The Junior World Championships starts with the Sprint Sunday July 3rd at 14:00 CET – and continues with Long distance on Monday, Middle qualification on Wednesday, Middle final on Thursday and Relay on Friday. Expect a lot of interesting route choices in  the hilly terrain – above you see one example from one of the old maps of the terrain (at the bottom of this page you can draw your ideal route for this leg in a Webroute).

Useful links

• JWOC 2011 webpage
• Link for LiveBlog in separate windows
• Mobile version of LiveBlog
• Old maps JWOC 2011: Map 1, map 2, map 3, map 4

Program

The following is the program for JWOC 2011 in Poland:

• 3.07.2011 – Sunday – Sprint 14:00 (no qualification)
• 4.07.2011 – Monday – Long 9:00 (no qualification)
• 6.07.2011 – Wednesday – Middle Qualification 10:00
• 7.07.2011 – Thursday – Middle Final 10:00
• 8.07.2011 – Friday – Relay 10:00

JWOC 2011 Live coverage

The organizers will provide live results from all competitions – you will find the link to the live results at the JWOC page. In addition, there will be a LiveBlog offered by the organizers in cooperation with World of O. The LiveBlog is planned to be live during all stages.

Embargoes areas

Facts and Course details

Sprint

Long

Middle Qualification

Middle Final

Relay

Webroute – what would you choose?

This years JWOC terrain makes it possible to make a lot of interesting route choice legs – while the fine orienteering is not the most tricky. The competitors will probably get a lot more tricky legs than the one you see below – but still it might be interesting to find your way to the first control on one of the old JWOC maps….

Powered by WebRoute – WorldofO.com

Daniel Hubmann and Annika Billstam won the exciting last stage of the Nordic Orienteering Tour south of Oslo today. It was a big day for Swiss and Swedish orienteering with 3 Swiss men on top and 3 Swedish women among the top 4. Both Hubmann and Billstam decided the victory in the very end of the course – making it very exciting for the spectators and all the ones following the race over the Internet.

The course invited the runners to take different route choices – the route choices being very important in the decision of the overall Nordic Orienteering Tour 2011. In the mens class, Hubmann and Matthias Merz were together for most of the course – fighting for victory. Olav Lundanes started 1:05 behind – and fought hard to get closer. He saw Hubmann and Merz once – but never managed to get real contact after taking non-optimal routechoices and microroute-choices many times. – A bad day to have bad legs. And I should have had a route choice course as well, Lundanes commented after his race. His speed did not seem to be that bad, however.

In the women’s class, Merja Rantanen started with 41 seconds down to Maja Alm and Annika Billstam not far behind. Rantanen lost time early (see autOanalysis below), and thus Billstam came past. They however did get together again, and Billstam decided the race from the second last to the last control by going left (see below).

Interesting legs

Men: 2-3
After testing the route, the route planner had found that the left variant (Ikonen run this, but not optimal last part of the leg) was fastest. However, in the race the rightmost variant was faster, and very few run the left variant.

Men: 4-5
The S-curve seems to be fastest – although quite a few went left.

Men: 18-19
Going left is clearly the best option here.

Men 24-25

This is were Hubmann decides the race against Merz. Merz was the only one going right – but also Hubmann lost on his left choice.

Women 13-14

Similar to the mens leg, but a few more women tried the direct route. Again it was clearly faster going left.

GPS autOanalysis

Some GPS analysis of type “autOanalysis” between top runners have been made to understand what decided the race. These are given below.

• Hubmann versus Merz – part 1
  

  Matthias Merz started 44 seconds behind Daniel Hubmann, and caught his team colleague at the 3rd control after a non-optimal route choice by Hubmann to the 3rd control. From then on the two run together for significant parts of the race. In the above illustration you see that they are together for significant parts from there on. Matthias Merz was pushing hard in this first part of the course. – I had problems keeping up the speed of Matthias in the first part of the course, Daniel said after the race. In the last part I was stronger though.

• Hubmann versus Merz – part 2
  
  In the last part of the course, however, they took different route choices two times – Merz loosing around 12-15 seconds both times. This was enough to leg Hubmann get an advantage which he never let go again. In the end Hubmann could run to the finish as a clear winner ahead of Merz.
• Hubmann versus Lundanes – part 1
  
  Ahead of the race there was talk about the fight between Norwegian Olav Lundanes and the two Swiss. Lundanes who had 1:05 to take on Hubmann never got real contact with Hubmann. He only saw his back briefly one time. – I did not feel strong enough today physically, Lundanes said after the race. As you see from the above illustration, Lundanes was slower than Hubmann in the first part of the course – loosing time on a mistake on the leg to number two and three. Then he took 20 second on Hubmann on the last part of the third leg (just as Merz) – due to Hubmann’s non-optimal route choice. Lundanes however again lost time due to non-optimal route chice to 5. In the middle part of the course neither Hubmann nor Olav run optimally – loosing time to each other at different places – but approximately keeping the distance.
• Hubmann versus Lundanes – part 2
  
  The pattern was the same in the last part of the course – Lundanes and Hubmann each loosing and gaining time in different places. Thus none of them had a super race – but both finished at approximately the same running time. In the end it was good enough for the overall NORT victory for Hubmann – while Lundanes beat Hubmann with 18 seconds on the time of stage 3 only.
• Hertner versus Lundanes (only part 1)
  
  Hertner had the best time of the day, after catching Lundanes at control 5 and running together with Lundanes for the rest of the course. In this illustration you can see where Hertner beat Lundanes. Hertner took some time on a different route choice to 2, then gained time to number 3 – even with the same routechoice for which Hubmann lost time. The continued gaining time towards 5 – even with approximately the same routechoice as Lundanes – he might have seen Lundanes in front at some places here.
• Billstam versus Rantanen
  
  The last illustration is of Billstam versus Rantanen (number 2 in the women’s course). Here you can see how Rantanen lost a lot of time on her route choice to number 4 – while gaining time again on the northern part of the forking. To the very last leg you can see how Billstam gained enough to take the victory in NORT 2011 by going left.

Maps

• Map men
• Map women

Results men

Results women

• All results available at the NORT page

With double World Champion Håvard Tveite as one of the course setters - a big fan of real forest orienteering on good maps – everything is set for a very interesting chasing start as the final competition in the Nordic Orienteering Tour. 4 x Switzerland – Hubmann, Kyburz, Merz and Müller – will all be heading out within 1.05 of World Champion Olav Lundanes in the mens class. And the womens class seems even more open and exciting if possible with 13 women within 3 minutes!

To bring the excitement home to you at home, there will be live GPS-tracking and live results – and if the load on the 3G connections by spectators is not too high, there will also be a live webTV from the event.

• Live GPS-tracking men - women
• Live results
• Startlist
• Webpage of NORT and O-festivalen
• Fantasy World Cup (set up your team by 14:00 CET)

This might ery well be the future format of one of the races in the World Orienteering Championships

This might very well be the future format of one of the races in the orienteering World Championships depending on what is decided this autumn in France – and today’s World Cup race in Nesodden south of Oslo might get important for that decision. This is especially the case if the race is a success.

And the setting for a success is perfect. A 50 minute chasing start for the men (7.5 km/375 m) – and 40 minutes for the women (5.6 km/250 m) – in “real forest” (see old old map above) as the last stage of NORT, it is going to be a real fight for the top position and the big money prizes (31.000 Euros overall in NORT). At least the top 5 men – probably also a few more may mix in on the fight for victory. Among the women it is even more open. Finnish Rantanen will head out 41 seconds ahead of Danish Maja Alm – with Billstam (SWE), Bagstevold, Fasting (both NOR), Alexandersson, Gustafsson (both SWE) all following within 1:40. All the first 13 runners have a realistic chance of winning with a perfect race depending on how the others perform.

We have got the unusual situation that it is tighter in the women’s class than in the men’s class – 20 men within 4:52 minutes and 20 women within 4:20.

Terrain description: Mainly old coniferous forest (pine and spruce) but also parts with mixed forest. Medium hilly with mostly good runnability.  Some marshes. In parts of the area there is a quite dense network of small and bigger paths.  There is quite a lot of blueberry heather in the open forest.  This is not marked on the map, but it affects the going.  There are patches of more or less stony/rocky ground in some of the slopes – the biggest ones are mapped.

With 200 World Cup points for the winner and quite easy to pick out the favourites, NORT Stage 3 starting on Saturday 14:00 CET will probably be the stage in this years Fantasy World Cup where you MUST pick out a good team to not loose out in the overall. So don’t forget to set up your team by the first start at 14:00 CET on Saturday. Startlists are already up – nothing to wait for!

• Set up your Fantasy World Cup team here – last chance ahead of NORT stage 3 is Saturday June 25th 14:00 CET.
• Results WoO Fantasy World Cup 2011

Disclaimer! This is a very experimental ‘for-fun’ service, and errors may (and will) occur. Only runners who were top 500 on the World Ranking as of June 15th are to be included on your team. The red group is defined by runners who were inside the Top 50 on the World Ranking as of June 15th. Take it for what it is, and have fun with it!

Overall results after NORT Stage 2

See below for the results of NORT after 2 stages. The startlist for Stage 3 will be a chasing start with the same time differences as in the overall results.

Rules

Choose a Team consisting of 10 runners (you can choose arbitrary number of men/women).

Points are calculated in the following way:

• For each World Cup race, your score is calculated as the World Cup points of the 10 runners in your team
• Your 8 best total sums of the 10 World Cup races count in the total figure
• You may drag as many runners over to your team in the right column as you want, but only the 10 topmost runners count in your sum
• Of the top 10 in your list, 2 runners must be outside the red group, i.e. marked with **. If you have no runners outside the red group in your team, only the 8 first on the list will give you points. The red group was defined as runners inside the Top 50 on the World Ranking event as of June 15th 2011. Runners in the red group may change during the season. If changes to the ‘Red group’ are made, this will be announced via e-mail.
• Bonus: In each World Cup race, you get a bonus of 50% of the points for the runner who is on the top of your team-list. Another 25% bonus for the runner on second place on your team-list, and yet another 10% bonus for the runner who is number three on your team-list
• You can change which runners are in your team between each race
• Last chance to change your team ahead of each World Cup race is given in the overview table here.
• Note! This is a very experimental ‘for-fun’ service, and errors may (and will) occur.
• Calculation of points will be done after each World Cup round – but you may change your team ahead of each competition.

See the complete rules – and register your Team here!.

Lundanes will be chasing four Swiss men in real forest orienteering – only 1:05 behind. Hubmann, Kyburz, Merz and Müller are 4 x Switzerland in the lead of the Nordic Orienteering Tour, but probably don’t feel to safe with Lundanes chasing right behind in the final of NORT south of Oslo on Saturday. Among the women  Finnish Rantanen will head out half a minute ahead of Danish Maja Alm – with Billstam (SWE), Bagstevold, Fasting (both NOR), Alexandersson, Gustafsson (both SWE) all following within 1:27.

With a 50 minute chasing start for the men – and 40 minutes for the women – in “real forest” (see old old map above – there is also a newer map of part of the area at the bottom of this article) as the last stage of NORT, it is going to be a real fight for the top position and the big money prizes. At least the top 5 men – probably also a few more may mix in on the fight for victory. Among the women it is even more open – all the first 13 runners (Signe Søes, +2:49 is in 13th spot) have a realistic chance of winning with a perfect race depending on how the others perform. We have got the unusual situation that it is tighter in the women’s class than in the men’s class – 20 men within 4:52 minutes and 20 women within 4:20.

Finals not important enough?

People might be confused as to why runners they have not seen perform in the finals are high up overall

An interesting observation: Qualifications seem to be extremely important in NORT. So important that I think that at least the first qualification should have been a separate stage if this overall calculation scheme is kept. People might be confused as to why runners they have not seen perform in the finals are high up overall. Some examples:

• Rantanen who tops the women’s class overall has a 9th and an 8th place in the two first stages – whereas Eliasson who is seventh(!) overall has a 2nd and a 3rd place in the two finals and Billstam with 3rd and 5th is number three overall.
• Bagstevold is 4th overall with 15th and 20th place from the first two finals.
• Lundanes who is 5th overall in NORT has a 20th and a 23rd place from the two first finals in NORT.
• Ikonen who is 6th has a 22nd and a 28th place. Carl Waaler Kaas who is 9th has a 18th and a withdrawal.

See also:

• Results KnockOut sprint with some interesting discussions
• Nordic Orienteering Tour – all you need to know

Overall results NORT men after 2 stages

Overall results NORT women after 2 stages

• All results on the NORT pages

Stage 3

The last stage is a chase start where the total time and bonus time makes the ground for the start list. This makes that the runner that is first over the finish-line is the winner of NORT. Stage 3 is a prolonged Middle Distance chasing start (women 40 minutes, men 50 minutes) with the start times based on the NORT overall time standings after two days.

Only runners who started in both of the qualification races of NORT days one and two may start on day three. Runners who started but were not placed in either (or both) of the qualification races of NORT days one and two will take part in a separate interval start competition on the same course with the first runner starting 10 minutes after the last chasing start runner has departed. There will be a 2 minute start interval and individual start times are drawn at random. The first runner to the finish is the NORT winner.

The terrain is mainly old coniferous forest but also parts with mixed forest. Medium hilly.

Jerker Lysell and Galina Vinogradova both took their first World Cup victories in the KnockOut sprint which was the second stage of the Nordic Orienteering Tour in Göteborg, Sweden today.

Both Lysell and Vinogradova must be counted as KnockOut sprint specialists. Their only Top 3 World Cup results are from KnockOut sprints – Lysell with second spot in Stockholm last year and Vinogradova with 3rd spot in Stockholm last year.

Comment by winner Lysell: – In the quarterfinal and in the semifinal I hardly looked at the map. But in the final it felt like I wanted to show a bit more.

Maps and GPS-tracking from the semifinals and finals:

• Maps KnockOut sprint

Update June 21st, 23:55 CET:
Still no overall NORT results after two stages – kind of kills the NORT concept. Studying the results briefly also indicates that Olav Lundanes – a runner who was far behind in the final in stage 1 and nearly last in the quarterfinals in stage 2 – is around number four five in the overall NORT after two good qualification races. I’m not sure the average viewer would understand why Lundanes is in the top after that performance… Good for Lundanes – not too good for NORT.

Update June 22nd, 00:05 CET:
NORT Overall results after two stages up. 4 x Switzerland in the top among the men Finland-Denmark-Sweden among the women:

Results Final NORT Stage 2

Results Semifinal

• All results at the NORT webpage

Welcome to the NORT KnockOut Sprint Betting and LiveBlog. Here you can tip the winner in each of the semifinals and finals – and compete with others in trying to predict the results best. The best way to accompany the webTV broadcast?

Betting is open until the start of the semi-finals! Login with either Twitter or Facebook, and place your bets. Only those who participate in all bets are in on the overall. You get 10 points for each bet which is correct – and 10 minuspoints for each which is wrong (it won’t be easy to stay on the plus-side…). Note! The LiveBlog is closed for discussion & comments until 18:00 CET – place your bets now!

• WebTV broadcast
• NORT webpage

[Update: 5 Swiss men and 5 Swedish women in Semi-finals - Semi-finals live from 18:05]

From 18:05 CET you can follow the KnockOut sprint Worldwide on webTV – but already at 10:00 CET the qualification starts with a regular sprint race. As for stage 1, the qualification time counts in the overall along with bonus points from the final round, and thus the qualification race is also important for the overall (although time differences are expected to be much smaller in a regular sprint).

Important links and information:

• Live TV available from SVT play (available worldwide according to the organizers)
• There will not be live GPS-tracking – only replay from the final available from 19:30 CET here. - This is because we will not risk that any runners watch the GPS tracking before they run, Tour manager Henrik Skoglund comments.
• Live results – available from here (both qualification and final)
• See at the bottom of this page for the rules for the KnockOut sprint
• Note! Women’s overall NORT leader Anni-Maija Fincke does not start today (see comment from Tim below)
• Timetable stage 2 (Tuesday June 21st, all times are CET):
  • Qual 10:00
  • Quarterfinal 13:00
  • Semifinal 18:10 CET
  • Final 19:10 CET
• Remember to set up your Fantasy World Cup team – last chance is Tuesday 10:00 CET for Stage 2.
• Analysis, maps and results from Stage 1
• Nordic Orienteering Tour webpage

Startlist Semi-finals

Results qualification

Streetview Preview of the old map&terrain

With the old map available online – and Google Streetview also available for significant parts of the area – it is tempting to set the two together to “take a walk” through the terrain while studing the map to look at what to expect at the race. See here a short video where map and Streetview is compared. Or take a walk yourself in this interactive demo.

Overall NORT results after stage 1

Small scandal in Finland [Updated with full analysis and map samples]: All teams did not run the same total course in Jukola 2011. The problem occured on the 1st and 2nd leg, where 100 out of 1500 starting teams had wrong forking. The best placed team with wrong forking seems to be IFK Moras in 14th spot. Above you see an example for OK Hällen and Moras. None of Mora’s runners had the western -variant – none of Hällen’s runners had the eastern variant.

The organizers have put up a message on the Jukola page (in Finnish) confirming the mistake:

- Jukola error has been detected scatter diagram. [...] The organizers regret what happened.

The forking error explained

On the 1st and 2nd leg one runner should have 150-100-146 and the other 150-177-146 (controls 4-6 on the map below). For some teams both runners had either 150-100-146 or 150-177-146. The same problem also later on in the leg. Instead of one runner having 160-152-156-55 and the other 160-198-102-55 (controls 19-22 on the map below), both the 1st and 2nd leg runner in the teams had one of the variants.

Time losses?

So the question is – did this cost the affected teams time? Looking at the 5th control, it looks like the eastern one is more tricky than the western one, but we can’t know for sure. So instead of speculating, I calculated the mean time for all of the splits, and looked at the difference for the different control pairs. Note (1) that this will not give a correct answer at all, but it will give an indication of time lost/gained by the different teams and (2) these are quick calculations, I’ve only rechecked one time for errors.

Here are the average times I calculated. In addition I’ve also listed the best time on each split:

• 150-100: Average 04.38 – Best 02.29
• 100-146: Average 10.34 – Best 05.52
• 150-177: Average 10.47 – Best 06.09
• 177-146: Average 04.22 – Best 02.01
• 160-152: Average 02.43 – Best 01.21
• 152-156: Average 15.07 – Best 08.27
• 156-55: Average 01.15 – Best 00.44
• 160-196: Average 07.49 – Best 03.05
• 196-102: Average 13.56 – Best 06.58
• 102-55: Average 01.03 – Best 00.43

That gives the following for the average times/best splits for each of the variants:

• 150-100-146: Average 15.12 – Best 08.21
• 150-177-146: Average 15.09 – Best 08.10
• 160-152-156-55: Average 19.05 – Best 10.32
• 160-196-102-55: Average 22.48 – Best 10.46

If you calculate by the average time, the time gained/lost by the different teams is 3:40. If you go by the best times the time gained/lost is 3(!) seconds. Thus, it seems like teams doing few mistakes generally didn’t gain/loose significantly on this. On the other hand, the average time lost by having the worst “wrong” forking was quite big. The reason for this longer average time seems to be the tricky control 196, where several of the top teams with GPS-tracking made big mistakes. For example Kalevan Rasti who lost 4:17 to Halden on that control – more than they were behind Halden after 7 hours and 40 minutes of running. Kalevan Rasti had no problem with their forking though – they ran exactly the same controls as Halden. But some other teams had this tricky control two times – other teams didn’t have it at all…

Note again that these average calculations are based on automatic calculations from the Routegadget split files. I found some errors in the splits, so I can’t 100% guarantee for them…

Teams affected by the forking error

The following teams seem to have gotten a wrong forking (according to my analysis) – and were thus affected by the forking error:

• 14. IFK Moras OK 1 – gained time
• 30. Bäkkelagets SK 1 – gained time
• 49. Tampereen Pyrintö 2 – lost time
• 63. NTNUI 2 – gained time
• 80. OK Ravinen 1 – gained time
• 83. Ärla IF 1 – lost time
• 96. Vetelin Urheilijat 1 – gained time
• 97. Täby OK 1 – lost time
• 120. FK Göingarna 1 – gained time
• 133. Södertälje Nykvarn Orienter 3 – lost time
• 155. Bekkelagets Cowboys 1 – lost time
• 159. Tullinge SK 2 – lost time
• 185. Finspångs SOK / OK Tor 1 – gained time
• 198. Gjö-Vard OL 1 – lost time
• 204. Närpes OK 1 – gained time
• 205. Eksjö SOK 1 – gained time
• 294. Dalaportens OL 1 – gained time
• 301. Nastolan Terä 1 – lost time
• 309. IF Thor 1 – lost time
• 321. OK Kompas 1 – gained time
• 325. Kokkolan Suunnistajat 2 – lost time
• 330. Nash Klub 1 – gained time
• 341. Pohjankyrön Rasti 1 – gained time
• 355. OK Ravinen 3 – gained time
• 370. Karkki-Rasti 1 – gained time
• 376. Nostars 1 – lost time
• 381. DJK Adler 07 Bottrop 1 – lost time
• 403. OK Orion 4 – lost time
• 418. Tuupovaaran Sepot 1 – lost time
• 445. Partiolpk Tampereen Kotkat 1 – lost time
• 454. Oppsal IF 1 – lost time
• 467. Someron Esa 1 – gained time
• 468. Omega 2 – gained time
• 485. Sporttipalvelu Vesa Oksanen 1 – gained time
• 486. Keravan Urheilijat 5 – gained time
• 488. Hiiltonaiset 1 – lost time
• 502. Teme Ski Team 1 – gained time
• 514. Rastihaukat 1 – gained time
• 547. Panssariprikaati 1 – lost time
• 565. Hiiumaa OK 1 – gained time
• 570. IF Femman 2 – lost time
• 576. Arboga OK 2 – lost time
• 580. KuoLOn Kankeat 1 – gained time
• 611. OK Jorren 1 – lost time
• 626. IK Falken 1 – gained time
• 635. Saarijärven Pullistus 3 – gained time
• 640. RastiPiikkiö 1 – gained time
• 690. Peikot Hiihto 1 – lost time
• 697. OK Orient 4 – lost time
• 702. SK Vuoksi 3 – lost time
• 713. Stora Enso Metsä 2 – lost time
• 745. AS Skinnarila 2 – lost time
• 762. Hiidenkiertäjät 1 – gained time
• 767. Keravan Urheilijat 2 – gained time
• 793. IK Auseklis 3 – lost time
• 810. Länsi-Lavian Loiske 1 – gained time
• 815. Espoon Suunta 9 – lost time
• 831. Tamrock 1 – lost time
• 835. Alastaron Reserviläiset 2 – lost time
• 861. Rauman Työväen Urheilijat 1 – lost time
• 867. Sauvon Urheilijat 1 – lost time
• 876. SaniBeach Rats 1 – gained time
• 889. PuTi 1 – lost time
• 892. Peräkylän Ponnistus 1 – lost time
• 894. SKK-Dynamo 1 – gained time
• 895. Lankkuan Kyläjoukkue 1 – gained time
• 900. Turun Tiemiehet 1 – lost time
• 907. Someron Esa 2 – gained time
• 962. Hiukkasen Hukassa 1 – gained time
• 966. FanaGneist 1 – lost time
• 980. Pihkaniskat 7 – gained time
• 988. Koovee 5 – gained time
• 1023. Olarin Omat Pojat 2 – gained time
• 1028. Nordea Urheilu 1 – gained time
• 1044. Suuntavaisto SK 5 – lost time
• 1048. Valtra 1 – gained time
• 1051. Jalasjärven Jalas 2 – gained time
• 1053. Liperin Taimi 2 – gained time
• 1116. Vaaran Vaeltajat 1 – lost time
• 1123. Alajärven Ankkurit 3 – gained time
• 1131. Kilon Miekka 1 – gained time
• 1157. Riihimäen Suunnistajat 3 – lost time
• 1159. Kortesjärven Järvi-Veikot 3 – lost time
• 1166. Suunnaton Into 2 – lost time
• 1173. Rajamäen Rykmentti 8 – lost time
• 1193. Sotkamon Jymy 2 – lost time
• 1199. ABB SK 1 – gained time
• 1207. Kymin Suunnistajat 4 – gained time
• 1227. Suunnannäyttäjät 1 – lost time
• 1232. Hiidenkiertäjät 2 – lost time
• 1289. Sonninmäen Karjut 1 – gained time
• 1291. Erräät Oppaat 1 – gained time
• 1317. El Pantera 1 – gained time
• 1336. Hämeenlinnan Suunnistajat 3 – gained time
• 1339. Solf IK 1 – gained time
• 1342. Beach Boys 1 – lost time
• 1344. Maarian Mahti 2 – gained time
• 1400. Attunda OK 3 – lost time
• 1421. Jalasjärven Jalas 1 – lost time
• 1437. Eduskunnan Urheilukerho 1 – gained time
• 1439. OK Hällen 1 – lost time

Note! I found the first report about this on the Alternativet discussion forum posted by user Aj earlier today. I then run through the all the published splits, and found a list of 100 of 1500 teams with different forking from the winners. I then posted it on Twitter.

Thierry Gueorgiou won the first duel for Kalevan Rasti at the long night of Jukola against Anders Nordberg, but Olav Lundanes won the second and more important duel for Halden against Fabian Hertner and Kalevan Rasti.

• Replay all of the excitement in the LiveBlog at the bottom of this page. Including a lot of map extracts from all the important moments in the relay!

Olav Lundanes put up an impressive show on the last leg – running faster and more securely than Hertner. In the end Hertner was caught by the group behind after several smaller and bigger mistakes, and Olav Lundanes could cruise alone to victory more than 4 minutes ahead of number two.

Note! This report is based on GPS-data from the TV broadcast only! Full GPS-data will be released during Sunday.

Leg 1

There were some mistakes by both Kalevan Rasti and Halden, but they were not decisive as both Halden and Kalevan Rasti were close to the lead.

Leg 2

Halden early got a lead over Kalevan Rasti – but then does a mistake. Kalevan Rasti follows up with a big mistake – and is suddenly more than 4 minutes behind at the changeover.

Leg 3

Ready for the Thierry Gueorgiou show. Going out 4 minutes behind – slowly picking up team after team – and in the end a lead of nearly a minute!

Starting 4 minutes behind, Gueorgiou was on the hunt for the leading group.

- The main problem I had was that I did not know if it was the leading group I caught up when I caught up with runners. Each time I caught somebody, I asked the people if this was the lead group or not. They usually did not even answer, so I kept running fast.

After passing runner after runner, Gueorgiou finally arrived at the front of the field.

- Then I saw my good friend Anders (Nordberg), so I knew that I was close to the leading group. I run for a while with him, and then I had a different forking, and kept going strong and got a gap. I made a small mistake at the very last control, but it was no problem.

Gueorgiou had mixed feelings about running the third leg in this years Jukola relay.

- I think it was Antti’s idea. I am training a lot in winter time at night, so I know I am strong there. As I was running the 3rd leg here,  I was this year also training on running fast at night. Lately I run every night, so I think I was well prepared.

Anders Nordberg on the other hand was very impressed with Gueorgiou’s race.

- I did two-three quite big mistakes. I probably lost 2-3 minutes in all on them. It was an OK race, but Thierry ran very fast. The mistakes were mostly the last 50 meters  into the control.

Leg 4

Delta’s Lauri Sild started 58 seconds behind Kalevan Rasti, and Halden had 3:25 to pick on Kalevan Rasti when starting the 4th leg. The 4th leg was however a Sild-show. Winning the leg with more than 2 minutes, he gave Delta a 4 minute lead! Behind that Halden got closer to Kalevan Rasti – finishing the leg around 2 minutes behind Kalevan Rasti and 6:13 behind Delta.

Leg 5

Whereas the 4th leg was a Sild show – the 5th was a Haldin show. Although Kiril Nikolov (Kalevan Rasti) came first back from the leg, Haldin (Halden) was 1:30 faster and came back only 36 seconds behind Kalevan Rasti in 4th spot – thus setting the scene for Emil Wingstedt on the 6th leg.

Leg 6

The 6th leg was were Halden wanted to get that small gap for Olav Lundanes for him to get his back free from Fabian Hertner (Kalevan Rasti).

Emil Wingstedt waited patiently behind Adamski, and took him in the end of the relay.

- Philippe went so fast and was offensive, so it was difficult to get ahead in this type of terrain withouthim doing a mistake. Therefore I just waited, and attacked when I got the opportunity.

- I waited all the race. We had the same forking except for one place, and there I had longer forking. Then I saw that Philippe went a little bit off the ideal line in one place, and I used the opportunity.

Leg 7

At the start of the leg it looked like it might get exciting with only a 44 second lead for Lundanes. But the spectators soon saw that this was Lundanes’ day. Lundanes slowly crept away from Fabian Hertner (Kalevan Rasti). Lundanes doing no mistakes – Hertner doing small mistakes all the way.

Lundanes was quite confident that it all went the Halden way.

- You never now if you are first with long legs and forking. But I thought I had run a very good race, so I expected that I was first when I saw nobody out there.

Hertner on the other hand was caught by the followers after a rather big mistake at the 22nd control. In the end he managed to compose himself, and took the second spot for Kalevan Rasti.

Replay the excitement: LiveBlog

You may replay all of the excitement in the LiveBlog: