Once again, it was a very good day of racing for our juniors in the gruelling long distance race today in once again warm conditions. The terrain at around 1000m above sea level was physical in the steeper areas and technical in the areas of former silver mining. Long legs with plenty of route choice were instrumental in some of the great performances during the race.
Our top performer of the day was Milla Key with a very impressive 27th place in the women’s race – our best result in the women’s race since 2018. Nea Shingler was 2 mins back in 36th and Erika Enderby another 4 mins further back in 46th. In the men’s race Cooper Horley ran very well placing 39th and was our best male performance in the long since 2019 when current JWOC coach Aston key took the bronze medal. 3 mins down in Cooper was Owen Radajewski in 54th.
What was most impressive today was the large improvement in our placings compared to many of the previous years. We haven’t had any women in the top 50 since 2018 when Tara Melhuish also placed in 27th place and today we had 3 women in the top 50 and of course all with significant PB’s. Our 6 women had an average placing of 70 which is the best average result since JWOC 2008!
The men also did extremely well with an average place of 76 and this the best result since JWOC 2017.
A key take away is also the fact that our top 3 men and women in the results list all have run at least one JWOC previously and they all ran PB’s today. The long is the toughest race and the experience of running these sorts of international races cannot be underestimated in moving up the learning curve.
Here is the full list of results from the long race which saw Spain win its first ever medal at JWOC.
Women: 8.0km, 152 starters
1. Freja Herne (SWE) 66.17
2. Henriette Radzikowski (SUI) +0.06
3. Rita Maramarosi (HUN) +1.37
27. Milla Key (AUS) +12.25
36. Nea Shingler (AUS) + 14.18
46. Erika Enderby (AUS) +18.02
79. Liana Stubbs (AUS) +28.44
114. Gemma Burley (AUS) +45.54
116. Katie Braid (AUS) +46.34
Men: 10.0km, 170 starters
1. Daniel Bolehosky (CZE) 70.43
2. Wilmer Selin (SWE) +1.04
3. Alejandro Garrido Diaz (ESP) +1.20
39. Cooper Horley (AUS) +12.39
54. Owen Radajewski (AUS) +16.00
71. Jamie Woolford (AUS) +19.34
90. Henri du Toit (AUS) +25.35
96. Elye Dent (AUS) +27.23
108. Euan Best (AUS) +31.12
