The men’s top group of Tampereen Pyrintö, Punakone (Red Machine) is well on its way to get ready for Lahti-Hollola Jukola.
The group’s coach in charge, Kari Jussila, tells that the training season has started according to plan excellently.
The training camp of 2018 is going on at the moment. The top orienteerers of the team, national team members Johan Runesson, Florian Howald and Aleksi Niemi, are getting into the base level for WC competitions in the South African highlands in Dullstroom. Someone on the other hand might have seen the Kuukka brothers training in the beaches of Fuengirola and the mountains of Spain. On top of that, three members of Punakone camps in the national team camp in Turkey after the New Year. Small group has even gotten to track the trails of Ylläs.
The goal of the long-term development is win
The roster of Punakone has been strengthened from the last year with two national team men, when Otto Simosas and Aleksi Sorsa joined Pyrintö. On top of this, Runesson and Howald, who were in the last year’s team, reached WC bronzes and Elias Kuukka Finnish Championship after Joensuu-Jukola. On these parts too we’re following the plan, Jussila adds:
Pyrintö has build new generation of Punakone for five years. One of the cornerstones of that work is to create the kind of Punakone, Red Machine, which can win Jukola relay. The project has included various annual leg experiments and exercises for growth. With the trial-and-error method has been wanted to use to learn how to build how to build an optimal relay team for the club.
The work paid off already last year, when the 13th place in Lappee-Jukola changed into 3rd in Joensuu.
“Last year we succeeded to place quite well, but we know that we did enough mistakes that we couldn’t compete with IFK Gothenborg’s advancing to the victory. On the other hand we now know that our team has developed more fitness reserve to fix small mistakes on the legs. In this sense it is quite nice to plan the future half the year and competition tactic so that it creates us a possibility to take part in the fight for victory in the last leg of Lahti-Hollola – and that we have a world-class anchor for our team, which can turn the Jukola relay into Punakone’s win when he gets the chance,” Jussila highlights the goals of the team.
In the spring there will be target practice in Hollola
Pyrintö camped last autumn at the training terrains of Hälvälä for less than a week right after the win in 25-manna relay. At the camp in a night competition run in combined start with IFK Göteborg’s top men ended up with such loops that the end results of either of the teams are not publishable.
According to Jussila, the autumn camp came into a need, so that the athletes can prepare for the future terrain type even more carefully. Easing the preparation for this years Jukola is also plentiful kettle terrain camps of the national teams in the seasons 2016-2018 due to the WCs of Estonia and Latvia.
During the spring and the early summer Pyrintö aim to do yet a lot of target camps and camp days in Hollola. Before that Punakone opens its own training camping centre in Barbate, Spain. The camping center is open until the beginning of March. Right after that starts two week Pyrinto camp in Ticino, Switzerland, area where the orienteering European Championships in May. Aside from orienteering, the athletes do some Jukola-oriented dry runs during the winter season.
On the Lahti-Hollola website, we get to follow the preparations of the men of Tampereen Pyrintö top group for Jukola.