Today was the Long Distance event and the winners were Norway in the women and France in the Men.

Goril Ronning Sund (Norway) won the womens gold medal in today`s long distance race in Nectavske udoli. The Norwegian dominated the course ahead of Bettina Aebi from Switzerland. Jana Knapova from the Czech Republic won the second bronze medal for the home country. Frederic Tranchand from France was the fastest man in today`s race. He won the gold ahead of two Swiss brothers. Matthias Kyburz was 1.29 seconds behind the Frenchman and secured the silver medal. Andreas Kyburz won the bronze. It was an interesting outcome in the men’s as Matthias Kyburz started 2 minutes in front of Frederic Tranchard and they were running together at the arena passage (control 10).

The Australians found the physical nature of the courses a challenge, but they all competed well and finished the course. There were some wide route choices available and we will be doing some analysis of these to see which was the faster. Feedback from the placegetters is that they mainly went straight.

Womens results: Krystal Neumann 57th, Lauren Gillis 70th, Belinda Lawford 71st, Bridget Anderson 76th.

Mens results: Bryan Keely 48th, Andrew Barnett 64th, Murray Scown 70th, Todd Neve 78th.

Full results available

http://wuoc2014.cz/result.html

Tomorrow afternoon will be the Sprint Distance event at Svaty Kopecek. This will be a combination of bush (30%) and urban terrain which includes a small zoo. There will be some climb in the bush section. All the Australians will compete in the sprint.

A special feature of the sprint will be that Eurosport and Czech TV will be broadcasting it live on TV.