At higher levels, the increasing incompatibility of skiing training and running training made it impossible for Matintalo to continue to seriously pursue both sports indefinitely; as a skier she needed much more upper-body strength, implying additional mass that would slow her down as a runner. In 2016, she decided to continue skiing at the cost of athletics; she moved from her home town, Pöytyä in southwestern Finland, to Rovaniemi in the north for better training conditions. The move paid off, as she had a good 2016–17 season; at the 2017 World Junior Championships in Park City she won silver in the under-23 women's skiathlon despite skiing with an injured ankle.