Last weekend saw a number of Australian orienteers competing in different races in Sweden, Finland and Norway.
In central Sweden on Saturday, the men had a WOC middle distance trial in difficult depression terrain which was chosen for the trial due to its similarity to the WOC middle distance terrain. Rob Walter finished 2nd, David Shepherd 3rd, and Reuben Smith 4th. Unfortunately Julian Dent did not have one of his better days on this occasion.
On Sunday Julian, Dave and Rob competed in the Swedish Sprint Championships (not a WOC trial). All three made it through to the final held in the afternoon, which was a tough ask in itself with only 8 athletes from each heat going through to the final. In the final all three men didn’t have a lot left in the tank but Julian still managed 17th place as the best Australian, one minute down. Rob and Dave were further back in the field.
Results for the middle distance race, heat 2, heat 3 and sprint final*.

In Norway, Cassie Trewin ran the Norwegian Spring events (also including a world ranking event) near Halden as her WOC trials with a sprint on the Friday night, followed up by middle and long distance races on the Saturday and Sunday. The races were also used as the trials for the Nordic Championships for the Norwegians which in effect meant the strongest possible Norwegian field. Cassie ran well in all three races finishing in the middle of the results on each day.
Results for the sprint, middle and long.

In Finland, Troy de Haas had a good race on 1st leg in a day/night relay — results can be found here.

This coming weekend several of the men will run a WRE in southern Sweden for their WOC long distance trial.

Brett Weihart
WOC Coach