Spring Season Ends with Finnish Delight
Ten intrepid club members made the long trip to Kotka in SE Finland, to take part in the 2026 edition of the Jukola relay, the world’s biggest orienteering event. And one more went just to watch.
There are two main races - the Venla 4 person women-only relay race held on a Saturday afternoon, followed by the 7 person Jukola open relay race that starts at 23.00 that evening, and goes through the short Finnish midsummer night into the Sunday morning. The winners are decided by about 07.00, the stragglers are still in the terrain at lunchtime!
To celebrate our tenth anniversary, LuxO entered a team in each race. Our Venla team was Olena, Agne, Orsi, and guest Véronique, on loan from ARDOC, our neighbouring club from the St Vith area. Our Jukola team was led off by Jevgenijs, followed by Sasha, Jonas L, Jonas W, President Jan, Roland L, and (once again, recovered from her Venla run) Olena.
So - with nearly 2,000 teams entered in each of the two races, how did it all go for LuxO?
VENLA - Agne
After my first Jukola (and first time in Finland actually), Orsi asked me how my experience was and I replied “oh, I could write a whole article about it”, so here it is:-)
What did I know about Jukola before signing up? That it is a huge international orienteering event with over 1.5k teams in Venla relay itself (4 women in each team), which means the forest will be full of strong Finnish runners and tracks. I have studied the maps and Youtube videos (yes, such exists) of previous races in the area to get familiar with the famous Finnish terrain full of swamps and rocks. Luckily, all these things did not make me very stressed since our team agreed that we are going to Jukola to have fun and enjoy the atmosphere rather than chasing results. I also read some articles from organizers stating that routes will be very “runnable” which made me even more at ease. Soon I realised though that a person who is training in the forests of Finland and someone who is training on the paths of Luxembourg has a very different understanding of what runnable is :-)
So, let’s get into the race itself. Venla relay normally starts in the afternoon so I had time to sleep and eat properly. I was staying optimistic that the wet weather forecast will change at the last minute but I guess did not pray hard enough… I arrived at the race center and found the rest of the girls hiding from the rain in our military tent with a LuxO flag. Soon we moved to watch the mass start and support our first leg star - Olena. Watching more than a thousand runners rushing into the forest (and probably at least twice as much spectators) was impressive.
Afterwards I got changed and went into the changeover area - where you can warm up (or try not to freeze from the pouring rain) while waiting for your relay partner to finish their leg. What was pretty cool that you could track when Olena reached a certain check-point so you knew when to expect her back. And she was back very fast! Which was good and bad for me :-)
The fact that Olena finished with the first hundred girls meant that I also was running among very strong runners (which I am not…). It was a bit distracting at the beginning as my head was rushing with all kinds of thoughts. However, I remembered that my plan was not to follow others and do my own orienteering so I tried to focus.
Having tracks, left by previous runners, all around you, is good and bad. It is definitely easier to follow one as you don’t need to lift your legs that much while navigating the terrain. But it also means that you are following someone else's route choice and it is not always accurate. Especially as in such races organizers always use ‘forking’ - several controls with different numbers at a close distance from each other. I have to admit that I found many which were not mine... but in such case I was asking other runners to show me where it is on the map and that was helpful to navigate to my control.
In general, I was told that Finnish runners do not speak much English and just shout control numbers in Finnish. However, I did not encounter any issues communicating in English, I was helping others and they were helping me.
Getting back to the race: I don’t know if subconsciously or not,but I was trying not to look at the full map and what is ahead of me, just focusing on 1-2 controls at a time. Because when I was studying training maps, long distance controls were the scariest to me since there was maybe 10% running on paths involved and everything else meant using your compass and trying to stay on course while crossing endless swamps, dark green forests and streams. So it is not a surprise that the long distance control went horribly wrong with 15min+ and 500+ places lost…
I was actually close to the control but it was hidden so well behind the huge boulder that I thought I am at the wrong place. The fact that there were hundreds of people running around in different directions was not helpful either. But we live and learn :-)
The rest of the course went without many mistakes but since I was doing the longest leg, I was already a bit tired. There were a lot of rocks, covered with moss, which after the rain were slippery and muddy, so I also had to go slow in order not to injure myself. Now I know why other runners were wearing shoes with metal spikes.
The feeling of finish soon took me over as I was dreaming about warm shower and feeling bad for those who haven’t started their part yet.
At the finish line I passed a map to an overly excited Orsi, who did not know what was waiting for her, and warned her about the muddy conditions.
At this point I do not care about mistakes anymore and just feel the joy of completing something that I would describe as “out of cosmos”…
It would be nice to stick around waiting for my team to finish and stroll around the race center, but I am so soaked and cold I rather choose to change and go back to our airbnb. I wish the best of luck to the rest of Luxembourg team soldiers and warn them again about muddy tracks.
Final result? 736th out of some 1,500 teams. Would I do it again? Most likely yes but I would like to be more prepared which means more training in the forests.
I hope my “article” will inspire others to join this adventure!
JUKOLA - Jan
Due to work obligations, I only arrive in Finland at the last minute on Saturday afternoon, not a few days in advance like in previous years. This is Luxembourg Orienteering’s sixth Jukola appearance - we’re old hands and we know what to expect. I pick up Jevgenijs at Vantaa Airport and we set off for the arena situated near Kotka in eastern Finland. Just as we pull in, the wind picks up and it starts raining. Jukola, here we come.
A slight sense of nervousness sets in. I check out Venla results. Our ladies are well into their course. We get the information that Olena flies - she finishes the first leg just a few minutes off the lead, up there with the biggest female stars of our sport. She later reports that the course is "not too technical." This bodes well for our Jukola race. I don't mind technical but the weather is abhorrable and it's hard to do technical when the forest turns into one giant pool with slippery boulders lurking out of the water mass like little Noahs (OK, I’m exaggerating here a little :-) - but you get the picture).
I decide to do the unthinkable and, in order to get some sleep, bail out from our club tent and spend the night in my rental car in the parking lot five minutes from the "camp site" - a lovely forest dotted with military tents. By my count, I need to "get up" (not that I would in the end actually be able to fall asleep, what with my body brimming with adrenalin and an overpowering advance sense of guilt in case I mess up) around 3:10 a.m. for my leg - an estimate that later proves highly optimistic. At around 11 p.m.I hear the sound of the Jukola whistle in the distance, and just like that almost 1,900 runners speed off into the dark forest in driving rain, with clouds ominously low.
I toss and turn and check the results from time to time - we seem to be having a very solid race, with Jevgenijs up there with the big pack until the very end, Sasha fighting valiantly through a very difficult second leg while it is pitch dark (did someone say the course wasn't technical?) and young Jonas breezing through the "long night," overtaking runner after runner until a little snag towards the end puts a halt to his meteoric rise through the ranks well into the four hundreds. Dutch national squad, here’s your next acquisition! Next comes our team captain Jonas W. on leg 4. Apart from a small glitch to the very first control, I see he is having a fine race. I stumble out of my car, more dazed and confused than Led Zeppelin, and shuffle to the tent to pick up my EMIT. I’m dizzy and very unwell - work and life have caught up with me and I have had almost no sleep in the past 72 hours, my insomnia sadly peaking during the Jukola week. I’m accompanied to the departure pen by David, who gives me a little pep talk - “the team seems to be doing great so I’m afraid there’s quite some pressure on you, mate.” OK, right you are, I’ll fight! I remember I trained quite a lot for this race. I try to have my habitual five minutes of deep concentration in my own bubble, all the while trying not to fall asleep standing in the deep mud at the handover waiting for Jonas to arrive. Also, I remind myself I’m on the “baby leg,” for which almost no skill, orienteering or other, is required. In no time, Jonas gets in and gives me a precious piece of advice - take it easy to the first control, it is mayhem out there. I can soon see why - the area in the forest nearest to the start had by now turned into one giant muddy marsh, with people waddling through water in all direction and shouting something (control codes?) out in Finnish.
I run slowly and steadily, ignoring people and trails that would surely lead me astray, and find control number 1 smoothly. I decide to do a solo race - there are too many elephant trails in the forest and too many trains running in all directions - this is not a day for pack running. The race is beautiful, fairly smooth and quite uneventful. It had by now mercifully stopped raining and I’m surrounded by fewer and fewer runners - it’s just me and a rugged Finnish forest, one person’s dream, another person’s nightmare.
Alas, fatigue sets in deeply two thirds into the course and I decide to bite the bullet and do some backseat driving to save energy. For a while I follow a Finnish guy who looks like he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t. When he veers way too far right of our control, I abandon him and gesture at him to follow me if he wants to (he later thanks me at the finish). In a short while, a giant train whizzes past me. I decide to jump on. Another mistake. The train grinds to a halt and a heated argument in Finnish ensues - do we go left, right, back or do we wait for the next train? I jump off and quickly relocate myself, but, sadly, 10 minutes - translating into 200 places - are gone with the wind due to these silly mistakes. Soon I hear the noise from the arena - an unmistakable sign I will soon have completed my sixth Jukola. Tired but relieved, I hand over to Roland and quickly check the results at finish - I dropped about a hundred places, nothing too dramatic in the big scheme of things. I know that we are in good hands with Roland and Olena on legs 6 and 7, respectively.
Final result? 558th place out of nearly 1,900 teams. A bit worse than our club best - 419th - but better than most years and with no major downs. I leave with a deep sense of pride of Luxembourg Orienteering and bless the person who invented orienteering - mankind’s healthiest addiction.
SPECTATING - by the man in Tent H94 (David)
Well, it seemed a good idea. Why not stop off in Finland on the way back from a business trip to Japan, be with LuxO for the weekend, and also watch the world’s best orienteers in action as they ran for the top Scandinavian clubs?
But then, the harsh reality. Arriving in Helsinki at 05.30 on the Friday morning, the weather wasn’t good - a cold, wet drizzle and a stiff northerly breeze. Véronique arrived a bit later - she had got up in the middle of the night to endure an early morning Ryanair flight from Charleroi - a hire car was collected, and off we went to Kotka. Things looked up - the sun even shone briefly as we sampled the Model event. It was rough and rocky underfoot, but lovely to be out orienteering in a Finnish forest.
And then came “club tent purgatory”. The organisers have a tradition of putting up hundreds of Finnish army platoon tents near the race arena, and renting them out to clubs to use as their base for the weekend. LuxO had spent big and hired one - although it turned out to have been pitched on ground that had hills inside the tent, and sharp sticks protruding from the blueberry bushes - no groundsheet. The plan was to sleep off the jet lag - but the sloping ground and the chilly night largely put paid to that. The British soldiers’ dictum that “there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad kit” turned out to be true, as the tent’s two inhabitants regretted their thin summer sleeping bags. Through the night, layers of clothing were gradually added until every stitch owned was being worn.
Saturday morning arrived with much relief, together with some of the club’s wimpier members, who had copped out and opted for hotel beds near Helsinki airport. But, as forecast, the rain also turned up mid-morning. Welsh shepherds say of rain (they are experts, they get a lot of practice) “long foretold, long passed”. It works in Finland, too, unfortunately, and, once the Venla mass starters had run out, only some of the race was watched. But enough to meet Agne, smiling happily after she had overcome her tough 10km course, and then to watch on the big screen as the top clubs fought for victory. The screen presentation is amazing - it switches from live drone and “running camera” footage of the leaders in the forest, to GPS plots on the map, showing part of the course and little snaky lines that show the routes being taking. Ten times more interesting than watching a marathon!
Jet lag then kicked in, and the rain got heavier as the spectator made ready for another deluxe night in the tent. He stirred briefly to wish good luck to Jevgenijs (brave soul) who was setting off to do LuxO’s first Jukola leg in the downpour in the dark. But when the spectator awoke again in the dawn, the rain had stopped, and he felt simply worlds better.
Still wearing five layers, and fuelled with coffee, he gently coaxed Jan to runner’s check in, and then he watched the top elite men fighting for glory on the final 16km leg. It was exciting - four runners were seconds apart sharing the lead. And then - a “fork”. The course planners design these in, so that parts of the course go different ways through one or two controls (it’s still fair, as overall the seven runners will have done all the variants). Two of the leading four suddenly saw that they had followed the others to a control that wasn’t theirs - and the camera caught them as they stood looking at each other as each realised that they no longer knew where they were! So then there were two. Or were there? The minute or so lost by the mistake was slowly being clawed back over the last few controls! But victory came - by only 100 metres or so - to the Swedish club Stora Tuna. Their seventh win in a row - an amazing record.
Relaxation came next. The Jukola saunas are quite something - massive log-burning stoves in wooden huts built just for the weekend. The spectator spent an hour or so “cheek to cheek” with at least a hundred naked Finns, and emerged clean, warmed through, smelling lightly of birch smoke, and very happy!
As the morning wore on, the sun came out. LuxO congregated at the finish, waiting for last leg Olena. In she came, a super sight, sprinting hard to finish her great run. A great way to round off an ultimately amazing weekend experience.
