10mila victory is something every elite runner desires to get. I will have to wait one year for another chance because after a tough battle I ended third with Kalevan Rasti this year! We were all very satisfied after a night with many ups and downs. We didn't start very well but we showed the strength and we were climbing up back to the fight: 96-->21-->12-->14-->14-->8-->3-->4-->1-->3. In the end it was a big sprint between first 3 teams and after 10 and a half hours we were just 9 seconds from the victory.
In the final sprint Jonas Leandersson got the 10mila victory for Södertälje-Nykvarn beating IFK Göteborg's Eskil Kinneberg and KR's Thierry Gueorgiou (red figure behind).
The whole 10mila day can be watched from replay here, it starts with Youth relay, continues with Women relay and 10mila relay comes at time 10:00:31. My ninth leg is between 18:14:51-19:02:20 (my finish from 18:59:20, interview at 19:05:55).
About my 9th leg - I'm just really happy because I could have hardly done more. I started together with Olav Lundanes (Halden SK), 3 minutes behind Södertälje (Erik Börjeskog) and 1 minute behind IFK Göteborg (Thor Norskov). Olav started like hell and the pace was really brutal on the way to the first control. It was 10minutes, mostly uphill (110m climbing) and partly on ski tracks. Olav tried hard to get rid of me and our splittime to the first control was 59 seconds faster than time of the others (3:43/km)! I was suffering a lot but I managed to keep up with him and after we got to some flatter area I started feeling better. On the way to 5th control we caught SNO but I was not sure if IFK is still ahead of us. On the way to 6th I decided to take a different routechoice than Olav and suddenly we were alone with SNO (Erik Börjeskog). I kept a good focus all the time, avoided any mistakes and pushed hard till the end. Erik was strong enough to finish just 3 seconds behind me but the most important - we were really in the lead of 10mila and also I had the best time on the 9th leg. Unfortunately they told me in the interview that Olav fell down and dislocated his shoulder so he couldn't continue. It was just the moment when we splited to different routechoice and I didn't see he got injured.
The moment when Olav got injured. I wish him all the best to recover fast.
We have an analysis tool in Kalevan and it is obvious I made one of the perfect races. I didn't make any mistake and I made just a few hesitations (5-10 seconds).
GPS of my leg: here
Results of 9th leg: here
It was a wonderful weekend. 10mila is always so special for me and it is one of the few moments when I feel nervous before the race. I'm really happy I made it much better than my first race for Kalevan Rasti at Jukola last year. Thank you guys!
Only 6 days left until the peak of this season for me - EOC on home ground in Jeseník. Let's hope I will be as happy as I was during the interview at 10mila..
