SLOW
teams compete in the Jukola and Venla
relays in Finland
14/15 June 2008
Report by Simon Evans
The Jukola
event consists of two relays. The Venla relay for women takes place on Saturday afternoon
with 4 legs. The Jukola
relay starts at 11pm on Saturday night and has 7 legs. It is the Finnish equivalent of the UK
Harvester relays but on another scale in terms of the number of competitors.
This year’s event took
place near Tampere, about 2 hours drive north or Helsinki. Some of the team flew out a few days earlier
to compete in the Forssa Games which is World Ranking
Middle distance race and was a good opportunity to get some practice in the
tricky terrain.
The team came together
on Saturday morning via various routes from the UK including by ferry. The race arena was located 
at an aviation and motor sports
centre which included a runway, alongside which, were about 300 army tents for
teams to sleep.
A few people headed off
for a quick run on the training map before the start of the Venla
relay. The Venla
Relay had 970 teams starting in a mass start.
The first 200 teams are seeded and take the first few rows on the
grid. A network of wires elevates each
competitor’s rolled map above their head.
The event was televised
on a Finnish sports TV channel and was displayed on a big screen in the race
arena. The top teams carry GPS devices
and their positions and routes could be displayed on a map on the big
screen. On the first leg in the mass
start for SLOW was Diane Leakey. The
teams set off creating a cloud of dust and their progress is tracked through
the forest.
Each leg had about 4
radio controls and it was possible to views each team runner’s progress on
computer terminals in the assembly area.
The SLOW Venla team had good runs ending in 501st place with a
particularly strong last leg from Sarah-Jane Gaffney gaining 122 places!
|
|
Length (km) |
Leg Time |
Leg Position |
Relay Time |
Relay Position |
|
1 Diane Leakey |
7.1 |
1:19:55 |
512 |
1:19:55 |
512 |
|
2 Vicky Whaley |
7.2 |
1:39:09 |
661 |
2:59:04 |
609 |
|
3 Chris Robinson |
5.6 |
1:13:51 |
638 |
4:12:55 |
623 |
|
4 Sarah-Jane Gaffney |
8.2 |
1:21:55 |
262 |
5:34:51 |
501 |
In the Jukola relay were 1453 teams. Setting off the SLOW team at 11pm was Brooner. Although
the sun had set it was not completely dark but head torches were required for
the first few legs. From a position in
the mass start of 1025, the team made steady progress through the field ending
up in 683rd place. Particularly good runs
were had by Patrick Saile, Seb
Woof and Alan Leakey.
|
|
Length (km) |
Leg Time |
Leg Position |
Relay Time |
Relay Position |
|
1 Andrew Brown |
11.5 |
2:19:03 |
1165 |
2:19:03 |
1165 |
|
2 Simon Evans |
12.3 |
2:29:10 |
976 |
4:48:13 |
1076 |
|
3 Patrick Saile |
13.2 |
2:00:02 |
638 |
4:12:55 |
832 |
|
4 David Roach |
7.9 |
1:43:10 |
1048 |
8:31:26 |
870 |
|
5 Alan Leakey |
8.0 |
1:19:11 |
488 |
9:50:37 |
759 |
|
6 Andy Robinson |
9.9 |
1:54:09 |
803 |
11:44:47 |
756 |
|
7 Seb
Woof |
13.8 |
2:14:30 |
613 |
13:59:18 |
683 |
Posted 25 June 2008