The long-time winners of Jukola’s relay, IFK Göteborg, were disqualified because they used the same emit stamp card in two consecutive legs.
The weekend in Jukola of the top Swedish orienteering club IFK Göteborg started well, when the women’s first team won the Venloje relay for the second time in a row. The men’s competition, on the other hand, ended sadly.
The men’s team was disqualified for using the same emit stamp card in two consecutive legs. According to the rules, the same card cannot be used for consecutive shares.
The rule has been the same year after year, but the team ended up breaking it in a difficult situation.
World leader in orienteering, Norway Kasper Fosser was leaving to run the sixth leg, but he apparently lost his emit card in the dry toilet of the starting area. In the end, he ended up taking the fifth stage after running and waiting on the switch boom by Quentin Moulet card.
– In the situation, it would have been possible to use a spare emitter, but the competitor was apparently in a panic after losing his own stamp card. They didn’t have time or didn’t know how to act according to the rules, competition director Kalevi Ilonen tells.
You can see the situation in the video that is the main picture of the story.
According to Ilonen, the rejection is clear according to the rules.
– If someone is late for the start or goes to the very last minute, yes, it is Fosser. The thoughts are in orientation, but everything else is in a little cloud, head coach of the Norwegian national team and worked as a commentator in Jukola Janne Salmi said on air before the team’s disqualification became known.
Göteborg, which struggled year after year in the top ropes, was seventh before Fosser’s leg, 13.37 behind the top.
Gothenburg was also late for the deadline for announcing the running order, which was Thursday at 6 p.m. The deadline has been a day later in the past.
According to Ilonen, the late announcements of running orders did not cause inconvenience to the race organizers or penalties to the teams.
– They have been accepted late. The deadline was brought forward so that the organizers would not have a terrible backlog when making changes. It’s not a problem for competition.