Mirja Puhakka (born 30 April 1955 in

Sippola Kouvola () is a city and municipality in southeastern Finland. It is located along the Kymijoki River in the region of Kymenlaakso, kilometers east of Lahti, west of Lappeenranta and northeast of the capital, Helsinki. With Kotka, Kouvola is on ...

) is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

ski-orienteering Ski orienteering (SkiO) is a cross-country skiing (sport), cross-country skiing endurance Winter sport, winter racing sport and one of the four orienteering disciplines Sport governing body, recognized by the International Orienteering Federation, ...

competitor Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...

and world champion. She received an individual

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

at the

World Ski Orienteering Championships The World Ski Orienteering Championships (Ski-WOC) is the official event to award the titles of World Champions in ski orienteering. The World Championships is organized every odd year. The programme includes Sprint, Middle and Long Distance compe ...

Avesta The Avesta () is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the litu ...

in 1980, and again in

Lavarone Lavarone (Cimbrian: ''Lavròu''; in local dialect ''Lavarón'') is a ''comune'' (municipality) in Trentino in the northern Italian region Trentino-Südtirol Tyrol–South Tyrol–Trentino Euroregion, located about southeast of Trento. As of 31 D ...

in 1984.World Ski Orienteering Championships
– ''International Orienteering Federation'' (Retrieved on 27 October 2008) She won the ''

relay A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated switch ...

event'' in the 1980

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

with the

team, and received silver medals in 1982 and in 1984.

References

1955 births Living people Sportspeople from Kouvola Finnish orienteers Female orienteers Ski-orienteers {{Finland-orienteering-bio-stub