We are pleased to announce that Konsta Vanhanen will be our orienteering scholar for summer 2017-18.
Konsta is from Finland, as was our inaugural scholar Atte Lahtinen.
Konsta will arrive in time for the Australian championships in late September, then stay with Goldseekers for 4-5 weeks as they put on promotional events in Bathurst to capitalise on the carnival.
A keen MTBOer, Konsta is on the Finnish national team and also won the 2015 junior world rogaining champs in Finland. A young man of many talents, then, but we'll let him introduce himself a little further:
"My name is Konsta. You may know my country from saunas, Santa Claus (in fact I live only 200km away from Santa) and Formula One driver Kimi Räikkönen. Or perhaps Atte Lahtinen, my fellow country man, has already told you everything.
"At first I have to say that travelling Down Under has been a big dream for me for a while. I'm pretty spontaneous person, loving every kind of new challenge and adventure – but hopefully those "challenges" have nothing to do with snakes, crocodiles, bugs, spiders... and so on :D
"I'm a 23-year-old economics student going to take off one year from studying. I've been doing sport since I was a child (mainly skiing, running and Finnish baseball), and as late as at the age of 13 I began to orienteer. And after that there was no way back. Pretty soon I also began ski-orienteering and found mtb-orienteering. I've never been the fastest runner or the strongest cyclist, but instead I've concentrated to train and develop my orienteering skills and tried to find my own way for thinking. Nowadays I do some 50% of foot-o and 50% of mtbo. In foot-o I represent Finnish team Ikaalisten Nouseva-Voima, which has risen to top 15 Jukola team (Jukola is the greatest orienteering event on the earth organised every June in Finland). I've been running only in our second team, but it has been really instructive to follow at close quarters how the best elite orienteers train.
"In mtbo my best results are bronze in sprint in Junior World MTBO Champs 2014 and last week I achieved 6th place in sprint in the senior European MTBO Champs in France.
"I went to an orienteering high school for three years, where I learned a lot about what it means to be and act like an ambitious athlete and how to train. These are some aspects I'd like to bring with me from Finland and share for you the Finnish way of thinking about orienteering. Coaching is really dear to my heart and I'm always eager to talk about orienteering with people - so do not hesitate to ask me for a chat. And I'm hoping to coach as much as possible during my stay.
"I don’t know what to expect, but I'm sure the upcoming 6 months are going to be one of the coolest of my life and I'll meet a lot of great moments with you!
"Best regards," Konsta.
