Jenny Bourne

Steve Cusworth

Hermann Wehner and Natasha Key, both of whom already have multiple WMOC medals to their name, have taken silver medals in today’s sprint finals at the World Masters Orienteering Championships.

Key missed out by the narrowest possible margin, finishing one second behind Romania’s Veronica Minoiu in W40 after losing time late in the course. At the other end of the age scale, Wehner, who was competing in his original home town of Goslar, took second in M85, 58 seconds behind Swiss Edgar Bachtold.

Jenny Bourne (W55) and Warren Key (M50) both narrowly missed out on the medals, placing equal fourth and fifth respectively. The other Australian to achieve a top-ten result was Jim Russell (tenth in M50).

Switzerland led the day’s medal table with five golds. It was an outstanding day for Great Britain with four gold medals, the same as Sweden.  The World Masters has attracted 3,958 competitors in age classes from M/W35 to W85 and M90. Australia has 71 participants which makes us the 12^th most represented country out of 43 competing. Finland leads the way with 654, then Sweden (506), Norway (500) and Russia with 428.

Remaining Australian A final results:

M40: Blair Trewin 47

W45: Wendy Read 16, Kirsten Wehner 56

M45: Martin Wehner 54

W50: Liz Abbott 36

M50: Tim Hatley 45

W55: Sue Key 24, Hilary Wood DNF

M55: Geoff Lawford 12, Ted van Geldermalsen 52

W65: Libby Meeking 38

M65: Stephen Flick 36

W70: Ann Ingwersen 66

M70: Darryl Erbacher 34, Alex Tarr 54

Full results are available on the WMOC website.

Competition resumes, after a rest day tomorrow, with the first long distance qualification race on Wednesday.

The ACT Sprint and Middle Distance MTBO Championships were held in Canberra last weekend.     The elite fields featured a good number of present and past Australian team members who were eager to tackle the world class terrains of “Bruce Ridge” for the sprint and “Stromlo” for the middle.  The latter map included unique symbols for one direction only tracks.

Steven Cusworth displayed excellent form in his lead up to WOC in Hungary with convincing wins in both events while JWOC debutante Heath Jamieson had his best ride in the long to take 3^rd.   Mary Fien exhibited her fitness and navigational cunning to take both victories in the strong women’s field but adventure racer and former foot o star Danielle Winslow was right on her tail.

Other double victories were recorded by:

M16  Stephen Melhuish                       M20 Paul de Jongh       M50  Andrew Power       M70 Graham Fowler

W20  Rebecca Powell           W50 Sue Donoghue      W60  Kathy Liley                 M 80 Kevin Paine

SPRINT     M21A      5.9km   16 Controls                    W21A   5.6km     14 Controls

1 Steven Cusworth   (VIC)     36:03                           1 Mary Fien          (NSW)       37:45

2 Thomas Walter    (ACT)       42:22                           2 Danielle Winslow   (TAS)    40:14

3 Luke Poland    (ACT)             42:28                           3 Carolyn Jackson      (VIC)     44:31

6 Heath Jamieson    (VIC)      49:12                           4 Emily Walter    (ACT)           48:30

MIDDLE   M21A     13.6km    15 Controls                                W21A      10.4km     13 Controls

1 Steven Cusworth      (VIC)         66:13                      1 Mary Fien                   BF N              66:13

2 Ian Warren                (ACT)         76:55                     2 Danielle Winslow            AL T              66:51

3 Heath Jamieson       (VIC)            79:37                  3 Belinda Allison             ACT               67:40

Well done to the Sunley family and ACTOA for organising two excellent events.