What not to do in a major relay
Find yourself at the front! It's a well known saying that you can't win a major relay on the first lap but you can certainly lose it. The first major international relay of the season took place in Sweden over the weekend of 27/28 April with many GB squad runners competing for their Scandinavian clubs. Jonny Crickmore was running first lap for OK Ravinen's first team and twice took a route to the left when just about every other team went straight. Fortunately they proved good choices and he actually gained a few seconds over the main pack on one of them.
After a tricky last section he finished about 30s down on the lead and "job done". Two excellent runs by Ravinen's next two runners saw them back in the lead after 3 laps but then a headtorch problem on the long night lap saw them drop to 40th. A stunning run by Gustav Bergman eventually pulled the team into 16th place.
Results and further analysis at:
http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/2019042710MILAH1/ (GPS tracking)
https://www.ontheredline.org.uk/news/tiomila2019-results
Next up will be the Jukola which has an amazing 1500+ teams competing (compared to around 300 at Tio)