A Race to the Finnish: The Annika Malacinski Story
Bella Eckburg
Knuckles gripping the bar, Annika Malacinski, a USA Nordic Combined athlete and dual citizen of both the USA and Finland, prepares to let go. Her breath shaking, Annika shifts her gaze from her coach, standing next to her on the coach’s stand, and stares down the 110 meter (360 ft) jump, knowing any mishap could lead to a career-ending injury. She’s been burned before and is still working to heal completely from her 2018 shoulder surgery. As her knuckles slip with sweat, she takes a deep breath knowing any minute she will need to let go.. This is not a new feeling for Annika Malacinski; she has been training for this moment since she was a child with big dreams of competing in the Olympics. All that she can do now is trust that her athleticism will allow her to literally fly through the air. The traffic-style light turns green, and with that, Annika Malacinski lets go of the bar.
Image Credit: @annika.malacinski on Instagram
Annika Malacinski was born on May 9, 2001, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She began her athletic career as a toddler, only two-years-old, dreaming of one day compete as an Olympic gymnast. As she grew into her athleticism, she spent between 20-22 hours a week in the gym, training to become what she knew she was meant to be. Growing up in Steamboat Springs gave Annika unique access to a community of athletes who push one another towards greatness, and this allowed her to understand what it means to live the life of an athlete.
“Living in Steamboat allowed me to have access to coaches from all different backgrounds and, when I was ready, allowed me to find my love of Nordic Combined and ski jumping, overall.”
Annika’s mother, Essi Kenttälä, also has a history as a world-class athlete. Growing up in Rovaniemi, Finland, Kenttälä knew she would have a career in athletics at age seven, after seeing the older kids in her neighborhood swimming competitively. Kenttälä stated, “I was in the little pool to get started, and I just kept dreaming to advance to the lap pool. I worked so hard to get there. I had no skills but [made up for the lack of skills with] incredible desire. My parents never pushed me to do anything bigger in swimming, they just supported. I was very self-motivated and it was me who pushed myself.”
Kenttälä trained as a professional swimmer for most of her life, even having a brief glimpse of the Olympic games when she qualified for Olympic trials. Unfortunately, Kenttälä fell ill and was unable to compete in the games, although she still held strong to her athletic nature and incredible determination.
This self-motivation and determination is obviously something that Kenttälä passed to her children, Annika and Niklas, who are now both Nordic Combined athletes.
Kenttälä stated, “I was very competitive. Early on, I saw, especially in Annika, that she was competitive and very athletic. [Because] I was a head coach for the [Steamboat Springs] swim team, my kids started naturally swimming, as well. Knowing how important it is to know how to swim, I wanted my kids to learn how to swim no matter what their sport would be one day. They didn’t love it, but they were fine to swim. After they learned how to swim and competed for a while, I asked them to pick one cardiovascular sport because it has health benefits for their lives. [My] kids were very athletic so I didn’t have to make them do sports, they loved what they did. That was our lifestyle and they considered it very normal.”
(From left to right) Annika, her mother, Essi, and her younger brother, Niklas. (Image via Annika Malacinski)
Annika’s younger brother, Niklas Malacinksi, 16, has been training as a Nordic Combined athlete since age seven. Unlike Annika, who started her athletic journey as a gymnast, he began his athletic career with his heart set on winter sports. Niklas originally dreamt of playing for the National Hockey League (NHL) until he found his true passion, Nordic Combined and began fully pursuing the sport at age 10.
When asked how he originally stumbled on Nordic Combined, Niklas stated “Billy Demong, Todd Lodwick, and Johnny Spokane, who are all from Steamboat, were in the paper talking about how they had won Olympic medals [in Nordic Combined] and I decided I want to try it, too.”
Niklas Malacinski, aged 9, on the ski jump in Steamboat Springs, CO (Image via Niklas Malacinski)
Annika’s athletic journey is vastly different from the experiences shared by her mother and younger brother. She trained as a gymnast until age 16, when she was told by her doctors that if she chose to continue training as hard as she was, she would be forced to live a life, post-athletic, with chronic body pain, centralized in her ankles in wrists, which were already feeling the stress of years of high-impact flips and jumps.
With this knowledge, Annika was forced to quit gymnastics and search for a new sport; always knowing that the Olympics were in her future.
Annika found herself inspired by the way her brother talked about Nordic Combined and wondered to herself what it would feel like to ‘fly,’ about which Niklas raved endlessly.
“After that first jump, it was all over. I was scared out of my mind because I was jumping off of a 40-meter jump, which no one ever does during their first time, but once I let go I had to give everything over and trust my body fully. Right then, I knew what it felt like to fly and I knew I just had to feel like that again.”
Living in a home riddled with athletic potential, Annika found herself, once again, in her element with Nordic Combined.
The Annika Malacinski story is one of perseverance, determination, and pure athletic ability. Growing up part-time in her hometown of Steamboat Springs and part-time in Rovaniemi, Finland, gave her the opportunity to explore her sport in a more multifaceted way.
Being a citizen of both the United States and Finland, Annika allowed both cultures to intertwine and drive her athleticism forward towards her Olympics dreams. Finnish culture and its relation to athletics, she stated, “can be boiled down to one Finnish word: Sisu,” a word that Annika has tattooed on her inner right wrist, to “look at before I let go of the bar. Finnish culture is extremely important to my family and me and when I don’t have my mom to remind me of inner strength, I can look at my written reminder to stay strong and trust myself.” Sisu, in Finnish, is thought of as more of an overarching concept, as opposed to just a word. It represents inner strength, determination, and perseverance through hardships. This concept dates all the way back to World War II after the Finnish army fought off the winter invasion conducted by Russia’s Soviet army, which led to the solidification of this idea in Finnish culture.
Annika’s tattoo of the Finnish word “Sisu” (Image via Annika Malacinski)
When asked about Finnish culture and Nordic Combined, Niklas stated “Nordic Combined is a very traditional sport and it’s pretty much in the blood of every Finnish person to be involved in Nordic sports. [This tradition] has created a lifestyle that many athletes live by; making them succeed in their Nordic discipline, whether it's Nordic combined, skiing, biathlons, etc…”
The bottom line is this: Annika Malacinski has Nordic Combined racing in her blood. From generation to generation, Finland, and its focus on winter sports, has produced hundreds of world-class athletes. Although Annika is currently on the USA Ski Team and representing the USA, her Finnish identity is one that she notes as having influenced her towards winter sports and the athletic mindset that she possesses every single day; encapsulated in the concept of “Sisu,” at its core.
As she continues to train around the world and gain experience from incredibly seasoned coaches, Annika must grapple with the fact that Women’s Nordic Combined is not yet considered an Olympic sport, solely due to the sport being male-dominated and the fact that there are not enough women currently competing as Nordic Combined athletes.
“I want to show other young women that women’s Nordic Combined is not a joke or something to be laughed at. We are strong and more than capable of competing in the Olympic games, right alongside the men.”
As the 2020-21 season begins, COVID-19 has obviously created new obstacles for Annika and the rest of the Nordic Combined athletes across the world. The first women’s Nordic Combined World Cup was originally supposed to be held between December 5th and 6th but was postponed due to the rise in Norway’s COVID-19 cases, leaving Annika a window of time to fly back to the USA to sleep in her own bed and, of course, continue to train.
On December 3rd, Annika received the call that the women’s Nordic Combined World Cup has now been rescheduled for December 18th in Austria. Thus, requiring Annika to make yet another trip across the Atlantic ocean in order to compete for the title.
The event being rescheduled is a big win for Annika and other women competing in Nordic Combined because it is representative of the beginning of widespread acceptance of women’s Nordic Combined as a real, Olympic sport. The World Cup is the first event that will dictate whether or not the Olympics allows women’s Nordic Combined to be held as a competition within the games. When asked how she felt about the event being rescheduled, Annika stated “It’s hard to travel back and forth so often, but I couldn’t be more excited to compete and see my women’s Nordic Combined family. This is an international group of athletes, and I love learning from them and hearing their experiences.”
Preparing to leave her friends and family once again, Annika has started to pack her bags to head to Austria for the upcoming, and historic, 2020-21 season.
Annika Malacinski’s athletic journey is one marked by perseverance above all. She, at 19, is working towards a goal that many would never dream could be a possibility, and doing it with poise and grace. Nordic Combined is not a sport for the faint of heart; it requires almost unimaginable grit and determination and, most importantly, fearlessness.
As Annika grips the bar, staring at her coach, she uncoils her knuckles and regains her focus on the traffic-style light, blaring red. Then yellow. Then green.
Go!
Her mother cheers from the base of the hill, yelling in Finnish over the crowd of onlookers, hoping her daughter can hear her encouragement from 360 feet up. Annika soars through the air, her face flushed from the wind whipping past her; pure determination in her eyes. She’s flying. The feeling of gliding through the air on her skis allows Annika to bask in the feeling she has been chasing since she was 16, without any doubt in her athletic ability. All of her hard work and grueling days of pushing her body past what she'd previously thought possible have brought her to this moment.
This is Nordic Combined.
Annika Malacinski “Flying” (Image credit: @annika.malacinski on Instagram)