WUOC Long Distance
WUOC Long Distance
Today’s Long distance looked like it would be very much a physical challenge with a distance for the men of 13.8km and climb of 655m, and for the women a distance of 9.8km and climb of 420m. This is exactly how it turned out.
In the men’s the winner was Rasmuss Anderson from Sweden in a time of 83:59, and in the womens the winner was Anna Haataja from Finland in a time of 74:27 (estimated winning time was 65 mins).
The best of the Australians on the day was Krystal Neumann who was 30th -19.8% behind the winner. Krystal made some technical errors at controls 2 and 7 (both short legs) which cost her 3:30 mins. Otherwise she had a steady consistent run. Belinda Lawford was 46th (33% down) and Belinda had some technical errors at three short legs, controls 4,5 and 6 which cost her 5 mins. Nicola Blatchford had a steady run but lacked the running speed over this distance to be in 48th place (36.7%). Heather Muir had a combination of some technical errors, especially at controls 6, 13 and 15, along with a lack of running speed to finish in 61st place (61.2%).
In the men the best Australian was Lachlan Dow in 46th place, 24.4% down on the winner. Lachie lost almost 2 mins on control 1 but after that had a steady run and finished the strongest of all the Aussies. Matt Doyle was in 52nd place (26.4%) and Brodie Nankervis was in 58th place (29.6%). Lachie, Brodie and Matt were almost equal in time at control 20 but Brodie made an error on control 21 which cost him 3:44 mins and Lachie finished strongly from control 20 onwards. Andrew Barnett after an early error was lacking the running speed of the other Australians.
The lesson to take away from this experience is that at the top international level of orienteering the long distance event requires endurance and stamina which only comes from years of training. The experience will certainly benefit these athletes development towards improving their performance in long distance events international.
Women behind superwoman
Tomorrow afternoon at 5:00pm local time in downtown Miskolc the Sprint Relay will be held. Each country is only allowed one team. Australia will be represented by: Krystal Neumann, Henry McNulty, Ian Lawford and Michele Dawson.
Photos from Sprint
