Nominations closing for Sept Bushrangers and NZ World Cup January 2013 Teams.

NZ WORLD CUP AND BUSHRANGERS  – NOMINATIONS  now close THIS SUNDAY  SEPT 2nd.

Note change:   World Cup maximum team size is now 10 men and 10 women.

Selection criteria for the Australian team to contest the World Cup races in New Zealand during the Oceania Championships, January 2013

Dates for the World Cup Races are as follows:

1) Middle distance Sun 6th

2) Sprint qualifier Mon 7th, final Tues 8th

3) Prologue and chasing start Sun 13th

Australia can now field a team of up to 10 men and 10 women for each of these races.

The only selection trials for these races will be:

  1. Australian Middle Distance Championships Saturday September 22nd(all athletes wishing to be considered for selection must enter the M/W21E classes)
  2. Australian Sprint Championships Friday September 28th(junior athletes wishing to be considered for selection should enter the M/W17-20E classes and all senior athletes must enter the M/W21E classes)

It is acknowledged that these are at different ends of the championships week; therefore if athletes are nominating for only the middle distance race at World Cup they need only run the Australian Middle Distance Championships trial, and if only nominating for the sprint race at World Cup they need only run the Australian Sprint Championships trial. If nominating for the final prologue race, or wishing to be considered for all 3 World Cup Races, athletes are to run both middle and sprint trials.

If an athlete who is nominating for these World Cup races is unable to attend either of the selection trials then they may request that their past results, i.e. all known form, be taken into account.

Past results are to be taken into account in order of significance:

1) WOC 2012

2) JWOC/WUOC/WC 2012

3) WOC 2011

4) Easter and WOC trials 2012

5) Oceania 2011

Nonimations for the Bushrangers vs Pinestars Test Matches Sept 2012

The Australian Championships 2012 week will also include a series of Bushrangers vs Pinestars Test matches. Although athletes were invited to nominate for these earlier in the year, this is the official call for nominations.

The races are to be the:

Australian Sprint Championships Fri Sept 28th

Australian Long Championships Sat Sept 29th

The Bushranger team size will be 3 men and 3 women, as determined by the size of the visiting NZ team.

Nominations for both the World Cup races and the Bushrangers vs Pinestars Tests are to be received by SUNDAY SEPT 2nd, 2012.

All nominations are to be sent to the Chair of Senior Selectors, Jenny Casanova, at jenny.casanova@health.sa.gov.au   on

2013 WC (and Sept Bushrangers) nomination form.doc

MTBO Relay Championships Report.

Mel - Copy

After the great performances by our junior boys in the middle distance there were high hopes of a medal in the relay.    They certainly gave it a great shot and were in 2nd place through legs one and two before some terrain collywobbles got to Tom Goddard on leg 3 and he slipped back to 9th.   Nevertheless it showed that our boys certainly have the potential to be at the pointy end of the field.

Our elite men’s team were led out by first time elite Oscar Phillips and he did pretty well finishing just on 6 minutes down, although in 20th overall.     Ricky Thackray had probably his best ride so far and did a similar time and got the team back in 14th and Steve Cusworth managed to peg back another team to give us 13th overall.     Taking out the second teams for some countries that gave us 9th overall.

We fielded a second elite team, comprising of our other two juniors (Heath and Karl) and our lone female elite, in Melanie Simpson.     This provided them with another international race and it seems that they individually all rode quite well.

The Championships conclude on Saturday with the long distance championship event.

The organisers have sensibly put these last given the predicted hot weather and the long physical nature of the courses

 

JUNIOR MEN

1 Czech Republic   2:01:12

2 Finland 1       2:06:06

3 Russia 2        2:12:23

4 France 1        2:14:59

5 Russia 1        2:15:04

6 Lithuania 2:  18:06

7 Latvia 1        2:18:45

8 Sweden 1      2:19:51

9 Australia 1  2:26:31    ( 8th official team)

Chris Firman 44.39 = 2nd   Marc Gluskie 40.40 = 2nd   Tom Goddard  60.12 = 9th

 JUNIOR WOMEN

1  Russia 1       2:06:36

2 Finland 1      2:10:25

3 Czech  Rep   2:11:36

4 Polish            2:19:47

5 France 1            2:25:12

6 Russia 2          2:38:39

 

ELITE MEN

1 Finland 1                  2:16:04

2 Russia 1                    2:16:47

3 Austria 1                    2:17:06

4 Czech Republ 1        2:20:00

5 Czech Republ           2          2:21:17

6 Finland 2                  2:21:21

7 Russia 2                    2:24:06

8 France 1                   2:24:13

9 Switzerland  1                      2:24:58

10 Italy 1                     2:31:53

11 Portugal 1                          2:32:03

12 Switzerland 2        2:33:28

13 Australia 1                         2:35:03    (9th official team)

30 Australia 2                         3:13:22

AUS 1  Oscar Phillips 52.58 = 20th;  Ricky Thackray 52.28 = 14th;  Steve Cusworth 49.37 = 13th.

AUS 2 Heath Jamieson 61.28 = 32nd; Karl Withers 61.52 = 31st; Melanie Simpson 70.02 = 30th.

 ELITE WOMEN

1 Finland 1       2:15:12

2 Switzerland  2:17:31

3 Slovakia 1       2:26:02

4 Austria 1       2:27:48

5 France 1       2:28:36

6 Czech Rep    2:28:45

 

MASTERS SPRINT

2 –   W50   Carolyn Jackson

13 –  W50   Carolyn Cusworth

9 – W40     Tasmin Barnes

25 – M50     Richard Robinson

37 – M50     Peter Cusworth

2 – M60      Rob Garden (NZ)

 

Chris Firman and Melanie Simpson do well in MTBO Long Final.

The MTBO World Championships concluded today with the Long Distance Final, with races finishing in the historical town of Veszprem..

Queenslander junior Chris Firman became our “rider of the meet” with another fine performance, this time placing 12th.   This followed his 5th in the middle event and 2nd on the first leg of the relay.   Tom Goddard was 7th about 75% of the way around the course but suffered a troublesome flat tyre that caused him grief.

In the elites Melanie Simpson raced well  placing 20th, again fantastically close to the top, being just 4 minutes off the podium in a tightly packed field.   Kiwi Marquita Gelderman followed on from her sprint 25th with an 18th place today.   Finn Susanna Laurila added an individual gold to her relay gold medal.   Steven Cusworth had his best result of the week with 27th.  Ruslan Gritsan’s (Russia) pulled off a 16 second victory after starting last and storming home over the last kilometres.   Finn Samuli Saarela, who finished 4th, just a minute down, had the misfortune to get a puncture in the closing stages.

Overall during the week the Finnish team dominated the medal collection, to a degree not seen before..  However there was a greater depth of nations than ever before actually making it into the top 6.  Also Sweden this year came with a large team and are intent on being a MTBO force in the future.

Ruslan Gritsan’s gold medal today took his individual medal career haul to 12 – 5 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze.  The only other rider ahead is Austria’s Michaela Gigon, who also has 12 but this includes 6 gold, 4 silver and and 2 bronze.

JUNIOR MEN

1              Krystof Bogar      Czech Rep   73:35

2              Jonas Maišelis     Lithuania     77:54

3              Vojtech Ludvik     Czech Rep   78:02

4              André Haga         Finland           78:46

5              Reinis Grende      Latvia            79:09

6              Grigory Medvedev   Russia      79:17

12           Chris Firman                                  81.52

31           Tom Goddard                               95.50

32           Karl Withers                                96:02

37           Marc Gluskie                              101:03   

 

JUNIOR WOMEN

1              Eeva-Liisa Hakala       Finland       58:30

2             Svetlana Poverina       Russia         61:31

3              Ruska Saarela              Finland        65:22

4              Barbara Sanocka          Polish          65:26

5             Henna Saarinen           Finland         66:18

6              Caroline Konring         Denmark      67:25

 

ELITE MEN

1              Ruslan Gritsan     Russia                  90:41

2              Juho Saarinen      Finland               90:57

3              Samuel Pökälä      Finland              91.34

4              Samuli Saarela     Finland                 91:41

5              Davide Machado     Portugal         95:01

6              Tonis Erm               Estonia                 95:13

27           Steve Cusworth                                     103.58

 

ELITE WOMEN

1              Susanna Laurila    Finland             77:27

2              Ksenia Chernykh    Russia            77:50

3              Marika Hara        Finland               79:15

4              Annick Béguin      Switzerland    79:38

5              Ursina Jäggi       Switzerland         80:43

6              Christine Schaffne   Switzerland    81:02

18           Marquita Gelderman     NZ              84.55

20           Melanie Simpson                              85.31

 

MASTERS

2              W50        Carolyn Jackson

5              W50       Vivienne Prince    (NZ)

11           W40       Tasmin Barnes

27           M40       Bruce Patterson

19           M50       Peter Cusworth

26           M50       Richard Robinson

2              M60       Rob Garden      (NZ)

7              M60       Michael Wood (NZ)

Medals overall WOC & JWOC

G   S   B

Finland            4   2   3

Switzerland     2  1

Russia              1   3    1

Austria             1   –    1

Czech Rep       –    1    –

Great Britain   –    1    –

Denmark         –     –    1

Poland             –     –     1

Slovakia           –     –     1

Podium for Chris Firman in JWOC MTBO Middle Championship race.

Chris2 - Copy

Chris Firman  (Qld) made history by being Australia’s first individual JWOC MTBO podium placegetter with his 5th in the middle championships yesterday in Hungary.  He was also  in our history making relay team that placed 5th in 2010.    What a great result in the 65 person field that has increased dramatically in depth since the Jwoc’s inception!   Chris has travelled extensively to our national series and also to New Zealand to get competition and this fine result is a pleasing reward.   Chris was an early starter and actually was leading until the last starting group came through with some faster times.    The winner Czech’s  Krystof Bogar was a dual gold medal winner in 2011.  All our other junior boys raced well also, showing tremendous fitness on the fast, physical course and  in very hot conditions.

Melanie Simpson also rode excellently being just 4 minutes from a medal although in 23rd place. Overshooting a turn-off to control 8 cost her almost two and a half minutes, but other than that she was riding as fast as the top women.    Switzerland’s Ursini Jaggi won her first gold medal.   Finnish rider Susanna Laurila was initially thought to have won but had punched a men’s control in a detailed area near the finish .   Quite a few riders “lost” a minute or so on an unmarked track towards the end of the course, which was quite a topic of debate.

With the courses being more physical than technical, with relatively few route choice headaches it was no surprise that the stronger male riders dominated the medals.    Finland’s Samuli Saarela added another gold to his collection ahead of Russian speedster Anton Foliforov, whilst there was a tie for 3rd place.    Steve Cusworth was our best but had a variety of  mistakes that interrupted his flow.

There was further excitement when the Jackson name won gold also today.  This time it was Carolyn Jackson who had a strong win in W50.

There is a rest day tomorrow with the Championships resuming on Friday with the relays which are again being held in the open terrain, as utilised in the sprint.

I’m sure that there will be some interesting write ups in the team blog –http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.com.au

 

Jwoc men

1 Krystof Bogar      Czech Rep   41:25

2 Taaniel Tooming    Estonia      42:05

3 Grigory Medvedev   Russia      42:17

4 Marcell Horváth    Hungary      43:02

5 Chris Firman       Australia     43:22

6 Cedric Beill         France           43:35

13 Tom Goddard                         45.08

21 Marc Gluskie                          46.18

32 Heath Jamieson                      49.21

36 Karl Withers                          50.55

 

Elite women

1 Ursina Jäggi       Switzerland       46:40

2 Ingrid Stengard    Finland            47:35

3 Nina Hoffmann      Denmark       48:42

4 Ramune Arlauskiene Lithuania    48:44

5 Laura Scaravonati      Italy           48:46

6 Gaelle Barlet           France          48.48

23 Melanie Simpson                       52.26

42 Marquita Gelderman   NZ          57.25

58 Christine Browne   NZ               66.50

 

Elite men

1 Samuli Saarela     Finland     50:49

2 Anton Foliforov    Russia      51:42

3 Samuel Pökälä      Finland     51:46

3 Jan Svoboda        Czech Rep   51:46

5 Ruslan Gritsan     Russia         52:18

6 Jussi Laurila      Finland         52:19

68 Steve Cusworth                    62.54

79 Oscar Phillips                       67.09

80 Ricky Thackray                   67.22

 

MASTERS

W40 – 9th  Tasmin Barnes

M40 – 40th Bruce Patterson

W50 – 1st   Carolyn Jackson

M50- 23rd  Peter Cusworth

M50 – 40th  Richard Robinson

M60 – 1st – Rob Garden (NZ)

Sprint Final at Mountain Bike Orienteering Worlds

Todays sprint was a very interesting experience for MTBOers. There were multiple controls off tracks, the track network was thick woven through generally open paddocks. It was imperative to stay in contact with the map, and small navigational mishaps could quickly become confusing. This is reflected in the results which are unusually spread out for a sprint race. It was again very hot but this time there was some cloud cover providing a little relief from the heat.
Marc learnt from his difficulties yesterday and focused on navigation. He says his ride felt slow, but backing off the pace obviously paid off as he rode into 16th place, a little under 7 minutes off the winner, Grigory Medvedev (RUS). Karl made some small errors, and placed a promising 27th place in his first junior world championships. Chris made some early errors, however couldn’t recover from them. Tom and Heath were disappointed with some substantial errors in the complex network of tracks and open ridable areas. They finished in 45th and 54th respectively.
Steve5The senior men was won by Tobias Breitschadel of Austria who won his first world champs gold, and the medals were rounded out by Marek Pospisek (CZE) and the ever consistent Ruslan Gritsan (RUS). Steve made large errors on the 4th and 5thcontrols before he settled into a good pace and rode solidly for the rest of the race. He is recorded as a ”mp” after one of the controls failed to read his SI-stick and then his back up punch strip fell out of his map board. Apparently, the units have been affected by the heat and have either failed or taken a long time to record.

The women’s race was won by Christine Schaffner (SUI) and silver went to Emily Benham of Great Britain who had an impressive ride in her first major international event for the year. Anna Kaminska (POL), gold medalist in 2010, got the bronze medal. Mel was pretty disappointed with a very messy race, with a combination of poor route choice early and confusing herself with a control in a parallel gully through the middle of the course.

I think everyone in the Australian camp is happy that tomorrow will be a return to more conventional MTBO with controls on tracks, but we have learnt some good lessons for the relay which will again be approximately 40% off road riding.

Videos, photos and maps (including route gadget) are available on:http://www.mtbo.hu/mtbwoc2012.php

New Zealand had riders there for the first time in 4 years.  Evergreen Maquita Gelderman did well to place 25th while Christine Browne finished in 39th.

 

The 12 elite podium-placers today represent 8 different nations, with 6 different nations on the podium in the women’s race. Russia was the most successful country with 3 podium placings.  Sweden for the first time fielded a large team.

 

 

Leading Sprint results –

Elite Women

  1. Christine Schaffner SUI 21:45
  2. Emily Benham GBR 22:07
  3. Anna Kaminska POL 22:33
  4. Tatiana Repina RUS 22:39
  5. Gaelle Barlet FRA 24:02
  6. Michaela Gigon AUT 24:03

Elite Men

  1. Tobias Breitschädel AUT 24:45
  2. Marek Pospisek CZE 24:47
  3. Ruslan Gritsan RUS 24:59
  4. Frantisek Bogar CZE 25:35
  5. Jussi Laurila FIN 25:43
  6. Valeriy Gluhov RUS 25:53

Junior Women –

  1. Lou Denaix FRA 21:52
  2. Henna Saarinen FIN 23:14
  3. Svetlana Poverina RUS 24:08

Junior Men –

  1. Grigory Medvedev RUS 22:32
  2. Marcell Horváth HUN 22:48
  3. Kare Kaskinen FIN 24:06

 

Start times for Middle distance:

Karl: 10:59     (6:59pm)

Oscar: 11:00   (7pm)

Chris: 11:09   (7:09pm)

Tom: 11:39    (7:39pm)

Ricky: 11:40   (7:40pm)

Heath: 11:53   (7:53pm)

Steve: 12:22    (8:22pm)

Marc: 12:25     (8:25pm)

Mel: 12:30       (8:30pm)

Mountain Bike Orienteering World Championships Commence

TomlongToday saw the commencement of the Elite and Junior World Championships for Mountain Bike Orienteering in Veszprem, Hungary.

Conditions were not the best for riding with the temperature reaching approx 36˚ out in the open areas.  Riding early would benefit those who wanted extra time to recover but it also had the disadvantage of laying down tracks for the later riders as this year’s maps allowed for off road riding. Foot orienteering skills seemed to be needed for some legs as controls were placed in open land sometimes up to 200m off the track.

Steve Cusworth unfortunately drew a very early start but he worked hard and cleanly to gain an entry into the A final on next Saturday.  Oscar Phillips an Ricky Thackray just missed out on the A final as they were both caught out by the intricate nature of the tracks and also the heat which took its toll towards the end of their courses.

In the Junior category Tom Goddard had a great ride in his heat placing second, only 57 secs behind the winner.  Chris Firman battled with the heat but managed to place 16th in his heat, approx 11min down on the fast time.  Marc Gluskie managed to scrape through to the A final after having a disastrous ride out on the long qualification.  Karl Withers, at his first Junior WOC, managed to qualify also for the A final by placing 28th in his heat.  Heath Jamieson unfortunately mispunched on his course.  With 2 controls in a similar area he punched the wrong one.

Melanie Simpson place third in her heat, just 6min slower than the winner.  This puts her in a strong position for the A final.

The team is currently resting up and preparing for the sprint tomorrow which will be held next to today’s map with similar terrain and heat expected.

For more up to date info visit our blog site http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.com.au/ or even follow the team on facebook http://www.facebook.com/AusMTBOTeam

Mel longq2

Queensland continue on course for first National League title after NT rounds

The Queensland Cyclones women continue on course for the state’s first senior team title in the SILVA National Orienteering League after extending their lead in the weekend’s rounds in the Northern Territory. With the deepest team at the events, they took maximum points from all three races to stretch the gap over the Victorian Nuggets from three points to nine.

Rachael Effeney NT NOL

Rachel Effeney led the way for the Cyclones, winning two of the three events despite not being totally over the illness that damaged her World Championships campaign. She took out the sprint comfortably over Kathryn Preston, and had another win over a Victorian in the long distance with a 1 1/2 minute margin over WOC long distance team-mate Aislinn Prendergast. Another Queenslander also had a presence here, with Anna Sheldon in front for much of the race before a mistake on the long, flat third-last leg dropped her to third.

It took an import to break the Queensland monopoly on the weekend. In the mass-start night event on Saturday evening, Malin Andersson put her Swedish night experience to good use and ended up winning a sprint finish against Bridget Anderson.

The men’s events were a duel between Matt Crane and Simon Uppill, with only Bryan Keely’s second in the sprint breaking the duopoly. Crane got off to a winning start in the Charles Darwin University sprint, but it was Uppill who had the better of the two Lok Cabay events, albeit by the narrowest of margins. On Saturday night he won by six seconds in a sprint finish, and on Sunday the margin was nine. In both races, junior Oliver Poland was the nearest opposition, finishing in the lead pack on Saturday night, and helping the already dominant Canberra Cockatoos to extend an overwhelming lead. Crane and Uppill look set to fight out the individual National League title with Crane taking a three-point lead to Tasmania in September, while Effeney will be very hard to beat from here amongst the women.

The event was a great success, with Top End Orienteers finding two excellent areas (and an outstanding assembly area on the beach for the sprint) and drawing an impressively good crowd.

Photo albums are at

Victorian Championships 15-16 September – entries close today

The 2012 Victorian Championships will be taking place in north-east Victoria. The events will be taking place on two of Australia’s best orienteering areas, and will be an ideal chance to prepare for the Australian Championships carnival in Tasmania (or as a worthwhile event in their own right if you’re not going to Tasmania).

The weekend begins with the Victorian Middle Distance Championships at Rowdy Flat, near Yackandandah. This is one of the most complex gold-mining maps in Australia and was first used for the 2011 Oceania Middle Distance Championships. A new assembly area will be used for this event, providing a new range of challenges for competitors.

On the Sunday, the action moves to Kangaroo Crossing for the Victorian Long Distance Championships. This is one of Australia’s leading granite areas and will provide a tough challenge for competitors, both navigationally and physically. It was originally used as a training map for the 1985 World Championships and was last used for a major event in 2000, when it hosted a World Cup selection trial. It has been remapped by Alex Tarr for this event.

Further information is available through the Championships website. Online entries may also be made here, and close on 5 September.

Australian MTBO Team

The Australian MTBO team have been arriving recently in Budapest for the upcoming MTBO World Champs.  We are currently staying at a sport and recreation campsite up in the hills of Pest.

Yesterday was the Hungarian Middle Distance Champs.  The aim was to treat the Middle distance race as a familiarization session seeing it was the first opportunity to ride on a Hungarian map for most of the team.

The Hungarian map posed a few challenges for the team with a couple of the team members coming unstuck in 1 or 2 places on the map. Up to 15 min was lost due to the riders struggling to decipher what was mapped as tracks and what were actually driveways to properties as they were essentially the same.

The junior males rode the same course as the elite males and Kristof Bogar of the Czech junior team posted the fastest time overall in a time of 60:28.  Our fastest rider was Chris Firman in 69:20 placing second in the M20.  This time would have placed him 19th overall in the Elite class.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Today’s relay was held on the same map as the Middle Distance but had a scale of 1:10000 compared to yesterday’s 1:20000.  Our fastest team placed 8th overall in what was a fast and furious ride.  Consistency was the key for Chris Firman and Ricky Thackray whilst Oscar Phillips and Steve Cusworth placed 11th, Russian Alexander Archipov and Ian Dalton 12th, Heath and Karl 15th with Tom and Marc placing 16th out of 28 teams.

This week sees the team continue training in Budapest in preparation for the World Champs next week in Vesprem.

Keep up to date with the Aus team at http://ausmtboteam.blogspot.com.au/ and on twitter and facebook.

All results and maps from the Hungarian Middle Distance and Relays can be found at http://astrois.hu/MTBO

Oscarmtbo

Historic Relay wins to Swiss and Czech. Australia 22nd.

Photo from World of O
Photo from World of O
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