Photo: Ralph Street in the colours of Södertälje-Nykvarn Orientering, JK Long race 2017, by Robert Lines.
TioMila2018, one of the best weekends of the year. is in commuting distance of Stockholm next weekend.
As you know participation in orienteering is much more club based in Scandinavia than it is here. There are many relays, and this one is arguably the most important. It is the one that Swedish orienteers all talk about through the winter. It's the one they all remember years afterwards.
Sweden's National Orienteering Magazine has this thought:
One of TioMila's strengths is that it is something that inspires and creates a team atmosphere for many clubs during the winter. We are not just talking about elite clubs here, but teams that want to place in the top 100, beat their neighbouring club, or "just" have a focus to get to the finish. Tiomila is therefore a glue for the club, and a challenge to focus on through the long and dark winter.
As with all orienteering the terrain is a big influence. So from this year's invitation:
The area is characterised by its proximity to the coast, archipelago and influence from the last ice age. There are a number of significant heights where the terrain has wilderness-like properties with numerous steep slopes and detailed, at times complicated, landforms. Between the heights is mainly flat land with more or less overgrown farmland. A small number of roads and paths run through the area. Close to the arena, where the junior relay takes place, there are more frequent paths. Small marshes and swampy forest can be found throughout the area, which mainly consists of mixed forest. The area is moderately to highly hilly, broken ground with distinct heights and plenty of steep slopes. The lowest areas often consist of uninterrupted, formerly farmed land. Runnability is generally good but there are many sections with rocky terrain, which affects running conditions. Many slopes feature frequent larger and smaller rocks. A few smaller vegetation areas limit the runnability somewhat. Visibility is overall good; the white areas of the map include areas with partially limited visibility.
The leg combinations in the TioMila Relays vary from year to year, but a consistent and key feature of the 10-leg relay is the unforked long night leg, this year leg 4 and 15.3km. Invariably a “train” forms that can move faster than a single individual, and sometimes the leading train pulls away into a sufficiently big lead that means to win your team has to have caught the train, even though there are still six legs still to go after the long night. In 2013 a 15 minute gap opened between the leading group of eight and the next group. And last year a leading group of six developed a seven minute lead, and the winners came from that group. This year the terrain is more challenging than other recent years, so getting into a good group for the “long night” is again really important.
How would you fancy leg 3-4 from the 2016 race at 1am in the morning? Better in a group surely!
Start numbers are allocated using finish positions from the year before.
2017 Women's Race
A long ungaffled third leg was used last year, and is again a feature this year. It worked rather like the long night. At the front, thirteen teams collected during the leg and finished the leg within 30 seconds of each other, and they had all been in the first sixteen after two legs. This group provided the first twelve teams when the race finished. So teams aiming for the top needed to be in that train. The group included Halden SK for whom Jo Shepherd had run leg 1, and Lillomarka OL, for whom Lucy Butt had run leg 2.
The pack broke up on the 40 minute leg 4. On the last (fifth) leg Tove Alexandersson, starting in 12th place, seven minutes behind the leading team, came through to win for Stora Tuna. Swiss International Judith Wyder brought Göteborg-Majorna OK in second and the all-Finnish team from Tampereen Pyrintö were third. Jo's Halden were ninth. Lillomarka were eleventh.
There were plenty of international runners taking part. Fourth placed Järla Orientering included two Danish runners. Seventh placed IFK Göteborg included four non-Swedish runners, and eighth placed Alfta-Ösa included three Russians.
2017 Open Race
The 2016 Jukola winners IFK Göteborg ran away with it from leg 6, winning by over 8 minutes, the biggest margin for some time. They were probably unbeatable. The next three teams were together for a lot of the last leg but could only close slightly on "Flying" Fredrik Bakkman, who had transferred from IFK Lidingö during the winter.
Johan Högstrand running the long night for IFK Göteborg took a small group into a seven minute lead on this leg. This is the GPS for the leg. Incidentally you can see the first runner to get their map, the one from Koovee, wait for company.
Second were OK Linné – the club from Uppsala that Cat was a member of for many years. Their strong final quartet looked likely to do well and the earlier runners got them in a good position.
We, Södertälje-Nykvarn Orientering, were third, a pleasing result although we would have liked to have been closer to the winners. I have trained and run with the team since 2011, starting in the second team, and the group is of similar ages - we have grown together as we have trained together. We were delighted to win in 2016, with a tremendous sprint finish from Jonas Leandersson. There was only one change from that winning team last year, as Bartosz Pawlak (POL) moved to Paimion Rasti (where he joined a truly world-class trio of Olav Lundanes, Frédéric Tranchand and Fredric Portin - keep a eye on them.)
Fourth were Koovee, the 2016 Jukola winners, and one of the teams tipped by many. A strong leg 7 from Oleksandr Kratov (UKR) was just not quite strong enough to catch the leaders - they were just a minute down in second. On leg 8 - last year the second ungaffled leg of the relay - they fell back and were caught by the chasing pack, as Max Peter Bejmer extended the IFK Göteborg lead to nearly ten minutes. That left too much to do for even Timo Sild (EST) and Daniel Hubmann (SUI).
Tampereen Pyrintö were fifth, they included Florian Howald (SUI) and Johan Runesson (SWE).
Sixth were Lillomarka OL, including four British runners: Matt Speake, Dane Blomquist, Peter Hodkinson and on the final leg Alasdair McLeod. They have lost a couple of strong runners to other clubs this winter, but Kris Jones returns, very possibly for leg 1.
Many times winners Kalevan Rasti with six overseas internationals - including Graham Gristwood running leg 9 - were seventh.
IFK Lidingö – with Hector Haines running the long night leg - were eighth.
Halden SK - another club well-known to many British orienteers - pulled up from 30th after the long night leg to finish ninth.