Tomas Wikblom bet on his son and lost, so now he is walking 800 kilometers

Tomas Wikblom’s family thinks he is crazy, at least in the humorous sense. The 57-year-old vice-chairman of IF Minken made an unusually costly bet during the winter.

He promised to walk 800 kilometers from Inari to his home in Uusikaarlepyy if his club’s young skiers lost the Finnish championship relay in April to the host team, Inarin Yritys. His opponent, veteran skiing figure Kari Kyrö, would have paid only for coffee and buns if he had lost.

Wikblom said the wager came together spontaneously after he met the 82-year-old Kyrö at the Ruka Finnish Cup. “We use the same waxing service as the people from Inari, and when this cheerful 82-year-old man came in with the waxing truck during the Ruka Finnish Cup, I just spontaneously made that bet,” he said.

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We use the same waxing service as the people from Inari, and when this cheerful 82-year-old man came in with the waxing truck during the Ruka Finnish Cup, I just spontaneously made that bet.

Wikblom expected to win, but Inarin Yritys finished fourth, roughly ten seconds ahead of the Uusikaarlepyy team. His son Melker skied the anchor leg for IF Minken. Wikblom said the relay stayed close until the Inari anchor dropped Melker half a kilometer before the top of a climb.

He refused to withdraw the wager. “Canceling the bet would have been shameful, and after that I would not have dared go to ski races anymore,” he said. He began walking on Friday morning, accompanied by a Kittilä friend in a motorhome. He had not trained at all, and failed to reach his first-day target of 70 kilometers.

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Canceling the bet would have been shameful, and after that I would not have dared go to ski races anymore.