FL-500: Mandatory rest at Jergul

Milos Gonda from Slovakia was the first musher to arrive at cp Jergul, soon to be followed by his competitors. The pre-race favourite is thus in the lead on the trail and is happy with how the race has developed so far, even though he rested less than planned at cp Jotka.

- I was told the weather might get worse, so there was no point waiting around, he says upon arriving at cp Jergul.

He is very motivated and had fit dogs, but he did not appreciate the winds in the mountains much.

Mandatory rest

The mushers in the FL-500 and RNB classes have a three-hour mandatory rest at cp Jergul. They also have to wait out the start time alignment here, so that the difference in start times is eliminated. Normally this means that the positions out from cp Jergul might differ from the order in which the mushers arrived in to the checkpoint.

It also means that Milos Gonda can not leave Jergul earlier than 00:17 a.m. tonight.

Mandatory rest regulations

The teams in the FL-500 race have to take out at least 20 hours of mandatory rest during the race. Three of these hours have to be taken at Jergul, while six have to be taken at cp Skoganvarre. The remaining 11 hours are to be taken out at checkpoints Jotka 1, Jergul, Karasjok or Levajok, depending on the musher's discretion. They might be split between two or more of these four checkpoints if the musher so pleases.

You can always refer to our list of results to see how much rest each musher has taken out at any point of time.