Victories in Björkliden

Björkliden Arctic Mountain Marathon (BAMM) was organised the first time in 1994 and celebrated it’s 20th aniversary last weekend. The race has changed it’s name over the years, but the concept has always been the same, inspired by the Original Mountain Marathon in UK. Teams of two run two days of long distance mountain orientering with the night between the two race days spent in a tent camp on the mountain. All equipment needed during those two days (tent, sleepingbag, food, cloths…) are carried by the team along the race course. Today, BAMM has three different race courses, 30, 50, and 70 km, divided into female, mixed and male categories. This year, the 400 slots for BAMM was filled long before christmas and almost 800 racers had gathered to run an navigate in the far north of Sweden.

Team Haglöfs Silva had two teams on the startline, Jossa racing BAMM50 with Jonas Westling (IKSU Multisport) and Björn racing the BAMM70 with Daniel Hansson (team FJS). They had all raced in Björkliden before, Björn started the race for the 11th time…

This year, BAMM started in Riksgränsen, with the sun shining from a clear sky!
Both 30, 50 and 70k race courses had their first checkpoint on top of the skilift (500 m altitude). The rest of the day was spent in the “lowlands”, an area with a mixtures of open swamps, thick bushes, many “small” hills and numerous lakes, offering both navigational challenges and many route choices. Jossa and Jonas went strong the whole day and reached the night camp after 4h 20 min as the first team overall on the 50 k race course, 3 min before the fastest male team (Markus Hellner and Lars Tuoremaa). Björn and Daniel also had a strong day and finished first on the 70 k race course after 5h 24 minutes, almost half an hour before the next team.

 

After a nice evening and night in the tent camp, including a refreshing bath, the race was restarted with a chasing start the next morning. For this second day, the race courses were way more alpine then the day before with high peaks, steep slopes and glaciers. The weather had also changed dramatically. The mist was thick, the wind strong and it was raining. A lot. Jossa and Jonas had a good start of this second race day, but made two errors navigating in the mist. Thanks to high speed and a strong finish, they still had the best overall time on the 50 k race course, 30 sek ahead of Markus Hellner and Lars Touremaa.

The 70 k race course on the 2nd race day was a real challenge. 36 k with almost 3500 m of climbing, 1100 m climb only to reach the first checkpoint. Björn and Daniel started out in a decent pace and nailed the navigation. The biggest challenge was probably the wind, and at the top of Vassitjåkka, teams were almost blowed over! Heading for the third checkpoint, it was very close to game for them. As Björn combined running with map reading coming down a small sadle, his foot got stuck under a small stone and he stepped over and fell. Even though his fall was far from spectacular, he managed to dislocate his left shoulder. Situation became a bit stressed, but after a few minutes of hard work, Daniel managed to get Björns shoulder back in position. They continued on the race course, Daniel takingcare of the map and Björn focusing on keeping his left arm fixated onto the backpack. After another 3 hours of running, they reached the finishline as winners!

As Björn has to recover from his injury, he will not be able to run the Kiruna Extreme next weekend with Micke, neither the Wulong Mountain Quest in september, where he will be replaced by Emil Dahlqvist (FJS).

Results and pictures: www.bamm.nu