Finland ends TrailO season on a high

Finland ends TrailO season on a high

Finnish Trail Orienteer Pinja Mäkinen became European Cup champion, and her team won too in the end-of-season Nordic Match held last weekend in southern Norway.
Closely contested TempO and PreO competitions ended with Finland defeating closest challengers Sweden by 13 points.

Twelve stages at six different venues – Hungary, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and this Nordic Match in Norway – make up the 2025 European Cup (ECTO), with an athlete’s best 5 results counting for the final scores. Points are based on finish positions in each stage. Remarkably, there was a different stage winner every time this year.

A nail-biting climax!
Before the weekend Pinja Mäkinen had a good lead in the overall ECTO standings, but at the beginning of the final stage on Sunday, defeat was still possible. And it became a nail-biting finish, after Pinja had faltered a bit and finished down in 29th place – not one of her best 5 results.

Home athlete Anders Haugskott had the fastest timed control time (17 seconds), and well through the 30-control course he had made no mistakes. If he won the stage, he would defeat Mäkinen overall by just 1 point! But he made a crucial error on control 25 which pushed him down to 17th place with only 24 points, instead of 60 as a winner, leaving him fourth in the overall standings. Mäkinen finished ECTO with a winning margin of 22 points.

Pinja Mäkinen, Finland – 2025 European Cup champion

A successful season for Pinja Mäkinen
One win, two second places, a fourth place and a fifth make up Pinja Mäkinen’s counting scores in this year’s ECTO; she took part in 10 of the 12 stages. The pinnacle of her TrailO career is her 2019 World Championships PreO crown in 2019 in Portugal, and she was gold medalist in TempO at the 2018 European Championships in Slovakia. She has been in the top group of TrailO competitors internationally for more than 11 years.

Finnish triumph in the Nordic Match
Ably staged in poor weather conditions at venues west and east of Oslo, this year’s Nordic Match was dominated by Finnish success. Not as stage winners – these were Erik Lundkvist, Sweden (TempO), Anders Hӧije, Sweden (PreO 1) and Ralph Kӧrner, Germany (PreO 2) – but in team dominance in the top 20 in each stage.

Wet weather clothing was needed throughout the weekend

ECTO Top Six, 2025

1. Pinja Mäkinen FIN 251 points
2. Alessio Tenani ITA 229
3. Krystian Petersburski POL 218
4. Anders Haugskott NOR 218
5. Juha Hiirsalmi FIN 215
6. Anders Hӧije SWE 203

Three athletes competed in all 12 stages in 2025: father and son Libor and Albert Forst, Czechia (15^th and 11^th overall; Albert is only 16 years old) and Ukrainian Anton Puhovkin (34^th).

The winning Finland team in the Nordic Match: (from left to right) Tommi Hakuli, Antti Rusanen, Juha Hiirsalmi, Eero Hakanen, Pinja Mäkinen