Career
Kuitunen has seven medals at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships with five golds (2001: 5 km + 5 km combined pursuit, 2007: Team sprint, with Riitta-Liisa Roponen, 30 km, & 4 x 5 km. 2009: Team sprint, 4 x 5 km), one silver (2005: 30 km), one bronze (2007: Individual sprint). She also has thirty-four additional individual victories at various levels of various distances since 2000.
Because of Kuitunen"s successes in cross country skiing in 2007, she was awarded Finnish Sportswoman of the Year.
Virpi Kuitunen married Jari Sarasvuo on 16 July 2010. At the 2001 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, Kuitunen was disqualified when she tested positive for hydroxyethyl starch, a banned blood plasma expander.
This forced her to relinquish her silver medal earned in the 4 x 5 km and serve a two-year suspension that would not end until the 2003 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships.