The Swiss and Scandinavian dominance evident in the individual races at JWOC2009 continued in the relays at Val Canali with the Swiss women’s team coming from 3:35 down in fourth place after the second leg to win by 1:47 from Norway after the Swiss number 3 runner Julia Gross posted the fastest leg of the day.
In the men’s race, it was Sweden from Switzerland after the Swiss led the two Swedish teams by 1:40. With Martin Hubmann running the final leg, a Swiss double looked likely, but just as Gross had done in the women’s race, Sweden’s JWOC long distance champion Gustav Bergman had the fastest run in the men’s race to bring Sweden’s number 1 team home 43 seconds ahead of the Swiss, with the Swedish number 2 team dropping back to fourth after a strong final leg from Denmark’s Soren Bobach.
Both Australian women’s teams had consistent runs to finish in 24th and 29th places, but the men were less consistent, with the number 2 team in 43rd place and the number 1 team in 48th place.
With no Australian juniors in the A finals, the main interest for the Oceania region was in a trio of New Zealand girls in the A final. Early leader Aebi Bettina of Switzerland was eventually overtaken, ending in 5th place with 2 compatriots in 4th and equal 5th. Final placings were
1. Tov Alexandersson SWE 23.24
2. Britt Ingunn NOR 23.42
3. Ida Bobach DEN 23.59
In the boys final, the late starters eventually took the running times to below the 30 minutes, closer to the expected winning time of 25 minutes. Results were
1. Dlli-Markus Taivaninen FIN 26.21
2. Phillip Sauter SUI 27.00
3. Ulf Forseth Indgaard NOR 27.39
Both courses covered the complex rocky terrain in the south of tha map area.
All Australian girls competed in the B final, with their results suggesting they were more confortable in the technically challenging area than in the qualification event.
Results of the B Final (2.8 km, 12 controls, winner 24.23)
The JWOCweek continued today with the Middle distance qualifying race in the forest around San Martino di Castrozza. It was a challenging day for the Aussies with complex rock detail on steep hillsides with mixed visibility pine forestand a rough forest floor adding to the challenge.
View from the arena
San Martino lies between 1400m and 1600m above sea level. The arena for qualification races this morning was the Sporting Hall in the village.
Once again the competition terrain was dominated by coniferous woods, with visibility ranging from good to poor. Plenty of rock and contour detail challenged competitors, with pre-race commentary suggesting the need for good compass technique, particularly on down hill legs. Race conditions were ideal.
The qualifying races consisted of 3 Heats with the top 20 from each heat going through to tomorrow’s A Final, places 21-40 running in the B final and the remainder running the C final. The sombre mood amongst the Australian team at the end of the qualification races reflected the fact that there were no ‘A’ qualifiers today. However, three were in the mix for a top twenty heat placing until quite late in proceedings.
Josh BlatchfordSarah Buckerfield
NSW representative Josh Blatchford continued his consistent performances in his first JWOC competition. He finished 27th in qualification heat 1, but was the closest of the Australian’s to an ‘A’ qualifier, missing out by 27 seconds. Tasmania’s Sarah Buckerfield had her best run to date in women’s qualification heat 2. Her time of 31:28 placed her in 21st position, 32 seconds out of a top twenty position. In women’s qualification heat 1 Aislinn Prendergast from Victoria placed 23rd, 31 seconds off an ‘A’ qualifier, in a time of 31:47.
Middle distance qualifiers always seem to serve up some disappointments, though it is worth noting that Lachlan Dow from the ACT, along with Tasmanian’s Callum Fagg and Oscar Phillips, will join Josh Blatchford in the ‘B’ final tomorrow. In JWOC 2008 in Sweden only Oliver Mitchell was able to qualify for the ‘B’ final. Max Neve and Leon Keely will contest the ‘C’ final. All six girls will contest the ‘B’ final – insufficient entries warranting the inclusion of a third race.
Middle distance ‘C’ and ‘B’ finals commence at 9:00am local time tomorrow. The ‘A’ finals get underway at 10:00am, and should prove to be an exciting spectacle. JWOC competition concludes with the relay event on Saturday at Val Canali.
Interstate visitors making the most of the scenery.
Top End’s Lachlan Hallett and Victorian Blair Trewin split the honours over the NT Championships weekend, held on the rocky terrain of Manton Dam and Coomalie Creek south of Darwin. Hallett won the middle distance race by two minutes from Trewin, but Trewin reversed the result the next day, despite losing half a shoe in mid-course.
Susanne Casanova (NT) was a comfortable winner in W21 on both days of the weekend, with Kate Radford (NT) her closest challenger.
The Long distance race featured a myriad of WW2 relics: vehicle wrecks, gun fortifications, paved building and tent site bases and ‘long drop’ toilet sites, remaining from the occupation of the area by over 1500 military personnel during WW2. The atmosphere was completed for competitors with frequent flyovers during the event.
1942 Russian Yak going through its paces at Coomalie airstrip
A highlight for many was the chance to ride in one of the restored WW2 aircraft before or after their run. As landowner Richard Luxton declared, “A live airfield should have planes in it”, and there were plenty! As the drive into the assembly area crossed the heritage Coomalie airstrip this led to the unusual situation where incoming traffic had to “stop and look for planes” before proceeding.
There was also a Sprint Event at Charles Darwin University on Friday evening, finishing with a sprint up the beach at the adjacent Dripstone cliffs in time for a spectacular Top End sunset. All of the three weekend winners were missing (Trewin due to a delayed arrival and the others through organising), and the open classes were taken out by Tyson Hillyard (SA) and Ann-Cathrin Degn (Vic).
Outside the open classes, probably the best race was in M17-20, which featured two of Australia’s better M16s, local Kelly Bertei and ACT’s Oliver Poland, along with Oliver’s older brother Luke. The three were separated by just four minutes in the long race, with Oliver prevailing over Kelly. In the Sprint all 3 boys had faster times than the senior men on the same course.
Kelly Bertei approaching the finish (in the Sprint).
All states and territories as well as New Zealand were represented over the weekend, there were no snake bites or crocodile attacks, and all survived the beautiful Top End weather.
Australia’s best juniors finally got to release some nerves and tension at the JWOC Sprint race last night. Tonight they replace the cobbled streets of Mezzano for the forests of Passo Rolle. Below are some pictures of the terrain.
The Australian team start times are below, and full start lists can be found here.
Men
Callum Fagg 10:34
Max Neve 11.18
Josh Blatchford 12.42
Leon Keely 13:08
Lachlan Dow 14:04
Oscar Phillips 14:44
Women
Aislinn Prendergast 10:21
Belinda Lawford 10:45
Krystal Neumann 12:15
Lillian Burrill 12.19
Bridget Anderson 13:27
Sarah Buckerfield 13:33
Australia got off to a fantastic start for JWOC with Aislinn Prendergast as the second starter for the day. Her time of 15:26 was initially the leading time. She was overtaken by Beata Falk early in the event, but maintained a good position as the later runners finished – coming 31st place overall. Jenny Lönnkvist of Sweden blitzed the field to win in a time of 13:34, almost half a minute ahead of 2nd place – 14:02 a tie between Tereza Novotna (CZE) and Ida Bobach (DEN).
Callum Fagg during the sprint race. Photo: JWOC 2009
In the men’s race the Swiss Mathias Kyburz had a convincing victory over Czech Milos Nykodym. Of the Australians, Lachlan Dow recovered from a slow start to lead the way with a strong 41st out of a huge field of 174 starters. Josh Blatchford also produced a good result on debut with his 59th. The Aussie mens provisional results are:
41. Lachlan Dow 16:34
59. Josh Blatchford 17:00
98. Max Neve 17:56
126. Leon Keely 19:20
146. Callum Fagg 21:09
Oscar Phillips mp
We expect to see confirmed results up on the JWOC Website shortly. Maps have been published on the World of O race report. Stay tuned again tonight for the Long Distance final.
The Long distance final was held today in the wet and slippery forest of Passo Rolle. The competition area was at an altitude of 1900m and heavy thunderstorms made the going very tough.
Canberra’s Lachlan Dow was the best of our men with an impressive 35th place. Newcastle’s Josh Blatchford was 57th in his first JWOC and both he and Dow have a few more years as juniors ahead. Sweden’s Gustav Bergman won the race by a huge margin of over 3 minutes.
Queensland’s powerhouse trio of Bridget Anderson, Krystal Neumann and Lillian Burrill were the best placed Aussie girls. Denmark’s Ida Bobach came from behind to win from yesterday’s sprint champion Jenny Lonnkvist.
The team will now rest tomorrow before the Middle Distance Qualification on Thursday.
The racing at JWOC in Italy gets underway tonight with the Sprint event. LIVE Results
Start times for the Australian Team (Italy is 8 hours behind Eastern Time & 6 hours behind Western Time.):
Callum Fagg 15:08
Leon Keely 15:13
Josh Blatchford 16:23
Oscar Phillips 16:40
Lachlan Dow 16:58
Max Neve 17:03
Aislinn Prendergast 15:01
Bridget Anderson 15:16
Belinda Lawford 16:13
Krystal Neumann 16:18
Sarah Buckerfield 16:37
Lilian Burrill 16:50
The Men will have a 3.1km race with 24 controls, while the Women’s race will be 2.5km with 21 controls. Competition for places will be tough with large fields of 172 Men and 123 Women competing.
AISLINN PRENDERGAST held the lead for some time with 15:26!!!
Elson, currently residing in England, has had a terrific weekend of racing at the UK WOC trials. She beat a quality field winning both the Sprint and Middle Distance races, and was 3rd in the Long Distance.
In the UK Cup Sarah Rollins now has an unassailable lead in the womens competition, with Elson in second and Pippa Whitehouse in third.
The results show that Grace is in great form leading up to the 2009 World Championships in Hungary next month.
Full results from the weekends races are available here.
The Australian Team has made final preparations for this year’s Junior World Championships, starting tomorrow with the sprint race in Fiera di Primerio (1500-1820 Italian time).
The team has been at their secret training location(Cesuna near Asiago) away from the official training camp and doing some very good training. They are sharing accommodation with the Danish Senior Team who are doing trials for their national selection for WOC.
Team Manager Hilary Wood writes: “The team have settled in and enjoying the hilly, very green terrain. Lots of pine trees in lovely mountain alpine meadows. We have seen cows with cow bells and some deer or Ibex as Lachy insists on saying they are! We are all well fed with a well-honed system in place with each group preparing and cooking meals.
“On Wednesday we travelled to Fiera de Primiero to check out the accommodation for JWOC and do some training on maps we have been told are the best for training for the middle distance and the sprint. We took a photo of the team on the top of the passo de rolle (not on the competition map) and trained on a map with a view straight across to the dolomiti mountains! Magnifico!! We all enjoyed a traditional hot chocolate afterwards in the local Dismoni restaurant which was on the map.”
Stay up to date with the team via their attackpoint log. We expect results to be published on theofficial jwoc site, but additional information, photos and race reports will be posted here.
The JWOC
Men
