OrPo Women

Six silver medals since 1998 tell the real story of OrPo's rivalry with the rest of Finnish volleyball: this is a club that keeps reaching the final and keeps finding someone stronger waiting there. Only once, in 1997, did the run end the other way, when Oriveden Ponnistus took the national title outright.

Orivesi is a small town for a side that has spent decades among the country's best, and the women's section still carries the club's old multi-sport name back to 1908. It competes today in the Mestaruusliiga Women, the top domestic division, a level its bigger-city rivals are supposed to dominate by weight of resources rather than history.

The cup has been kinder than the league. OrPo won the Finnish Cup in 1996 and 1997, either side of that solitary championship, and again in 2018, proving the team could turn a straight knockout in its favour even in years when the league table did not go its way. Two further cup finals, in 2011 and 2012, ended in runner-up medals, the same short step behind that has marked so much of the club's record.

Home games are played in front of no more than 700 at Oriveden liikuntahalli, a modest hall for a team with seven bronze medals to its name across four decades. What OrPo has not managed since 1997 is to turn any of those near-misses back into gold.