In todays JWOC sprint held in sunny and quite hot Scuol the Australian team celebrated the first Australian on the podium at JWOC since 2007. Henry McNulty finishing a fantastic run in equal 6th place in a time of 13:20 just 3 seconds from 4th. Henry was very pleased with his run and said that he did not think he could have made up any time. The whole Aussie team and all the supporters we had in the large crowd were very excited with this result.

The two winners today of the gold medal were both from the home country- Switzerland. S Abersold made it two JWOC Sprint victories in two years with a decisive victory by 52 seconds. In the mens race the winner was J Hadorn, with the Swiss having 4 runners in the top seven places.

The Aussie men performed very well overall with Aston Key in his first JWOC  41st place, Matt Doyle  45th place, Simeon Burrill 55th, Jarrah Day 62nd and Patrick Jaffe 91st.

In the women, Lanita Steer had a very steady run  to finish in an excellent 26th place.Other results were: Winnie Oakhill  41st, Asha Steer 91st, Tara Mellhuish 104th  and Zoe Dowling 122nd. Unfortunately Anna Dowling missed a control.

Some analysis of the Aussie Performances

The team is now recovering and resting for the Long Distance event to be held tomorrow.

A great way to start a long week and we can look forward to more good performances during the rest of the events. It has certainly given the whole team a boost of confidence.

Nick Dent