Photo from World of O
Photo from World of O
Huge disappointment for our Australian relay teams today, with both finishing in 22ndposition. The first leg resembled more of a cross-country race, with runners being in a long conga line, especially in the larger men’s field. Thus staying with the pack was essential. Rachel Effeney led our women off and seemed below par, quickly falling behind and then being a bit scrappy navigation wise. Thus Aislinn started off in 25thposition. Her effort to improve caused several large mistakes and she returned in 23nd. Vanessa Round had a somewhat lonely run but was clean navigationally, and she was 16th best on that leg to pull the team up to 22nd. The best “down under” performance of the day came from Lizzie Ingham, with her first leg run that had her only 4 minutes down.
After the first leg Sweden was at the front of the pack, Switzerland was close behind and third at the changeover was USA, due to a fine run by Alison Crocker. At the end of the second leg, Sweden led Switzerland by 42 seconds with Russia and Norway changing over together, 2.57 down on the lead. Swedish junior Tove Alexandersson lost 90 seconds on the first control and Simone Niggli went past and confidently strode around the rest of the course. Her lead went out to 2 minutes 24 seconds by the end and this allowed her team-mates to have a long celebratory run in. Anne Margrethe Hausken Nordberg (Norway) was stronger than Tatiana Riabkina (Russia) on the day and brought Norway into a comfortable third place.
This was an historic race for Simone Niggli, bringing her WOC gold medal tally to 20! She has has 7 minor WOC medals; 4 Jwoc medals and 54 World Cup wins to her credit. The 34 year old started her WOC career in 1999. Asked earlier in the week whether this home country WOC would be her last Niggli stated: “maybe ..but perhaps I would like to run again in Finland in 2013 as I have good memories of winning my first gold there (2001). We will see.”
The race used the same arena as for the Long distance final, with a spectator passage about 10 minutes before the changeover/finish. With 4 TV controls and other in-forest shots, interspersed with lots of live tracking, spectators were kept in touch with the action throughout.
David Brickhill-Jones was our lead runner and stayed with the pack until just over half way around. Going into no 12 he was only about 90 seconds down on the lead, and in a heavy throng of runners, but he initially missed the control and struggled to relocate, dropping about 2 and a half minutes. At this level this was irretrievable and he lost further ground coming in 22nd and over 7 minutes down. Simon Uppill appeared to navigate well except for an excursion into some dark green en route to no 7, but still emerged in 24th Julian Dent anchored the team home with a 16th best time, which enabled the team to place 22nd.
At the front of the field Czech, Norway and Sweden went out on the last led together with the Swiss lurking a minute back. It wasn’t until the second last control, when Czech Jan Procházka surged to the front, that the trio were split. Given that the margin was just 6 seconds his team-mates saved their celebration until he safely crossed the finishing line. This was the first ever relay medal for the Czech men, and a gold one at that! Norwegian Olav Lundanes was very disappointed after his race, after leading at the second last control and then losing the gold medal.
He said “It is difficult to be happy about this when we get the silver medal for the third time in a row. But at least we are closer. “
MEN
Czech Republic 1.40:00
Tomáš Dlabaja 33:41 +0:24
Jan Šedivý 32:49 0:00
Jan Procházka 33:30 0:00
2 Norway 1:40:06 +0:06
Magne Daehli 33:44 +0:27
Carl Waaler Kaas 33:26 +0:40
Olav Lundanes 32:56 +0:06
3 Sweden 1:40:11 +0:11
Jonas Leandersson 33:33 +0:16
Peter Öberg 33:08 +0:11
Anders Holmberg 33:30 +0:11
4 Switzerland 1:41:21 +1:21
5 France 1:42:56 +2:56
6 Denmark 1:43:08 +3:08
22 Australia 1:55:45 +15:45
David Brickhill-Jones 40:28 +7:11
Simon Uppill 38:17 +12:15
Julian Dent 37:00 +15:45
25 New Zealand 2:04:42 +24:42
Ross Morrison 40:33 +7:16
Thomas Reynolds 42:12 +16:15
Toby Scott 41:57 +24:42
WOMEN
1 Switzerland 1:44:54
Ines Brodmann 35:27 +0:01
Judith Wyder 35:49 +0:42
Simone Niggli-Luder 33:38
2 Sweden 1:47:18 +2:24
Annika Billstam 35:26 0:00
Helena Jansson 35:08 0:00
Tove Alexandersson 36:44 +2:24
3 Norway 1:48:11 +3:17
Silje Ekroll Jahren 36:35 +1:09
Mari Fasting 36:56 +2:57
Anne Margrethe H-Nordberg 34:40 +3:17
4 Russia 1:48:38 +3:44
5 Finland 1:51:41 +6:47
6 Denmark 1:52:21 +7:27
19 New Zealand 2:14:34 +29:40
Lizzie Ingham 39:26 +4:00
Kate Morrison 48:57 +17:49
Amber Morrison 46:11 +29:40
22 Australia 2:17:53 +32:59
Rachel Effeney 45:56 +10:30
Aislinn Prendergast 49:43 +25:05
Vanessa Round 42:14 +32:59