The Course of the Year 2010: Jukola!

– The courses for the Jukola Relay are as difficult as we could make them, the course planner Ari Kattainen said an hour before the start of the men’s relay. For Kattainen, the greatest challenge in the course planning was to have the self-restraint to make the legs short enough. – The legs are [now] two kilometres shorter than in any other Jukola for the past thirty years.

With nearly twice as many points as number two on the list, Jukola was a very clear winner in “The Course of the Year 2010″.

Congratulations go to the course planner Ari Kattainen who managed to set challenging courses with real forest orienteering while adhering to a lot of restrictions for the gigantic Finnish relay.

Read on below for the top 10 list in “Course of the Year 2010″ – along with some goodies from the Jukola relay.

Prizes from our sponsors

The course planner Ari Kattainen receives a Trimtex Dynamic TX Jacket as a prize from our sponsor Trimtex. We plan to come back with an interview with Ari Kattainen.

Jukola 2010 has been one of the most popular courses among the WorldofO.com readers – first suggested by Alex L who receives a Trimtex Run Ventzone LZR Long Tights as a prize from our sponsor Trimtex. Jukola was since suggested by several others like Audun Weltzien, Maxime Gauduin, Olav Lundanes (as choice number two) and Thierry Gueorgiou (as choice number two).

In addition we have drawn the following prizes among the ones suggesting courses and voting:

• A voucher for a 2011 Sun-O Camp, value of 150 Euro (transferable to another person) goes to Helen Palmer for her suggestions and to Bjarne Christensen for his vote.
• Trimtex Necks go to Gurvas and Michael Wood for their suggestions, and Hannibal and Lukas Frei for their votes.
• Trimtex Vision LZR headbands go to Matija Razum for his suggestion via news.worldofo.com, Aron Less who suggested a course through the WorldofO.com Facebook page, and Jacek Morawski and Harald Storrønning for their votes.

All winners will receive an email in which they are asked to provide their postal address.

Overall results: The Course of the Year 2010

We got three tough long distance races on the top of the list for “The Course of the Year 2010″ – maybe because a long course gives more possibilities for varied challenges than a shorter course? It is at least a signal to all organizers that you should not let the long distance format dye – there are many fans of the long distance out there! The final Top 10-list for “The course of the Year 2010″:

1. Jukola 2010 17220 points
2. Norwegian Champs Long H21 2010 8920 points
3. World Cup France 2010, W21 8370 points
4. Portugal “O” Meeting 2010 – Day 3 7030 points
5. Finnish Champs Middle 2010 – Final 5990 points
6. NAOM Day1 long 5820 points
7. OTomne en Savoie Day 1 5190 points
8. EYOC 2010 Long 4540 points
9. JWOC 2010 Sprint – M20 with routes 3970 points
10. Temptation Island 3870 points

Jukola 2010: The race

Links to the map and coverage of the race:

• Here is for example the first leg in GPSSeuranta – but there are more than 50 maps from Jukola 2010 in omaps.worldofo.com – see for example here and here.
• Full event coverage of Jukola 2010 at WorldofO.com – including link to all maps, discussion of the decisive moments, possibility to replay the LiveBlog, and so on.

Selected legs from the Jukola relay 2010

Below you see some selected legs from the Jukola relay. For each leg, the fastest runner from the GPS-tracking along different routes is chosen – and the runners are compared by connecting points at the routes at which the runners have used the same time.

Leg 1, control 13-14

Of the runners compared, the direct route is the faster one. In the right route, it is the part in the green just ahead of the lake which is slower. Note also that it is significantly faster in the marsh north of the lake compared to at the south edge of the lake. The runner on the northern route looses time when climbing the hill in last half of the leg.

Leg 3, control 6-7

The southern route is more hilly – it seems like this is the reason for it being slower. Note that this is night orienteering.

Leg 3, control 9-10

Feel free to discuss the remaining legs in the comments – it is getting too late at night for the author of this article now…

Leg 7, control 17-18

Leg 7, control 19-20

Leg 7, control 20-21

Decisive moments – Jukola relay

The following are some of the most decisive moments in the Jukola relay (see GPS Tracking of some of them in the video below):

• 1st leg,  6th control. Kristiansand (Jostein Andersen) has no punch on the control, and gets disqualified. Halden SK (Kiril Nikolov) and Kalevan Rasti (Jan Prochazka) loose between 3 and 4 minutes, but this is not important for the overall results in the end. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 1st leg)
• 2nd leg. Kalevan Rasti (Tommi Tölkkö) looses nearly 7 minutes to Halden (Erik Axelsson) and several of the other top teams – down to 28th place for Kalevan Rasti. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 2nd leg)
• 3rd leg. Halden (Anders Nordberg) gets a 5 minute lead after a very good race at the long and dark 3rd leg. Note however that Kalevan Rasti (Hannu Airila) has a time which is only one second slower than Halden on this leg – getting Kalevan Rasti up to 3rd place. Thus there were two kings of the night at this years Jukola relay, although Nordberg’s solo in the lead is more impressive. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 3rd leg)
• 4th leg. Halden (Mattias Karlsson) continues to run very well with few mistakes, while Kalevan Rasti (Simo Martomaa) looses another 6 minutes. Second now is IFK Lidingö SOK 8:41 down. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 4th leg)
• 5th leg. Halden (Mats Haldin) does a good race, keeping Kalevan Rasti (Philippe Adamski) at a distance and increasing the lead to the other teams. Haldens lead is more than 11 minutes after the 5th leg, and the relay is decided. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 5th leg)
• 6th leg. Halden (Emil Wingstedt) does another good leg, not giving Kalevan Rasti (Fabian Hertner) any chance to get closer – Halden is actually increasing the lead further (GPS Tracking Jukola, 6th leg).
• 7th leg. Kalevan Rasti (Thierry Gueorgiou) runs a great race, decreasing the lead of Halden (Olav Lundanes) minute by minute, finally stopping at just above 7 minutes for a very secure 2nd spot. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 7th leg)

Maps and GPS Tracking

• Jukola, 1st leg. See also direct link to map for 1st leg Jukola
• Jukola, 2nd leg
• Jukola, 3rd leg. See also direct link to map for 3rd leg Jukola
• Jukola, 4th leg
• Jukola, 5th leg
• Jukola, 6th leg
• Jukola, 7th leg
• Venla, 1st leg. See also direct link to map for 1st leg Jukola
• Venla, 2nd leg
• Venla, 3rd leg
• Venla, 4th leg

Prizes from our Sponsors

Prizes from our Sponsors always makes it more fun! There will be a prize for the course setter in “The course of the Year 2010″, a price for the first one suggesting the course which ends up becoming “The course of the Year 2010″, and finally prizes drawn among all suggesting and voting.

Sponsors for “The course of the Year 2010″:

• Trimtex sponsors “The course of the year 2010″ with 10 prizes. Trimtex Sport make technical team wear for athletes in clubs and companies. Trimtex’s products are world-leading within function, design and quality, whether it’s for cycling, running, skiing or orienteering.
• sun-o.com sponsors “The course of the year 2010″ with a voucher for a 2011 Sun-O Camp, value of 150 Euro. Sun-o offers orienteering travel-packages in Spain and Portugal, combining high quality terrains and varied O-maps, in regions with rich culture and sunny climate – organizing your O-holidays from from start to finish.
  
• For the record: All sponsor gifts/income related to “The Best Course of 2010″ goes directly to the WorldofO.com readers.