Follow the teams online!

You may follow this years' Finnmarksløp online via a GPS-based tracking system which is fastened on to the sleighs. This year is a trial in collaboration with Telenor, the Norwegian based international phone company, and you may follow 6 teams that are racing with the new equipment.

- Finnmarksløpet is devloping continuosly, also when it comes to making updated news available to the audience. Our homepages are among the ones within its genre that are viewed the most in this country, says media executive Niels Westphal. www.finnmarkslopet.no had more than 6 million hits last year. - With this new net based service we believe that the intyerest for the pages will increase, he says.

Old technology - new uses

- The technology has been in use for a long time. It is the area of use - tracking dogs on the mountain plateau - that is new, according to researcher Eivind Rinde from Telenor. The 6 teams will get a GPS transmitter attached to their sleigh which can be traced via Telenor's network all around Finnmark. If the equipment works the way it should, anyone can check out a special web page. The address to the page is on the homepage - and from there you can trace all the 6 teams that are part of this test. It is also possible to get updated info directly onto your mobile phone if you prefer.

PHOTO: Researcher Eivind Rinde in Telenor, musher Jan Gunnar Vian and regional director for Telenor Anne Bertih Figenschau are looking forward to try out new technology during Finnmarksløpet. The dog isn't unpleased either.

The challenge is battery capasity

Even though there are "white spots" on the map most of the race track is within network. - The challenge is whether the equipment itself, batteries in particular, will handle such extreme conditions as the teams meet in the mountains, Rinde continues. It can be extremely cold at this time of the year and last night the temperature was lower than minus 30 on the mountain plateau.

Jan Gunnar Vian from Alta is one of the mushers who will be participating in the test. He has tried the equipment for a while and is so far happy with how it works. He has modified the prototype to, among other things, protect the batteries. - Our mushers have unique experience that Telenor now can make use of, Westphal says.

You can follow these mushers this year:

500 km
Jan Gunnar Vian
Inger Marie Lupton
Thorbjørn Johnsen

1000 km
Tommy Jordbrudal
Yngve Fagerli
Miguel-Angel Martinez