashiro; this was synonymous with his last World Cup victory.
At the end of the 2006/07 season, which had ended with a second place as the best result, Ronkainen announced his retirement. After participating in the Finnish Championships in 2008, he returned to the World Cup in late 2009 and qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics, where he finished 14th. He contested his last World Cup race on March 13, 2010 in Åre .
Finland
