broadcasts Venloje and Jukola’s messages on TV2, Areena and Puhee. The broadcast of Venloje’s message starts on TV2 on Saturday at 1:45 p.m. and on Jukola at 10:45 p.m.
In recent years, Kalevan Rasti has become the toughest women’s relay orienteering team in Finland.
The team has performed the best among the Finns in the women’s race in Sweden’s Tiomila relay, where it was fourth this year and eighth a year ago. The people of Joensuu finished fourth in last year’s Venlo relay after three Swedish teams.
The team has been strengthened for this year by a national team guide Ida Haapala. A couple of years earlier, another national team member joined the club Miia Niittynen and middle distance European champion Marika Teini.
Women’s coach Jere Pajunen according to him, the club has still not particularly consciously attracted big names.
– I believe that camp activities and doing good will attract women to the company. The representative team has a really good team spirit between women and men. It is certainly visible on the outside and kicks the athlete to develop, when it is nice to train and compete with a group.
– Certain types of athletes end up at Kalevan Rasti. We are not the most diligent in the social world, but we are on jogging paths and orienteering exercises. The desire to develop, especially as a guide, on the skill side, drives people to the company.
Haapala, who previously represented Espoo Suunta, says that the good team spirit and competent coaching made him join.
– When I moved to Kuopio to study, Kalevan Rasti was quite a natural choice from Eastern Finland. We have a good group of women and I see that there is also an opportunity for me to raise my own level as an orienteer.
Niittynen is on the same lines.
– It has been a bit of a mysterious club for me, because there were no close friends of mine there. They have been very successful. A good working mood has been seen, even though it is not terribly present anywhere in social media, for example.
Women alongside men
Kalevan Rasti is used to being seen as a club whose men’s team achieved international success in the first decades of the 21st century Thierry Guoergiou under. Now the situation has leveled off, when the women have raised their level, and the brightest peak years of the men’s team are behind them.
Pajunen says that there has been an effort to bring things from the men’s side to women’s coaching. Success is based on strong and skilled individuals. Woman vs. woman training has been added.
Niittynen and Haapala especially praise the club’s joint training sessions, where women and men compete against each other. The women set off first, and then the men give chase.
– They are really good workouts. There we go to the limit at the end, when the men catch up and try to hang on. They have been really important exercises for me, Niittynen praises.
In these exercises, the women learn speed and different ways of working. They get to train in the company of those who are tougher than them and receive competition-like stimuli.
Joint training sessions for women and men have been held for a few years. Pajunen says that a model of working together has been sought from Sweden, where the club communities are often closer than in Finland.
– In Sweden, the culture of working together was on a different level from what it has been in Finland. In a rare society in Finland, women and men are on the same line in terms of results as we are. No one needs to be put on a pedestal, and everyone can develop and achieve things together.
It has been 13 years since Venloje’s last relay win in Finland. Kalevan Rasti is a potential winning candidate, as it has four athletes selected for the summer World Championships in the four-part competition.
The team runs in order Cecile Calandry (France), Haapala, Teini and Niittynen.
Last year’s winner IFK Göteborg, who took a double victory in the spring Tiomila women’s relay, will go to Venlo as the pre-favorite.
– Gothenburg offers tough resistance. They were really strong in Tiomila. The sections of the Venlo relay are short and the race is over quickly, so it depends on the little things, Haapala estimates.
Ikaalien fights near the top
One club that has been near the top in Jukola’s relay for years is Ikaalisten Nouseva-Voima. With one exception, the team has moved from 9th to 19th during the last seven Jukola seasons.
The club from a small town of less than 7,000 people has been exemplary in the early season’s Viestiliiga competitions and shares the top spot with Tampere’s Pyrinnö.
The national team member running the sixth leg of the team Eetu Savolainen reminds that the jump from the domestic Viestliiga to Jukola is a big one.
– In Jukola, the game is tougher. There would have to be international level runners to fight for victory. Realistically, we don’t have enough to win, but right after that we are strong. Places 6–10 are possible.
In addition to Savolainen, “Nouski” also has another national team guide, a 22-year-old running the anchor section Teemu Oksanen. There would certainly be enough clubs for the promising youngster, where the fight for victory would be more likely. However, Oksanen from Ikaalis has made his choice.
– Ikaalinen is a pretty small place and the only one I know. I am very proud that we have such a strong club. Of course, Jukola’s victory would be great, but it might not be the most important thing in the world. I’d rather run in Nouski instead of eight than move to a club with seven different nationalities and fight for victory.
According to Oksanen, the team does not necessarily promote the most famous individuals, but invests in messages. Many well-known clubs do not necessarily reach the level in big messages that the merites of individuals might require.
– Maybe we have guys who don’t really get into individual races, but in relays they run better than their own level. As a company, we invest a lot in messages.
The team throws one of Finland’s toughest trail runners to the starting section Juho Ylisen. Tuomas Kotro and Mikko Knuuttila take care of the darkest night sections, after which Joona Huila and Mikko Poutanen continue with the crackling of the morning. Savolainen and Oksanen take care of the rest.