Australia was well represented in the huge Finnish relay event held on the weekend just past.

The women’s Venla relay consisted of over 1200 four person teams while the men’s Jukola was a 7 person relay, with 1600 teams, incorporating night legs as well.

The “Bushranger” men’s Jukola team  included 2 Jwoc team members  (Ian Lawford and Mary Fleming), 4 elites and veteran “captain coach”  Jim Russell.    They were excellently led off by Ian who came back 146^th on his 12.2km leg, and just 10 minutes behind the leader.  Jim’s second leg saw them slip to 363 but the younger guns pulled the team back up to 229^th at the finish.   This was a great result, especially as they had 3 women in their team.  Mary Fleming was fresh off a plane and having her first sortie in European terrain, whilst both Vanessa Round and Hanny Allston did their second runs after completing 8 / 9 kms in the Venla relay less than 24 hours before!   The “run” of the team was undoubtably Bryan Keely, who placed 106th overall on the 7^th leg after waiting to anchor the team home.

Olle Poland and Tom Quayle both raced for Swedish club OK Nolaskogsarna.   Olle ran first and came in 302^nd, while Tom pulled his team up to 213 on leg 2 and their team finished 132^nd overall.    Vanessa Round, on the comeback trail after a broken fibula in January, had the excitement of being  first leg runner for OK Nolaskogsarna in the Venla relay and came back 85^th, but only 7 minutes behind  the leader.  Anna Quayle ran 2^nd leg and moved the team up to 59th and they finished 76^th at the end.    Hanny ran 4th leg for her Savedalens team which finished in 26^th position.

There may well have been other Aussie runners but it’s a bit hard to scroll 16,000 participants!!

It’s great fun to watch the tracking on the Jukola website of the leading teams.   Especially so of the last runners in the Venla relay, with a different route choice to the second last control being decisive.    http://www.jukola.com/2013/en/