Discussion: Jukola 2004

oh, forgot to mention:

The (very nice) Finnish guy I stayed with on Friday and Sunday nights offered use of his 8-bed country cottage for next year, for a week between the Suunto Games 2-day in Helsinki and the Jukola. Did I mention the cottage is located north of Tampere, 10 km from the WOC 2001 classic map, 50 km from Jamijarvi (where Jukola will be) and 60 km from Forssa (for the Phone Games)..

and no, I'm not joking. start training now to make the selection !

Unless someone would like to take over, I will again volunteer to organize the 2004 trip. The dates are 19–20 June 2004. It would be great to have a competitive first team (note also the "shocking requirement" I suggested in an earlier post; I guess it should be relaxed somewhat for EU-resident people). It would also be great to have a less-serious but nevertheless competitive second team like we had this year. In view of the de-facto composition of the teams this year, I think we should be called Team AttackPoint. Unless biggins is willing to fork over some sponsor $ in which case we can go for Team CatchingFeatures.com.

If you are interested, send me e-mails and at some point I'll put together an e-mail list. My personal plans are to come to the Jukola straight from the APOC (which ends one week before).

For those who would like to try a big-time relay in the meanwhile in the US, there are the Hood to Coast and the Providian. Sorry, no controls. And either, a bit of a trip from Paris...

I am interested in going back again. I may have had the commitment this year but was behind on the training and dissapointed with my run. I would love another shot at that first leg with the experience I gained this year. More training, a better seeding, a bigger light, understand Finnish numbers, and probably the most important: contacts. I am going to add that to my goals for the year. Learn to put my contacts in so I can orienteer in the rain.

Although scheduling precluded me going this year, Jukola is still on my list of things to do, so I would like to try and schedule it in for next year. I am definitely a second team caliber runner though (competitive, but in the physically slower over 40 crowd)...

The brief description I saw for next year indicates very fast terrain (open rocky ridges interspersed with flat sandy heaths) but the images they show don't exactly look 'fast'. They are estimated an average pace of 5min/km for the winnig team next year, and perhaps under 6min/km for the fastest Venla teams.

If I am able to go, I'd be interested in assisting with logistics...

Over the years, I did observed the proportions and interes, that Jukola and Tiomila has in the orienteering world,and always thought,of forming a competitive team and organize myself the road trip and the rest,but could'nt find onother 6 commited people,so never went.
Now that I am getting,back in shape and I see that are some serious (more or less) thoughts to put toghether a good USOF team,I am definitely in for the next years.And I belive,that with good preparation , good team composition and of course commitment,the 1 st. USOF team,can make the top 50,in the close future or even better.

Some people might be interested that the dates of next year's world student championships (Plzen, CZE) are 21-27 June, which fits in well with Jukola if you're not taking the student champs too seriously. But if you are, then it's a bit trickier...

aaahhhh world students... in the home of Pils(ner)... what a wonderful world...

Did someone say 19th and 20th? Oooh, I thought I couldn't go next year since I graduate on the second weekend in June and I thought the Jukola was always on that weekend. Now it looks like there may be a possibility. Put me down as interested anyway.

For everyone's reference, if Greg weren't disqualified and without Matthias's wrong-Emit penalty, the US O-Team and Friends 1 would have paced about 272.

272 ain't bad. Now there's a goal for the team to beat next year....

Congrats!
Next year the Golden Horseshoe Orienteering Club (GHO) will be entering a team in Jukola (Canada's first official club team to race Jukola). So you have another goal - the battle of North America!

For next year, top 150 should be feasible if we really do get together for a training week beforehand..it's about an hour faster than what we did, which is a lot, but you can save a good 25 minutes on my leg alone, plus 5-10 minutes on everybody else's except Eric's.