This is the place for live coverage of the world's largest orienteering relay -- Jukola. Look for Orienteer Kansas coverage to begin aound late afternoon Saturday (June 17). The start is at 4 p.m. (Kansas time, aka HDT) with the first leg runners finishing around 5:15 HDT.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), June 17, 2000

Answers

Jukola is underway. We've got a long time before the winners will be in. If you're following Jukola from the US, get yourself a nice cold beverage and join us in following the race. If you're following Jukola from Scandinavia, brew yourself a cup of strong, hot, coffee to keep yourself warm and awake.

We will post updates throughout the event. But, to improve your Jukola experience, you should really talk with us using Yahoo Messenger (download it and register for free at www.yahoo.com). My yahoo ID -- which you need to send me a message -- is okansas.geo and Mook's is mooook_2000

On with the race!

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), June 17, 2000.

The race is, apparently, underway now. We'll keep checking for the first news to come in. --- 4:08pm HDT

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

O' News Cosmos is keeping us up with the action. Malmby-Strangnas lead into the first split are followed by a bunch of other teams like Halden 1. A couple of teams were missed during the first 2 minutes... Tampereen Pyrinto and Bakkelagets (I won' try to put punctuation on the vowels because I don't have the keyboard set up to do that and putting them in the html is too long).

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

4:55 HDT. Exteme Radio is reporting that the runners are about 20 minutes from the end of the first leg. They also report that the organizers had some trouble with the results service during the first part of Venla...and they are having the same trouble now. Let's hope some hard working geeks are working to fix the problem.

Extreme Radio is also bombarding me with cheesy (but not necessarily bad) Scandi-Euro-Pop music.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

Strdngnds-Malmby 1 sec ahead of Halden SK @ 12.7km, no 3rd team reported.

-- peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

Thanks Peter. We appreciate your help with our on-line coverage.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

Thanks for the update Peter!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

After 1st leg: 1.Strdngnds-Malmby (rudolf ropek) 2.Halden SK (bjvrn erikson) 13sec 3.Bdkkelagets SPK (unknown) 1.37 after

-- peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

Interesting to look at the top four after the first leg. 1st. Strdngnds-Malmby (Rudolf Ropek) 1.17.42 2nd. Halden (Bjvrn Eriksen)+12 3rd. Bakkelagets (Alain Berger) +1.38 and 4th. Delta (Petri Forsman) +2.37.

Two of the top four are non-Scandinavians. Ropek is Czhech (I think) and Berger is Swiss (I think). But, I'm pretty sure both live in Scandinavia. We need to get a few Americans to live over there and maybe we'll start to see improvements at the top level.

Forsman is apparently running his first O' race since last Fall. I remember being very impressed when I saw Forsman running in the forest. I was manning a control at the base of a small cliff. The runners would come to the control, punch, then run around the cliff and head off toward the next marker. Forsman lept halfway up the cliff, put his foot on a little ledge, and lept to the top. Essentially he ran up a cliff. I was impressed.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

The Jukola photos being posted by our friends at O News Cosmos show it being pretty dark. I was under the impression Joensuu was far enough north that it would stay fairly light during the first leg (even with the start at midnight).

Maybe the weather has something to do with it. It is cloudy. The latest report is that it is 41 degress with a chance of thunderstorms. The low should get down to about 35. Rain adn 35 woudl sure feel cold.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

6:00 HDT. It is still early. But, if you picked Halden to win, you're looking good. They are already out in the lead and alone. 3.3 K in the second leg and Kjetil Bjorlo has a lead of over 2 minutes.

Jukola, unlike this year's Tio-Mila, has only forked legs. That should make it easier for a runner who is all alone to stay in the lead. If you remember, during the non-forked leg at Tiomila, packs formed and chased down the lone runners.

Of course, there is still a lot of racing left (over 6.5 hours), but Halden is looking good at this stage.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

2nd radio @ 5.9km, 2nd leg. 1.Halden SK (Kjetil Bjvrlo) 2.Hdmeldinen Suunistajat 4:09 3.IF Femman 4:10 4.Malung 4:11 5.Delta

-- Peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

About halfway through his leg, Kjetil B from Halden has increased his lead to 4:09. Wow.

If you were at Jukola, you could be watching the action on a giant TV screen while listening to Extreme Radio (where they just played a classic early 1980s European pop tune called "vamos a la playa").

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

Does anyone know what "Jukola" and "Venla" mean in Finnish?

-- Mary (maprunner@juno.com), June 17, 2000.

The name Jukola is described in the official web site somewhere. It has something to do with a novel about 7 (or some large number) of children in a family??? Or something like that... I think Jukola is the name of their house or village... maybe someone can correct me on this.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

None of the teams of particular interest to OK are among the leaders and we are still looking for more results to show up on the official site. There are results of the first split in the first leg. There we have: Lidingo 1 in 76th, 8:14 behind, Lidingo 2 11:59 back, IKHP 1 8:05 back in 73rd place, IKHP 3 31:56 behind in 333rd. Of course there is almost the entire race still ahead!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

halden in the lead after 2nd leg. kjetil was wery happy with his run on the 2nd, he did get alone in the very beginnig of the 2nd leg and could do his own race all the way to the finnsh. haldens team has been in the jukola for a few days before the relay to get a "feeling" how the terrain should be. kjetil said that all in haldens team are very focused on their goal and he also said that this opening of the realy is the best possible for them because all of them have much experiance from orientering.

Haldens lead is 4:30 2nd team is malung, and after them is the main pack comming.

-- peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

After two legs, Halden is 4:30 ahead. Extreme radio took a break from it's cheesy Euro-pop to interview Halden's Bjorlo. The interview was a bit hard to follow (remember I'm listening to realaudio over a modem and while I have no trouble with most Swedish, I miss a bit in Norwegian). But, some of the things I think Bjorlo said were interesting...

Bjorlo said he had a good run. Going out in second place was perfect. He went carefully (i.e. being sure with the map reading) and kept a steady pace, hoping it would hold up for the entire leg. Halden came to Finland a few days early to get in some extra training in the unusual terrain. But, the unusual terrain was not really a problem because their runners have a lot of experience. The interviewer asked if there was additional pressure for Halden since they've got a lead. Bjorlo said the runner can run his own race and has time to be careful and solve the problems. So, really it is an advantage.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

6:52 HDT. The third leg is underway. It is 14 K (the only longer leg is the last one). The leading third leg runners should finish around 8 HDT.

Mook is taking a break and I am taking something of a break. I'll keep the computer on and might even have Extreme Radio in the background. But, look for a bit of a break in the frequency of updates (at least from Mook and I).

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

7:57 HDT. Less than a kilometer to go and Halden is ahead by six minutes. But, a glimmer of hope for the chasing teams. There is a group of four and they are together. Maybe they can begin to pull some time back on Halden?

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

Logged onto http://personal.inet.fi/urheilu/cosmos/jukolakama.html and got to see the photos. What was the night (crowd) scene with all the lights? Are those all headlamps?

Liisa V. . . One of the first Scandinavian names I learned . . . She's in my personal sports of fame along with Eddy Merckx and Collette Besson. . .

-- mean gene (gmw@ukans.edu), June 17, 2000.

What was the night (crowd) scene with all the lights? Are those all headlamps?

Those were all headlamps. It must have been something to see over 1100 runner with lamps on their heads as they ran off in to the forest. The start was at midnight in Finland (4 HDT).

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

I'm wondering if our frien in Sweden, Peter, is still awake. It must be getting hard to stay awake over there. (Even with Extreme Radio playing up-beat cheesy pop). Peter -- go make yourself a cup of coffee and grab a bullar....stay with us!

Our friend Heikki at O News Cosmos seems to be awake, but getting a little bit silly. I'm hoping he'll drop by these pages before to long.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kmco.org), June 17, 2000.

Halden is still in the lead near the end of leg 4. But, the lead is not quite as large as it was. There are two teams just under five minutes behind (Nydalen and a Finnish club I couldn't udnerstand the name of). Extreme radio is playing "sommartider" -- another cheesy, but still pretty good, pop song.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

I just came from "the long night", it was easy and a little bit to short (15km). My time was 1.32. But we will be worse in the end...

-- Heikki (onewscosmos@hotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

Mike, where can I hear this cheesy euro-pop music? My Yahoo messenger name is kimwee_bro, I just sent a reponse to Mooook (I think).

-- mean gene (gmw@ukans.edu), June 17, 2000.

Here are some results of local interest after the 4th leg:

10th: IFK Lidingo (after one of the fastest 4th legs by Mjosund Asgeir)
27th: IKHP 1
88th: IFK Lidingo 2

And after the 1st split of the 5th leg IFK Lidingo 1 is 14th, 16:22 back with Per Ek running that leg. --- 9:48pm HDT

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

im still awake, 5am here, zzzzz, ive have been out for 1h or so to catch some fresh air.

-- peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

9:50 HDT: Runners are on the sixth leg. Halden is leading by about five minutes. Nydalen and a Finnish club I'll call T.M. are together. Hedemora is next at 10:24 behind and then comes Bakkelaget.

All of this is courtesy of Extreme Radio at:

http://extrem-das.nedecon.fi/DAS/audio/live.rm

And, of course, it is great to see Heikki is back.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

halden 5:30 ahead of nydalen

-- peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 17, 2000.

More things from after the 4th leg:

118th: IF Thor 1
331st: IKHP 3 about 59 min. back

And... after the 5th leg:

1: Halden, 2: Nydalens, 3: Turun Met., 13: IFK Lidingo

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 17, 2000.

10:48 HDT. Last leg runners are on the course. Halden is 8 minutes ahead of Nydalen.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 17, 2000.

Near the end of the 6th leg, Extreme Radio reported Lidingo in 7th. That is quite a good place. They're picking up spots. Can they improve. I'd say third is not absolutely out of the question....but, it'd be pretty stunning to catch up to Bakkelaget.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

Top 15 after 6 legs:

1 (1) 77 Halden SK 1 NORT 6.44.49 Huovila Jarkko 1.09.00
2 (2) 8 Nydalens Skiklub 1 NORT 6.53.03 Plattner Christoph 1.12.18
3 (5) 1 Bdkkelagets SK 1 NORT 6.58.36 Johansen Holger Hot 1.10.40
4 (14) 2 SK Pohjantdhti 1 FINT 6.59.21 Ikonen Pasi 1.05.41
5 (6) 21 Svdertdlje Orienteerin 1 SWET 6.59.56 Wehlin Michael 1.11.31
6 (8) 3 Delta 1 FINT 6.59.57 Hernelahti Miika 1.10.07
7 (10) 7 Leksands OK 1 SWET 7.00.12 Dalin Anders 1.09.47
8 (13) 15 IFK Lidingv 1 SWET 7.00.14 Lvwegren Fredrik 1.06.38
9 (3) 9 Turun Metsdnkdvijdt 1 FINT 7.00.17 Mutka Manu 1.19.10
10 (7) 29 IFK Gvteborg 1 SWET 7.01.50 Larsson Martin 1.12.08
11 (4) 26 IFK Hedemora 1 SWET 7.03.09 Quayle Tom 1.16.50
12 (9) 35 Hdmeenlinnan Suunnista 1 FINT 7.05.31 Kdrner Olle 1.15.36
13 (20) 10 Farum Tisvilde OK 1 DENT 7.06.09 Mogensen Allan 1.08.15
14 (16) 27 Malungs OK Skogsmerdar 1 SWET 7.07.27 Bluett Granty 1.11.19
15 (18) 4 Tampereen Pyrintv 1 FINT 7.07.46 Mdhvnen Jouni 1.10.05


-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

The gap on Halden closed just a bit... anything is still possible... or is it?

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

Nearing the end of a long day...let's speculate. What could happen?

Halden will stay in the lead. They're too far in front and too good to blow it. Although big leads have been blown.

Any of the top ten teams would have a shot at moving all the way up to 2nd. I'll guess that Lidingo and Bakkelaget will be fighting it out on the run in....with Lidingo pulling away and taking 2nd.

What about IKHP3. Look for Swampfox to run well -- have some early pain in his hamstring that eases off later in the course -- moving his team up a few places.

Anyone else care to speculate?

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

Look for Swampfox to pull out all the stops and post a 92-minute anchor leg, the best run of his life. He will be the talk of Jukola and will be bombarded by clubs after the race wanting him to join. He will steadfastly proclaim his loyalty to IKHP, but there will be a surprise doping test waiting for him after the finish line. Not all will be on the up and up. There will be questions asked. The press will give him a hard time. How could some cowboy post the best time on the anchor leg? People will always wonder, but he will always know in his heart that he ran a clean race. He will retire on top and ride off into the sunset.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

Bdkkelagets SPK may catch up with nydalen, because Bjvrnar is eXtremly strong, no runner in the world can match him when it comes to orientering. Ive read a article about him, on 1years training and competing he missed 10 out of 2800(!!!!!!!!!) controlls with more than 1 min. Impressive!!

-- peter (peter_larsson@gotmail.com), June 18, 2000.

11:50 HDT. Tore Sandvik from Halden has about 5 K left. he just passed through the spectator control, got a drink, and ran off.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

Look for Swampfox to pull out all the stops and post a 92-minute anchor leg, the best run of his life. He will be the talk of Jukola

I wonder how you say "Platt La Supris American" in Finnish?

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

Platt too much sisu?

-- mean gene (gmw@ukans.edu), June 18, 2000.

Platt mddr amerikkalainen ylldtys!

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), June 18, 2000.

I should point out that Halden has a strong American connection. The Hollowells lived in Halden several years. Tom, Jr. and Doug both learned orienteering there and were among the top US orienteers in the early 1980s. I wonder what they are up to now. Last I heard, Tom was living in Sweden arnd running for OK Tyr.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

12:20 HDT. Radio Extreme interupts "Vamos A La Playa" to bring us....Halden Wins! They just ran in the finish. The nearest competitor is seven minutes behind.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

12:24 HDT. Tore Sandvik, Halden's anchor, says he had a few mistakes. He lost some time in the beginning and felt a bit nervous. But, near the end he heard he had a lead of five minutes and felt calm then.

-- Micahel (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

12:35 HDT. The top three teams are from Norway -- Halden, Nydalen, and Bakkelaget. Fourth is Delta from Finland. I'm not sure, but I think Lidingo took 5th (I was listening to an interview with Bjornar Valstad on Extreme and you could hear the announcer in teh background saying Lidingo was on the way in).

Its been a long day, and a good day. Throughout the day a number of OKers and others checked in. Several of us chatted on Messenger. OK's live coverage of relays is becoming more and more popular.

On behalf of Orienteer Kansas, a special "thanks" to O' News Cosmos, Peter, and Extreme Radio.

-- Michel (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 18, 2000.

Mook is still around to report...

Lidingo took 6th it turned out.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

Cosmos is advertising the fact that Tore Sandvik's routes will be shown on a map. I think he's there for an interview. --- 2am HDT

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

I think Swampfox has been out about 90 minutes now. It must be getting tough. This is the time when a cowboy should be at his best!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

Updates to the results at the Jukola 2000 site have slowed to a trickle. It looks like deja vu and the Tiomila again. I'll wait around longer though I'm starting to get a bit pessimistic --- 2:27am HDT.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

The results are coming out in big chunks, but with a lot of lag time in between. About 25 min ago they posted up to place 239 at the end of the 7th leg. Swampfox started his run in 246th place for IKHP3... I am hoping it won't be much longer before the next batch of finishing times is posted. Meanwhile it is a bit boring just sitting here ...waiting and being tired. --- 3:23 HDT

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

It is 3:40am HDT and the next batch of results came out for the end of the 7th leg. 297 places are listed. I don't see Swampfox. I don't know what's going on, but I can't bring myself to believe this is particularly good news. At this point I think it is in my best interest to call it a night (it would help if splits were listed, but those are even less up-to-date than the final results).

Hopefully all is well and I can sleep peacefully. We'll have to check in later with the results to see what's what.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 18, 2000.

It would appear that after a long night, the Finns must have fallen asleep, because they never posted any results for the final leg after 302nd place. Swampfox did not appear in there, suggesting that he must have lost at least 57 places. This would suggest that he took at least 2:43 on a leg that the leaders did in 1:32. Perhaps something has been missed.

Results of interest: 6) Lidingo 1 - 13 min back 17) IKHP 1 - 25 min back 69) Lidingo 2 - 1:06 back 130) IKHP 2 - 1:21 back

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), June 18, 2000.

I looked at the Jukola results and they list IKHP3. But, they only show two runners. The result is listed as "HYLDTTY." I don't know Finnihs, by HYLDTTY can't be good. It looks to me like IKHP3 must have been DQ'd.

I checked Swampfoxes web page, but the page has not been updated since June 8. We'll look forward to finding out exactly what happened.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 19, 2000.

You can check out the map and Tore Sandvik's route choices from O' News Cosmos. They posted a link to the map from their Jukola Online 2000 web site. Look at the top of the page for the link.

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 20, 2000.

HYLDTTY is Finnish for "rejected", or something along those lines, which in this context translates to DSQ. It appears the second leg runner must have mispunched, though it's not clear why the leg 4, 5, and 6 runners then went out, but not (apparently) Mikell.

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), June 20, 2000.

There are a lot of statistics about Jukola results at:

http://tulos.kalevanrasti.fi/rvanalyysi/rva_jukola.htm

For each runner on 1171 teams, there is an entire page of statistics. Unfortunately, the stats are all in Finnish. But, you can still figure out some of it (and with a Finnish-English dictionary you'd probably be able to figure out almost all of it).

Unfortunately, all these stats don't shed any light on the fate of Swampfox. There are no stats listed for any of the runners for IKHP3.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 20, 2000.

The mystery of Mikell appears solved. Today he just added a mention of the race to his 'races' page, though the full story isn't in the 'journal' page yet. IKHP 3's second runner DNF'd, but Mikell went out on the sixth leg and did pretty well. I guess the sixth runner for that team, labeled 'Lars Hanning' in the results, is really Mikell. If so, he moved the team from 267th to 245th, running 91:39 on a leg that most leaders did in around 70:00 (very fastest was 66:38).

-- Dan S-H (stollhadayia@hotmail.com), June 22, 2000.