Julian Dent 13th in Sprint Final and Lizzie Ingham (NZ) takes bronze.
The World Cup sprint final in Wellington today again saw the cream come to the top with pre-race hot tips Matthias Kyburz (Swiss) and Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) taking gold.
The main surprise was the blow out in the winning times, usually 12-15 minutes, to nearly 18 for the men and mid 19’s for the women. The hilly terrain and wide route choices accounted for some of this no doubt. Some runners obviously spent their energy early on, not anticipating that a longer run was in store.
Tove’s success was built on consistency, as she only scored a couple of fastest legs. After holding the lead midrace she fell behind, only to grab the lead and hold it from the penultimate control, with just a 3 second margin from fellow Swede Annika Billstam.
Kiwi sprint specialist Lizzie Ingham delighted the crowd to race in for 3rd, just 12 seconds behind the winner. This bronze medal is the best ever result at a major international meet by a female New Zealander. Now studying for her Phd in Canberra, Lizzie had returned home a month ago to finalise her preparation for a rare World Cup event on home soil.
Lizzie started slowly but then won a decisive route choice leg from 5-6 which saw her remain in either 2nd or 3rdplace for the remainder of the course.
The Aussie girls had mixed results, with Grace Crane doing well for 18th place in a strong field that boasted 11 of the 12 top World ranked females. Rachel Effeney finished 21st, but rued a loss of some 45 seconds on one control. She leaves NZ now, to return to her doctor’s internship in Cairns, thus being unable to race in event 3. Top junior Heather Muir will step up into elites for this race. Felicity Brown continued her impressive form for 28th.
Many of our lower placed girls lost valuable time on leg 5-6. Where Lizzie ran 3.14 they took 5- 6 and a half minutes.
The men’s race was dominated by the Swiss, as they had 7 runners in the top 10! Matthias Kyburz took the honours, 30 seconds clear of Swede Jerker Lysell. It was almost another “Matthias” trifecta with the other Matthias Swiss boys finishing 3rd and 4th. Our two male representatives can be well pleased with 13th(Julian) and 17th (Simon). Given the long winning times they were quite close to the pointy end, with Julian being less than 30 seconds from the podium.
More maps and reports can be found on http://news.worldofo.com/ and winsplits can be found at
www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/
The elite runners have a mini rest now until racing event 3 on January 13. This event has an unusual format consisting of a Middle distance chasing start in the afternoon with the start times based on a shortened middle distance prologue (20-25 minutes) in the morning. The prologue will have a loop format with 2 athletes starting at a time. The start interval will be 2 minutes
Men 3.6 km 135 m 19 C
1 17.52 Matthias Kyburz SUI
2 18.27 Jerker Lysell SWE
3 18.30 Matthias Merz SUI
4 18.41 Matthias Müller SUI
5 18.50 Olav Lundanes NOR
6 18.56 Tue Lassen DEN
13 19.23 Julian Dent AUS
17 19.54 Simon Uppill AUS
20 20.02 Tim Robertson NZL
29 20.45 Ross Morrison NZL
33 21.04 Matt Ogden NZL
34 21.19 Matthew Crane GBR / ACT
Women 3.0 km 135 m 16 C
1 19.32 Tove Alexandersson SWE
2 19.35 Annika Billstam SWE
3 19.44 Lizzie Ingham NZL
4 20.12 Sara Lüscher SUI
5 20.19 Tone Wigemyr NOR
6 20.33 Rahel Friederich SUI
18 21.49 Grace Crane AUS
21 22.23 Rachel Effeney AUS
25 23.42 Greta Knarston NZL
27 23.51 Georgia Whitla NZL
28 23.54 Felicity Brown AUS
30 24.10 Imogene Scott NZL
31 24.32 Laura Robertson NZL
33 24.53 Amber Morrison NZL
34 25.00 Anna Sheldon AUS
35 25.46 Aislinn Prendergast AUS
36 26.21 Mace Neve AUS
37 26.52 Jasmine Neve AUS
38 26.55 Cosette Saville NZL
39 27.29 Kathryn Preston AUS