Australia 4th in World Games Relay - Chengcing Lake

Sunday, 19 July 2009

The Australian team members all ran great legs in the to give Australia 4th place in the Mixed Relay, the final event of orienteering for the World Games.  The venue was the same as yesterday's Middle Distance.

The placings were

1. Russia       1:55:08
2. Finland      1:56:38
3. Norway    1:56:49
4. Australia    1:57:11

The Australian team to compete at the relay was

1. Simon Uppill -   AUS in 7th place, 1 min 20 secs behind the leader
2. Kathryn Ewels - AUS in 4th place, 1 min 53secs behind behind the leader
3. Julian Dent - AUS in 5th place, 2 mins and 18 secs behind the leader
4. Hanny Allston  - AUS in 4th place, 2 mins and 3 secs behind the winner

Russia led the men into the changeover after the first leg, ahead of Sweden and Norway.  Simon Uppill was with the leaders at the first spectator control, dropping a few places in the second half of the course.  Kathryn Ewels ran a great second leg, losing very little time to the leaders, where Sweden overtook Russia at the end of the second leg.  Andrei Khramov, the sprint gold medallist, chased down Peter Oeberg of Sweden to give the lead back to Russia.  Chasing were Julian Dent  and the Middle Distance gold medallist Daniel Hubmann.  Julian was with the Swiss runner for much of the course, but kept Australia in the medal hunt being in 5th place at the changeover, just behind Tero Foehr of Finland and ahead of Norway's Oesterboe.

The leading runners from Sweden and Switzerland made errors on the early part of the final leg, allowing Minna Kauppi of Finland, the Sprint gold medallist to move into second place.  Australia and Norway were battling for fourth, with Elise Egseth holding off Hanny Allston for the Bronze Medal.

Full results and tracking available.
For comments from the team see the Team Blog