Hometown Boyz greets our fellow country man, Kalle Leinonen, for the great accomplishment: Kalle just joined the international 4FRNT’s team.

That is some great news for the Finnish skiing. We have had intenational level alpine skiers like Kalle Palander and Tanja Poutiainen already for a while, not to mention the mogul guys but the bursting new school skiing scene has waited this moment already for a couple of years. Everyone that follows the “scene” here has known that there is talent here that is as good as in international teams. Iisko Heiskanen’s 2nd place in Orage Open 2006 was one clear indication of that fact (the guy was only beaten by the man himself, Candice Thovex!).

Kalle Leinonen, on the ther hand, was a promising alpine racer only a few years ago before he concentrated 100% on freestyle. I believe he was ranked first in his age group in Finland and quite high on the FIS list too. So, you kids out there: don’t judge the gates too hard. Knowing a solid turn never hurts you later in your skiing life! By the way, Kalle’s sister, Sanni Leinonen, is on the Finnish women Alpine Ski Team and has done quite well lately, despite her young age. I believe we are going to hear more from Sanni in the near future as well.

But back on the topic. Kalle probably didn’t have a very high international profile before this great move. He has concentrated on the FIS events and won almost every competition he entered. A quote from the 4FRNT’s site says:

“Well, if I told you that we had a rider that finished in the top-5 in competition over 80% of the time, you’d think Tanner Hall or Jon Olsson. If I told you that this rider stood on the podium at competitions 9 times in a single season you’d probably think about TJ Schiller or Simon Dumont. You wouldn’t change your mind when we told you that he beat out more than 10 X-Games competitors throughout the season or that he finished second overall in the World Cup standings or that he won his country’s National Championship and was named Freestyler of the Year. In fact, you’d probably bet a fair amount of your bank account when I told you that you weren’t even close. But, that’s exactly what this young phenom did this past season – at the ripe old age of 18. Didn’t see that coming, did ya? Check out Kalle’s team page.”

Check out also the impressive merit list on the 4FRNT’s site.

Again, congrats Kalle! We are going to follow what this young jedi master is up to in the next season for sure.

Below is a video of Kalle on one of his latest standards, a double rodeo 900 (and I thought daffy-twister was the s**t when I was 18, heh).