Winter Viking Games 2002

In February of the year 2002 the team of the Viking-Nevo sport-expeditionary club got the second place at the fourth Winter Viking Games in Finland. This year nine Viking teams took part in the competition. The Viking-Nevo club left the victorious team of the previous year.

The Viking-Nevo team of the year 2002:

• Max Pryazhevsky,
• Tanya Suhoruchenkova,
• Olga Titova,
• Sergey Suhoruchenkov.

Smolensk Vikings took part in the Winter Viking Games which became popular in Scandinavia for the third time. The Viking-Nevo team is always one of the favorites of the Games. In 2000 Viking-Nevo got the second place and in 2001 the team became the winner of the Winter Viking Games!. One of the secrets of these good results was good skiing and fast skis-changing.

In 2002 Finland met all the participants with non-skiing weather — it was rainy without any snow. Organizers of the Winter Viking Games were thinking about changing the date of the competition or moving it to another place. That is why it was very difficult to train before the start — nobody knew what they should prepare for. And only the day before the start it was explained that skiing would be changed into usual running. The Viking-Nevo team got some difficulties with equipment because it was prepared for skiing.

The race was passed around the Läntinen Pukkisaari island. As the previous year Max Pryazhevsky was running on the first stage. He was lucky to finish his part of the race first and hit the target with one bow. But then the Vikings from Grey Wolves and Warangians teams left behind Smolensk girls Olga and Tanya. Sergey Suhoruchenkov who was running on the last stage caught one of the Vikings and was very close to the other one. But Sergey missed his first arrow on the shooting line. And the precious seconds were lost in spite of the fact that his second arrow hit the heart of wooden elk.

The Viking-Nevo team lost to the Warangians team from Finland — the new winner of the Winter Viking Games just some seconds. Best Vikings from different teams were gathered under the Warangians flags. Even such ambitious team as Grey Wolves delegate to the future winners their strong archer.

Final standings:

1. Warangians (Finland),
   Mikko Inkinen, Topi Tapaila, Petri Rantapää, Jenni Sahramaa
2. Viking-Nevo team (Smolensk, Russia),
3. Grey Wolves (Finland),
4. Rus-farers (Finland),
5. Viikinkiajan laiva I (Finland),
6. Viikinkiajan laiva II (Finland),
7. NEFA (Finland),
8. Living Middle Age (Finland),
   prize for the best ancient clothing and equipment
9. Ango (Finland).

The Viking-Nevo team presented the main prize of the Winter Vikings Games to the Warangians team and following the good tradition the prize was full filled with Russian hot drink which was tasted by every participant and organizer of the Games. In the meantime the Viking-Nevo team was very good in bow-shooting and did not get any penalty round for the misses this year. Only one team had the same result — the Warangians, the winners of the Winter Viking Games 2002. The Living Middle Age team from Finland got the special prize for the best ancient clothing and equipment.

Timo Rantakaulio, one of the Games organizers mentioned in his concluding remarks that the Games of this year were the same popular as previous years in spite of the bad weather. He also said that Russian Viking-Nevo team had grown in the bow-shooting skill up to the best Finnish archers. The Viking-Nevo team was also good in the culture program of the Winter Viking Games. Olga Titova was making nice bast toys and Sergey Suhoruchenkov, the Smolensk captain was trading them for the arrows. Tanya was cooking Russian pancakes and a lot of people wanted to taste it.

The main reward for the Viking-Nevo team became the cultural program of Finnish friends which included very interesting excursions in Helsinki, visiting the ice-hockey match, swimming center, international boat-show and many other places.