Discussion: Jukola webcast - on now

Don't miss this if you're just sitting around today. the video quality seems excellent at the moment. (the women start in ~15 mins)

http://www.jukola2008.net/r12/index.php?option=com...

for schedule in other time zones, see:
http://www.attackpoint.org/eventdetail.jsp/event_1...

I'm finding the sound a little 'scratchy'

When I watch Jukola and Tio it is always a quick reminder how small the sport of orienteering (and adventure racing for that matter) is here in North America.

Sounds like the announcer is overdriving the microphone, but it's not like it makes much of a difference to me when he's speaking Finnish. (I was able to make out one word -- when the second woman came in on leg 3, I heard him say "kaksi".) Video quality is great.

Seems to me that it hardly qualifies as an 'all-night' relay - there's barely 4 hours of darkness! They could try holding it in Oz in June - dark from 5.45pm-6.45am.

"Dark" may be a misnomer, as well — Boris once described the conditions in the middle of the night this time of year as "too dark to see, but not dark enough that your headlamp really helps".

I thought the description used was daylight to dusk to daylight.
Anyway... what is the head to head race this year between OZ AP and US AP Jukola teams? It was pretty close last year.
On the Oz side we have Aussie Kangaroos. I think they could have done better with a name, but perhaps they will be putting more effort into navigation and running.

A good blend of experience and youth!

Pity about having to start so far back from the line though. I ran first leg last year and started out of the ~1100th position. It was ages (and I mean like 75% of the leg) before you could really get out and run, and even then you were still often held up by the occasional slowpoke ahead of you.... I think starting in the top 300 or so spots would be a much more enjoyable proposition (though of course a certain number of the bibs are predetermined from last year's standings).

Time for the start and " Sivu väliaikaisesti pois käytöstä." Bummer.

So you don't have video? It's working on my computer.

I was trying to get it to play in another player, unsuccessfully. I didn't feel like installing Realplayer or updating windows media player.

Did you see the link to open in fullscreen mode or in another player? I tried to copy the link here, but it didn't work right.

It is working now. The entire Jukola site seems to have been down for a bit.

go Boris!!!

Here are several club links with various APers. I haven't even looked at the leading teams yet.

BorisGr OK Linne 3, SWE
Aussie Kangaroos, AUS
falcon Kristiansand OK 2, NOR
OJ Nails Västerås SOK, SWE
Jagge Rastivarsat, FIN
Shep Göteborg Majorna OK, SWE
gg IFK Lidingö SOK, SWE
bedders schnitzer Sugar Loaf OK, GBR
cnoc DFO, IRL
JonX graeme Jesus Orienteering Club, GBR
distracted Jesus Orienteering Club 2, GBR
Hobitas Takas OK 2, LTU
Swisscheese Vehkalahden Veikot, FIN

Good race so far, but the playback quality is driving me crazy. Playback is constantly stopping, waiting, buffering and restarting. Anyone else having this trouble?

I'm not having trouble, but I am using the lower bandwidth video. It's not too bad. It's more or less continuous.

I switched to the VLC player -- MUCH more stable. And switched to lower bandwidth video as well.

I decided to try VLC as well. The fullscreen mode is worth it.

The 1-minute long GPS tails are pretty neat.

Sunrise was about 1 minute ago.

Thanks for posting the links, cedarcreek (Matthew).

You're welcome.

This is the best link I've found for following the leaders. You have to refresh it frequently and look at the last possible link. They become active as the runners hit them.

http://online.jukola2008.net/tulokset/en/j2008_ju/

If you've got a better link, please post it.

Lots of booms.

Mike Smith (falcon) just went out:

http://online.jukola2008.net/tulokset/en/j2008_ju/...

Shep had a good run:

http://online.jukola2008.net/tulokset/en/j2008_ju/...

Is the video lagging behind? I'm seeing the punch results well before the video shows it. Minutes before.

Leg 6, 5.5km control was 2 minutes 35 seconds behind.

Same for us -- video lags the punch results by a couple of minutes. When Per commented that Kalaven Rasti hadn't yet appear we yell, "Per, check the web site!" :-)

The Finnish Army has cool commercials. I'm considering joining.

I don't think I could trust the tank drivers that much.

As Europe wakes up, the video starts to struggle.

I've decided to just watch the video and not look at the results. It's going to be hard.

Watching the video of a Finnish tree with Finnish birds chirping in Finnish is hard... ooh, now on to the yogurt election commercial... now a Finnish Target Store commercial. Now a commercial for some sort of outdoor stuff... now funny Finnish mens choir .... oooooo, Mina Kaupi!... now we're visiting Sweden on the Viking line... Ok, back to the action....

I decided at the last moment to come, and didn't regret it. My Russian club (formerly Luchik, now they go by Omega, last but not least) had a fairly competitive team and was shooting for top 100 (they were 143rd last year, under a different/sponsor's name). I showed up on Friday afternoon to hang out, replace a runner if needed, watch, and generally have a good time. I offered the organizers to help out, but the big obstacle was my lack of command of Finnish. Without it, they seemed puzzled to find a job suitable for me to do, so I didn't insist much.

Although Omega did have injuries, it wasn't likely that my running would have improved upon the times of even the most injured of them, so seeing a runner-wanted post on the board by Tullinge, I seized upon the opportunity. It was most likely going to be a mass-started seventh leg and that would be perfect; I would get to watch all of the top competition on the large screen and not worry about whether the lack of sleep and subjecting my organs to freezing rain would hurt my team's chances. And, spending 2+ hours in the terrain would be directly applicable to my rogaining training.

First, the Venla. The quality of the GPS feed was generally excellent. The map on the large screen updated every second, and signal dropouts were infrequent and the signal typically reacquired within less than 30 seconds. I know some of us picked a lot upon the use of GPS in orienteering arena production, marvelling (not at all ironically) at the miraculous snakey-tailed blips that were somehow destined to communicate the intrinsic wonder of the sport to Joe Couch Potato, moving in their circuitous ways amidst all the wormy brown lines and pink circles and the legend of strange unpronounceable Scandie club names. Well, this gathering was just the audience for the travelling blips and the strictly-in-Finnish commentary. If your French stars need no sobbing-life-stories introduction and you're cool with the yksi-kymmenta-käksi and would like to inquire why exactly it is best to take the right-hand path vs. the ditch on the left, this kind of feed is invaluable. I would think that the live feed from at least a dozen in-terrain cameras would be far more productive for the uninitiated, and that was on hand, too.

So yeah, the Venla. The GPS feed was quite revealing as to just how many mistakes the top women make—even the very best seem prone to quite a few—and the outcome of the race was decided strictly on these mistakes on the last leg. After that was over, I slept all until the men's start.

The weather, already uncooperative, unleashed its full attack sometime around men's Leg 2. The temperatures were around freezing and the rain was persistent, wavering at times into full-out-shower assault territory. Omega was doing great at times, acceptable at other times. I hung out and talked with Boris a bit, also with Graeme (y'all should check out the Sci. J. O. follow-up to his Nature article). Kalevan Rasti seemed doomed from the very beginning. I had thought Kristiansand would be a powerhouse with Holger H, Rollier, and Hubmann, but they apparently didn't quite have a match to these within the first few legs.

Around Leg 4, the conventional-wisdom standings were completely shaken up. Besides the sinking Kalevan ship, Halden's chances seemed remote, and a couple Finnish clubs with my friends on them, Metsänkävijät and Lynx, were doing great. Toni Louhisola in particular extracted revenge upon those in the Finnish Team who have long doubted his skills, producing second-best time on the most technical Leg 4 to put Metsänkävijät in direct contention for the win.

And Lynx was doing even better, and my friend and the famous Finnish marathon star, Mårten Boström of Northern Arizona University, was getting ready to run the last leg. I had talked to Mårten on Friday evening. He had run the Finnish marathon Team Trials for the Beijing Olympics just three weeks ago, and with 2:18, didn't make the 2:15 cutoff; only two runners from Finland will be entered into the Olympics. Nor did the Finnish O-Fed seem to have any faith in him as a Sprint runner for the WOC, despite his 24th place or so in the World Rankings and his 9th place in Kiev; nothing, it seems, short of the win is good enough for SSL. Mårten was clearly not happy. And so it was quite surprising to see Lynx put faith in Mårten in this very crucial last-leg position. The GPS blippage, I thought, should be quite a scene.

And so there we were at the Leg 6 to Leg 7 exchange, eight or so teams still in contention. Kalevan pulled within a distance of hope, hail-mary perhaps with six minutes back, but impossible things can and do happen when "Teri Zorzy" gets a hold of a map; and the ever-to-be-feared Halden was surely among these eight. And with all these sharks, MBB starts out in the lead of the Jukola. And there is indeed forking.

And they did get him. But not after a valiant fight. The top four bunched about a third of the way into the leg, with Halden chasing the four from a minute or so back, and Gueorgiou about three-plus back; Metsänkävijät faded. And the GPS is so revealing when it shows Novikov, for Delta, taking fearless straightish routes through the featureless land of knolls and swamps, MBB executing carefully and suboptimally but cleanly, coming to a full stop at times, and Gueorgiou moving as if an express train on a schedule to keep, without hesitation or stops. Sadly for Kalevan that schedule was not any faster than the one Novkiov followed.

The difference between true top-caliber international stars like Thierry and Valentin, and humble "ordinary elites"—rest of the field—was obvious from GPS tracks. Around 60% of the leg, there was a critical gäffle. By design or by accident, the top four teams got four different forks. As they emerged at the common control, the outcome became clear. Delta was to be the winner and the other three would have to fight for second through fourth. Halden and Kalevan were out of the medals barring a mistake by these three.

The gratuitous last loop after the spectator control was decisive among the three. MBB's speed was not quite enough to make up the time behind. Veikot and Linné fought until the finish chute, and third place went to the Finns plus Swisscheese and second, to the team from Uppsala.

We in the States/Canada tend to think about Finland as the orienteering culture with "the" ultimate understanding of the technical side of the sport. The best maps, certainly. The most flawless organization, most times. It was therefore quite surprising that the expected winning times were so off the mark. Wildly, I should say. The first five legs finished about 45 minutes behind the estimated schedule, and although the last two kept up with the promised pace, the damage had already been done. If the organizers were to mass-start the tardy teams as originally scheduled, it would put about two thirds of the field into the mass start. It was therefore decided to hold off the catch-up start for 30 minutes longer than had been advertised, allowing another hundred-plus teams to complete the Leg 6 to Leg 7 exchange. Still, with 700-plus runners, this was going to be quite a mass start. An experience to rival the mass start of the first leg, except with more overweight bodies to get around.

Tullinge 3 headed right into the mass start. There was some hope as their Leg 6 started, but it disappeared as I watched Emit returns from along the course. So the masses gathered by the maps, and at 9:15 am off we went. The experience, I should say, was a bit underwhelming. People were nice to me when I tripped and fell on the way to the start triangle. Navigation consisted of watching the compass to take the correct elephant path. I found only four wrong controls (embarrassingly including the last one), and they all were within sight, almost, of mine. It was frustrating to hobble along in a pack that was most times going below my pace, but to leave the elephant path was to move even slower, trampling on the blueberry.

I kinda knew the leg already from watcing the Novikov blip hold off the Gueorgeou blip, so all the route-choice decisions had already been made. I did not find the navigation hard in any case. Features were large and distinct, and there was a lot of climb, steep but short. I lost contact with the map a couple times, and relocated—not even, as I was not far off, just off the beaten track—easily off large features. I finished a bit faster than I had expected. In all, the least eventful Jukola running experience of my three times doing it. Certainly being on a quasi-competitive team, with all the strategy and planning and anticipation and climax and release, is a lot more eventful and memorable.

Thanks for the commentary Vlad. Quite a difference in weather from last year...

Agreed J-man. Although I was very cold at times, it seems we lucked out last year.

Summary clips from Finnish TV:

Jukola Relay

Venla Relay

Even the Sanomat can't get their facts straight—L. Novikov is 26 and MBB didn't really make mistakes on the last leg, none that were apparent from watching the GPS. He just ran conservatively enough to be able to handle the course, it seemed. I'm only saying this to match the expectations one has from talking to reporters from the likes of STL Post-Dispatch and ATL J-C and so on.

It's great to have orienteering on TV (the webcast was obviously the same production) and I watched the ladies relay at home before I left for the night. I was so astonished by the stupidity tha tthey actually missed the start!