Lapland Wilderness Challenge
The Guinea Pigs Take The Win in the Lapland Wilderness Challenge!
Adam Rose / 06.08.2020
The results for the first staging of the Lapland Wilderness Challenge are shown as below, though in summary for the top 3 places, they are as follows:
1. Marsut (Guinea Pigs) - mixed
2. Toulouse - men
3. Omjakon - men
The RD used a novel system for the rankings, based on a straight-line distance between CPs, coupled with time taken and bonus distance awarded for reaching specific CPs.
The goal of the race was maximum distance covered in the time limit.
This is what distinguishes the first 3 places. Although Omjakon has a faster time than Toulouse, the 3 top teams all show as 178km for reaching CP16, but the top 2 get bonus km for CP24, and first-placed Marsut also got bonus km for CPs 25, 26 & 27. The distance at the final CP is what matters, not to the finish.
It's not practical to simply use the tracker distance recorded because it's not entirely accurate (it only tracks every 5 minutes, not continuously) and in some locations, the GPS signal went dark.
It would be simpler if all teams had reached all CPs, but as we know, no-one was able to achieve this.
The closing hours of the race saw some teams facing real challenges. Toulouse nabbed CP24, but then made the difficult decision to swim across a channel rather than detour around. Based on the playback, they took around 20 mins to get ready, then spent an hour in the coooold water. Not nice, especially when you're fatigued.
The Twin Turtles also had a rough time out towards the Norwegian border. All lakes look the same when you're tired, and in the dark, even more so. Nothing to distinguish one from another. Furthermore, could their compass have been playing up due to the rich iron ore deposits, easily affecting the compass by up to 90 degrees? They're still out on the course, but their battery has died, so we'll hear the full story when they finally make it back.
Finally, when Omjakon finally crossed the line, their interview was in Finnish, of course, except for a single word in English. The word captures their entire experience. The word explains why no team completed the entire course. The word details the navigation and the terrain underfoot.
That word was "Mindf**k". ;)
Very well done to all for taking on the challenge. There are a lot of dot watchers who are keen to jump in for the next edition!
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