About 10Mila

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This is 10Mila

The 10Mila relay – one of Swedish sport’s strongest brands and the orienteering sport’s great orienteering relay classic since its inception in 1945. Here, the world elite compete in the most prestigious relay of the year, a little further back in the field, the many orienteers, on the same courses as the world elite, fight to beat the neighboring club.

The core of the 10Mila is and remains the orienteering relay with its three classes: 10Mila, women and youth. The 10Mila takes place during the last weekend of April every year, starting at lunch on Saturday and finishing on Sunday morning.

10Mila’s pillars

  • Over time, Tiomila will offer the best terrain the country has to offer, interpreted by the best cartographers and with challenging courses. Tiomila should inspire forest orienteering and offer exciting competitions for the public, leaders, media and partners.
  • Tiomila is the spring’s big orienteering festival that lasts for 24 hours, from daylight, at dusk, in the dark, until dawn, with competitions in three classes: women, men and young people. The temporary arena that is built every year offers modern infrastructure and creates an important meeting place for orienteering clubs.
  • Tiomila will continue to be a catalyst for the development of orienteering, both in terms of sports and by being at the forefront of new technologies.
  • Tiomila wants to be an important unifying force for the sport of orienteering, where team spirit, community and collective effort will attract pulse-raising challenges and joy, regardless of age and gender.

History

The first 10Mila took place in 1945 and was the first multi-man race in the history of orienteering. Since then, the event has been held every year with the exception of 1962 when it was cancelled due to a jaundice epidemic. The first year, 66 teams participated in the race from Uppsala to Enebyberg IP.

Already in the second year, 10MILA had participating teams from all over the country and in 1950 the competition was international. In 1981 they broke the barrier for 500 participating teams. Today, 10Mila has become an institution in international orienteering with the same high status as the World Championships.

Over the past 60 years, 10MILA has pioneered a lot

  • 1970, 10Mila was the first to have a unified competition centre (TC).
  • 1992 10Mila was the first to have a continuous electronic reporting of results.
  • 1995, 10Mila was the first to use electronic stamping in the context of relay.
  • 2003 10Mila was the first to have a large screen at the TC.
  • 2005 10Mila was the first to use GPS tracking in a race context
  • 2006 10Mila was the first to broadcast the entire men’s race live on TV.
  • 2011 10Mila was the first with results in smartphone apps.

GPS tracking and surveillance

During the 2005 10Mila, GPS tracking was introduced for the first time as part of making orienteering accessible to a wider audience. Runners were equipped with a GPS transmitter that continuously indicated their position. This makes it possible to show progress and analyse stages as graphics in TV productions or on the big screen. New technologies in TV production also increase the possibility of broadcasting from controls in the forest without skyrocketing production costs, making for more interesting programmes.

The 10Mila is regularly covered by accredited sports journalists from all over the Nordic region. For 2006, media coverage was expanded, including a live broadcast of the entire men’s competition on the TV channel Sportexpressen.

Women’s relay

The women’s relay was introduced in 1977 and is run over five legs. Today, it has grown to nearly 400 participating teams from all over the Nordic region and is considered the finest relay a women’s team can win.

Youth relay

Since 1992, the 10Mila has had a youth race. It has four stages and is run by about 400 mixed teams with participants aged 12 to 16 years. It takes place in the middle of Saturday.