Finland's Jukola Relay, or Jukolan Viesti, is the world's largest sporting relay. It attracts over 15,000 competitors from all over the world, who take part in teams of 4 women or 7 men. The women's competition, the Venla Relay, takes place in the afternoon and the men's competition begins at 11pm and runs through the white night of Finnish midsummer. At the elite end, the top Nordic teams are highly professional, and the relay is considered almost as important as the world championships in club culture. Next year's sponsorship deals depend on the media coverage provided by a good result at Jukola.
Men's mass start - Image Courtesy - Kytäjä-Jukola 2010
Competition is fierce and the best clubs buy in international runners to supplement their domestic talent. Most top British runners have a Scandinavian club for whom they compete in the big relay competitions including Jukola. However this year, a group of top-ranking British runners from Sheffield decided that it was time to play the Nordic teams at their own game and take a crack squad to Finland to pit themselves against the best. The team was well supported in this venture by
Inov-8 and
Smartwool, who provided footwear and clothing for the runners. They were up against a similarly high quality national team from Scotland, who had the same idea.
This year's Jukola posed a special challenge for the runners. In the words of the British team coach, the Finn, Toni Louhisola, the terrain of this year's Jukola was ‘some of the toughest ever.' Jukola organisers warned teams that times would be the slowest in this century, and that amateur teams should take particular care to help each other in the forest. In case that wasn't enough, weather conditions deteriorated on the afternoon of the race after days of unending sunshine, ensuring that the night of Jukola would be much darker than expected. In the event, only around 300 of 15000 competitors completed the relay before the cut-off time of 9am, the lowest proportion for many years. So how did the British teams fare under these conditions?
Women's mass start - Grace in bib number 130. Image Courtesy - Kytäjä-Jukola 2010.
The women's competition started well for South Yorkshire with Australian international Grace Crane, picking her way up to the top 30 from her starting position of 130 by the mid point of her race. But disaster struck when she damaged her ankle on a rocky descent and lost a lot of time to the leading teams to finish 173rd. Heather Gardener and Laura Daniel on third and fourth legs ran strongly but came unstuck in the tough, rough terrain to lose more time to the leaders, but picked up places to hand over to Jenny Johnson on the last leg in 155th, Jenny ran well and overtook 30 teams, who were quite spread out by this stage - and who were seemingly lost - without even seeing them, to finish 125th, some way down on their goals and behind the Scots who put in a great performance to finish 83rd.
As the weather closed in, the atmosphere of the event changed in the build-up to the men's race. The spectacle of the men's mass start is something to behold: 1500 men, 30 rows 50 wide, headlamps blazing, waiting to plunge into the dark forest. The challenge of the first leg is to keep calm while chaos reigns around you. As the sprinting pack fans out into the trees you need to find time to concentrate on the map and use the runners around you. Courses are forked so there is no advantage to be gained by blindly following. Many a top team came unstuck in the carnage of the first leg in this year's Jukola, but South Yorkshire's Jamie Stevenson, former world champion, now retired from international competition, managed to keep a cool head and ran a safe race to come back in 48th. Matt Crane and Oli Johnson, both British team members, followed up with solid races to pick up a few places to 34th over the next two legs, although both found the courses to be some of the hardest that they had ever run. Meanwhile the Scottish team had an even better night and were some way ahead in 28th.
Dawn broke, and the lead continued to shift backwards and forwards between South Yorkshire and Scotland over the next three legs. The commentary team picked up on this mini battle taking place some way behind the lead and kept spectators informed of developments at TV controls around the course. However after a string of mistakes by South Yorkshire, by the time Rob Baker handed over to Graham Gristwood on the last leg, the deficit to Scotland was up to almost 15 minutes. The British International and former relay world champion did his best to close the gap and managed to reign in 10 of these minutes over a tough 96 minute race, but in the end Scotland were too good for us and we finished in 46
th place, just behind the Scots in 44
th.
Team Inov8 South Yorkshire at Jukola 2010
This race was as tough as it gets, and although none of our runners were completely satisfied with their races, the result is encouraging. We will be back next year, more experienced and stronger, to take on the best that the Nordic orienteering world has to throw at us!
The 2010 results in full are here: http://www.jukola2010.net/sivut/pages/en/results.php
More info on the Jukola relay here: http://www.jukola.com/?kieli=eng&id=30
