JWOC Long Distance- another good day for Australia.
At an altitude over 2000m today was the JWOC Long Distance event on a very steep and rocky map that certainly provided a physical and also technical challenge. The Australian team again had some very good performances after yesterdays success in the Sprint. Matt Doyle who was the last starter on the mens course had a very impressive run in this challenging terrain to finish strongly and he ended up in 18th place, time 73:48, 13.5% down on the winner J Hadorn from Switzerland (the winner of the gold medal in the sprint yesterday). In fact the top three today were the same as the top three from the Sprint. Matt had a very steady start and after some time loss at controls 8 and 9 where he was in 39th place finished the latter part of the course strongly to move up to a very impressive 18th position.
The two youngest members of the team Aston Key and Tara Mellhuish who are both still 16 years old had very impressive debuts in their first JWOC Long Distance event. Aston who had a very steady run but tired a little after starting fast was in 55th place in a time of 80:57. Tara who was slightly disappointed with her run in the sprint showed very good resilience today to be the best of the Aussie women in 60th place in a time of 76:10. Both of these performances indicate that both these young orienteers have a good future as they develop more with age and experience.
Tomorrow is a rest day and after the sunshine and very warm weather of the last 9 days tomorrow is forecast to be wet and cooler. On Wednesday the Middle Qualification heats will be held on the slopes above the village where we are staying -Ftan. The team will be having an afternoon tea for all the Australian supporters who are in Switzerland cheering the team on tommorrow afternoon at the team hotel and then we will be attending the medal presentation for both the sprint and the long.
Full results, maps and photos-JWOC 2016
Event analysis can be seen on the World Of O
http://news.worldofo.com/2016/07/11/jwoc-2016-long-maps-and-results/
Nick Dent