This weekend is Jukola (a huge relay in Finland). Look for OK to provide on-line coverage through the OK forum.

One of the clubs we will follow is IF Thor (Magnus and Sanna's Swedish club). Sanna is running the first of four legs for IF Thor's second team. Her leg is about 6.5 km. Sanna had a fantastic run in Tiomila and she recently trained in Lawrence! You can't ask for better preparation than a run along the river trail. We'll also be keeping an eye on IF Thor's first women's team. Johanna Svensson is scheduled to run the second leg. Johanna was one of the instructors at the Texas Junior Orienteering Camp I attended last week.

IF Thor has only one men's team and Magnus didn't place. But, watch our for them anyways because Magnus is the coach (and a reserve runner in case of illness or injury).

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), June 11, 2001

Answers

Just to start things out, OKers may want to visit the official Finnish Jukola 2001 Website where you can find links to the Swedish as well as English versions of the same, if you don't read Finnish, (and who does?). The English version lacks a number of things, but I think I've been able to figure out an approximate time table and converted it to HDT (8 hours behind the local time in Finland)...

Timetable - all times Homeland Daylight Savings Time

====================================================

Venla - starts at 7am (HDT) Sat. June 16th, finishes about 10:55am

leg     length (km)     est. best time changeover time      climb (m)
------- -----------     -------------- ---------------      ---------
1.   	6,86-6,95       0,42            7,42                100
2.   	6,12-6,21       0,37            8,19                 95
3.   	7,12-7,19       0,44           10,03                145
4.   	8,08,8,15       0,52           10,55                175

====================================================================

Jukola - starts at 3pm (HDT) Sat. June 16th, finishes about 10:08pm
 
leg     length (km) illumination    est. time  changeover climb (m)
------- ----------  --------------  ---------  ---------- ---------
1.      11,9-12,2   Ljust/skymning  1,05       4.05       205
2.      12,0-12,3   Skymning        1,10       5.15 	  220
3.      13,2-13,3   Skymning        1,15       6.30       240
4.      7,3-7,5     Skymning/ljust  0,41       7.11       135
5.      7,3-7,5     Ljust           0,40       7.51       135
6.      9,7-9,8     Ljust           0,53       8.44 	  190
7.      14,6-14,7   Ljust           1,24      10.08       300 

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), June 11, 2001.

Who would be on the OK Jukola team?

You may recall that we selected a hypothetical OK team for Tio-mila (see http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl? msg_id=0054nJ).

With only seven legs, it'll be tougher to be selected for the team. Maybe we should pick two teams?

In considering your selections, keep in mind that OKer can be broadly defined (e.g. feel free to pick Magnus, Sanna, Raymond, or even non- OKers who frequently post to the OK forum).

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 12, 2001.

Here are my picks for OK's venla team.

Sanna will run the first leg. Sanna had a fantastic run on the first leg during 10-mila. She had a bad day at Halsingekavlen (but that was probably because her mind was on her up-coming trip to Lawrence). I think she'll be ready for a strong run at venla. Her training on the river trail in Lawrence prepped her perfectly.

Mary is on the second or third leg. Mary has been training a bit. She has raced a bit this spring and has been having decent races.

I put Nancy on the second or third leg. Nancy also has been training and racing a good bit this spring.

Peggy gets the anchor leg.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 14, 2001.

Hi OK,

maybe you remember last year and Jukola? We will be there once again - not online, but covering all the legs in POOR English. Hope you'll enjoy - as we will because it has been raining a lot in Finland and fields are not going to hold. It's going to be a real mud-Jukola as 1981 in Rajamäki.

You'll find us http://www.onewscosmos.com

cheers Heikki

-- Heikki Levonen (hotmail@onewscosmos.com), June 14, 2001.

Hi Heikki!

One thing for sure, your "poor" english (it's probably 100% fine) will be a thousand times better than our Finnish!

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), June 14, 2001.

Another possible source of info from Jukola will be the Norwegian orienteering news services O-Nett at:

http://www.o-nett.com/

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 15, 2001.

Start list are available.

711 teams are listed for Venla at:

http://www.jukola.net/2001/ve_lahtolista.html

1215 teams are listed for Jukola at:

http://www.jukola.net/2001/ju_lahtolista.html

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), June 15, 2001.

In order in insightfully comment on a race such as Jukola, it is necessary to expend hard effort at analyzing all the available data. In that regard, it is much like the Fed analyzing the present state of the US economy.

After our rigorous analysis, and prior to the start of the races, here's our preliminary conclusion: there are a lot of teams! we have also observed that many of the teams entered are composed of runners with unpronounceable names.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), June 15, 2001.