Moravian orienteerer puts in superb performance in Finland
Moravian Orienteering Club athlete Finlay McLuckie competed at a major event in Finland. Here he writes his experience of taking part.
This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be able to compete at the biggest orienteering relay of the year, Jukola in Mikkeli, Finland and this is a summary of this awesome event and my journey to it.
For those who have never heard of Jukola, or know very little about it, this seven-person relay, with a start time of 11pm is iconic for its seriously long legs as well as seriously long night legs, which three of them are, as well as its huge participation, bringing in generally the best part of 20,000 runners!
This year had 1736 teams, so with seven per team, a ridiculous 12,152 people competed in the Jukola relay alone. There is also a four-person female relay, Venola, which starts before at 1pm and also drew in vast numbers, a pretty comparable 1475 teams.
My Jukola journey began only two weeks ago where I woke on a Monday morning to a message from Finn Duguid, a good orienteering friend from Perthshire who had planned to be doing Jukola for months, asking if I wanted to fill a place in the team from OK Djerf (a club based in an Elgin-sized city called Karlskoga) as there had been a late drop out.
Naturally I was shocked and flattered to be asked but didn’t really expect to be able to go at such short notice. But luckily there was almost no commitments that outweighed doing the awesome experience, so I was able to go.
My route to Mikkeli, a city a few hours north of Helsinki, was to say the least, a little indirect. A friend from OK Djerf, living in Gothenburg, going to the orienteering gymnasium (school) there, Linus was kind enough to take us in for one night in his wee apartment there as well as his home in Karlskoga, which was unbelievably generous of him.
We then met the team in Karlskoga, who were super friendly and welcoming throughout the entire trip, with whom we then bussed, train-ed, trained, and ferried our way to Jukola via Stockholm and Turku.
The experience once there was indescribably cool, but can be best invisioned by imagining a Scottish six day arena, but just on steroids (and in a big concrete making plant I think).
The 20,000 odd people would have been present either in the arena or in tents in the ‘near’ vicinity (our spot was a lovely 2.5k walk from the arena); huge empty warehouses filled to the brim with tables and orienteers for eating, mass starts that looked like stampedes, a - no kidding - sauna and showering area, and generally just hoards of people all, somehow, taking part in this event for our ‘minority sport’.
My job was third leg for the team, the infamous lång natt (long night) leg, which was a 13k straight line course, with 500m climb and starting, of course, at 2am (mercifully equipped with a borrowed proper scandi headtorch, which is a serious upgrade from my comparatively puny headtorch). My run, thankfully, was really pretty good, I got caught fairly early by a small train of people which really helps keep you moving, which then increased by 5 or so more people at around halfway, one of which was a world champion from a few years back, called Jerker Lysell, which is something I only found out after my run!
This train was strong motivation but seriously hard work to keep with, so unsurprisingly I was dropped after a water station, but only maybe 2k from the end, during the hilariously long leg from 15 to 16 (out of 19 controls).
I wasn’t too disheartened but I definitely slowed during the final few controls slightly. The run itself was a blur of hard running, tricky long legs, very spiky trees and trains of head torches but was ultimately super fun. The best feeling was undoubtedly coming down the huge run in into the arena and handing over to Rasmus (Djerf’s main coach), after 16k, 1hr 45mins of running, knowing my work was done and that I had put a strong run down out there.
So, the results. Well on my leg, I was 77th out of the 1700 odd runners, 15 minutes behind the fastest runner on the leg, handing over as the 64th team, which I am really proud of for my first ever big relay.
Our team was an amazing 100th, their highest ever placing, far surpassing Djerf’s expectations and something the whole team was overjoyed with.
I look back at the experience, again appreciating how lucky I was to be able to take part in Jukola and with such a kind, motivating team, and hope this is the first of many many Jukolas for me.
