Poro Cup 2018 - Reindeer Cup 2018

Ticket to the Poro Cup...It cost 5euro to Enter - Photo Credit: Danielle Gadsby

Readers,

Alex and I at the Entrance
Photo Credit: Danielle Gadsby

On Sunday February 25th, I attended the Poro Cup in Rovaniemi. Poro is Finnish for Reindeer. I was going to attend this last year however, it is about 5km outside of the city and there is no city buses that go there. This year, there was a committee that planned to have buses from the city center for free for anyone who wanted to attend. I took this chance to attend. My friend and I met in the city and took the bus. Even though she is Finnish she has never been to this kind of race before. It is very unique to Lapland.  

The Reindeer race consists of 4 racers on ski's that are pulled behind the reindeer. They have to go around the track which is 197.5 meters in length. I have included a short video of the racers from the start and when they zoomed past me.

 

When the races were over we waited for the bus to take us back to the city center. This bus service really made it possible to travel to the race track and witness this type of races. To me it is similar to that of horse racing around a track and there were even places you could bet on the winning reindeer/rider.

This was a very unique experience because I have not experienced this before. I did however, attend a shorter type of race in the city center of Rovaniemi last year. It was a practice race for competitors that had to race from the river to the center of the downtown and only two racers at a time.

If you get the chance to come to Northern Finland (Lapland) in winter, I hope that you can try and attend one of the Poro Cup races they have in the 6 Different Cities (Nuoritta, Rovaniemi, Kuusamo, Salla, Kuninkuusajot Inari, and Äkäslompolo).

Thanks for Reading...