Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja

Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja
Riikka Sarasoja (2010)
Full name	Riikka Johanna Sarasoja-Lilja
nation	Finland
birthday	February 23, 1982
place of birth	Lempäälä ,  Finland
size	164 cm
Weight	57 kg
Career
society	Lappeen Riento
status	resigned
End of career	2015
Medal table
JWM medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 0 × 0 × 1 × Universiade medals 0 × 1 × 1 ×
Nordic World Ski Championships bronze 2013 Val di Fiemme Team sprint  Nordic Junior Ski World Championships gold 2001 Karpacz Season  Winter Universiade silver 2003 Tarvisio sprint bronze 2003 Tarvisio 5 km classic
Placements in the cross-country skiing world cup
Debut in the World Cup November 25, 2001  Overall World Cup 24th ( 2011/12 )  Sprint World Cup 24th ( 2011/12 )  Distance World Cup 19th ( 2011/12 )  Tour de Ski 14th ( 2009/10 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  Season 0 2 4th  Team sprint 0 0 1
last change: August 9, 2019

Riikka Johanna Sarasoja-Lilja (born February 23, 1982 in Lempäälä ) is a former Finnish cross-country skier .

Career

Sarasoja-Lilja is a student and starts for Lappeen Riento . She made her first big appearance in 2001 at the Junior World Championships in Karpacz and Szklarska , where she became world champion with the Finnish 4x5 kilometer relay. In the individual, a tenth place over 5 kilometers was her best result, while she was twelfth in the sprint. At the beginning of the following season 2001/02 Sarasoja-Lilja appeared in Kuopio for the first time in the cross-country skiing world cup and was 75th over 5 kilometers. It was the only World Cup appearance until the following season. At the Junior World Championships in Schonach , the Finn was fourth in the sprint, seventh over 15 kilometers and twelfth over five kilometers. In the next few years Sarasoja-Lilja was mostly used in lower-class races such as the FIS and Continental Cup, only rarely in the World Cup. The 2003 Winter Universiade in Tarvisio brought good results, it won silver in the sprint and bronze over 5 kilometers. In February of that year she won her first World Cup points in Reit im Winkl as 15th in the sprint. With the relay she finished in November 2003 in Beitostølen in fourth place for the first time in the top ten. In January 2004 Sarasoja-Lilja finished third in Otepää , a result that she has achieved several times since then. In February 2004, she finished tenth in the sprint in Trondheim, her best result to date in an individual race.

She started the 2007/08 season with two poor results in Kuusamo . After she remained without World Cup points, she started in the Scandinavian Cup . From mid-January she came back to the World Cup and landed in the points again in Canmore . However, Sarasoja-Lilja did not manage to consistently place in the points. At the beginning of the 2008/09 season , she and her partner managed to finish fifth again in the top five in the Düsseldorf team sprint . At the Finnish championships in 2009 in Jämijärvi she won bronze in the individual over 10 km classic and a little later in Kontiolahti also silver over 30 km. At the Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Liberec , which followed shortly afterwards , she again fell short of expectations as 24th in the pursuit, 20th in the sprint and 24th in the individual over 30 km.

At the end of the season, Sarasoja-Lilja succeeded in Lahti in sixth place in an individual World Cup among the top ten. In the Tour de Ski 2009/10 , she finished 14th. It was her first fully contested Tour de Ski. She then traveled to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver with this good result . She finished the 10 km race in 31st place, before finishing in a good 21st place in the pursuit. In the 30 km race in classic style, she achieved her best individual result with 12th place. Only in the team sprint was she able to place even better together with Riitta-Liisa Roponen in eighth place.

At the end of the 2009/10 season , Sarasoja-Lilja achieved another very good result among the world's best with tenth place in the sprint in Oslo . However, it still did not succeed in firmly establishing itself there. She won her first national title at the Finnish Championships. The Tour de Ski 2010/11 she finished 18th. However, she was again without a medal at the following Nordic World Ski Championships in 2011 , as she was 18th in the pursuit race over 15 kilometers, 27th in the sprint and 33rd in the mass start race over 30 kilometers. In the following season 2011/12 she started with the team with a good third place in the relay race in Sjusjøen . Sarasoja-Lilja surprisingly won the qualification at the sprint in Düsseldorf, but only came in sixth in the final. In February 2012 she achieved her best result in a World Cup race with the relay as second in Nové Město na Moravě .

At the Nordic World Ski Championships in 2013 in Val di Fiemme , she and Krista Lähteenmäki won the bronze medal in the team sprint and thus her first ever World Championship medal after 12 years in international cross-country skiing. In the 10 km individual race, however, she was 12th again behind the top 10 positions. Also with the season she missed a medal again as fifth.

A year later, Sarasoja-Lilja started at her second Olympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014, despite her lack of top results . In the sprint she was eliminated in qualification and was 36th in the end. She did not compete in the other races. At the 2015 Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun , she and Anne Kyllönen finished tenth in the team sprint. She ended her career after the 2014/15 season.

Placements in the World Cup

World Cup Statistics

The table shows the placements achieved in detail.

• 1st – 3rd place: Number of podium placements
• Top 10: Number of places in the top ten
• Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks
• Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline
• Note: In the distance races, the classification is based on the FIS.

placement	Distance races a					Skiathlon pursuit	sprint	Stage race b	total	Team c
	≤ 5 km	≤ 10 km	≤ 15 km	≤ 30 km	> 30 km					sprint	Season
1st place
2nd place											2
3rd place											4th
Top 10		1	1				7th		9	5	11
Scoring	1	18th	4th	3		6th	38	7th	77	9	11
Starts	2	41	6th	4th		11	54	11	129	9	11
Status: end of season 2014/15

^a including individual starts and mass starts according to FIS classification

^bEntire race, not individual stages, e.g. B. Tour de Ski, Nordic Opening, season finale

^c Possibly incomplete due to a lack of suitable sources before 2001

World Cup overall placements

season	total		distance		sprint
	Points	space	Points	space	Points	space
2002/03	16	76.	-	-	16	53.
2003/04	80	51.	14th	61.	66	29
2004/05	27	64.	-	-	27	39.
2005/06	59	55.	-	-	59	30th
2006/07	-	-	-	-	-	-
2007/08	69	50.	34	38.	35	45.
2008/09	171	36.	75	36.	96	27.
2009/10	294	26th	124	29	98	27.
2010/11	301	26th	135	24.	80	27.
2011/12	367	24.	203	19th	144	24.
2012/13	300	27.	179	23.	71	30th
2013/14	41	74.	-	-	41	46.
2014/15	92	56.	7th	81.	85	25th

Web links

• Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)

• Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Official website (Finnish)
• Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja on hs.fi

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Maajoukkuehiihtäjä Riikka Sarasoja-Lilja lopettaa kilpaurheilun (Finnish)