WMTBO Sprint
Today saw the campaign start for the 2007 WMTBO championships. The first event consisted of a sprint around the World Cup biathlon Venue of Hotel Ski near Nove Mesto Na Morave. Weather conditions were ideal with a temperature of 26 degrees.
The men’s sprint was contested by David Simpfendorfer, Tony Clark, Paul Darvodelsky and Alex Randall on a 6Km course. Alex Randall placed 14th overall 1.09min behind Torbjoern Gasbjerg from Denmark. Other Australian places were David S 45th (just 3min behind the winner), Paul D 50th and Tony C 72nd. All boys had pretty clean runs on the detailed 1:5000 map, except for Tony who lost 3min at control 1. All are looking forward to further good runs over the next couple of days. New Zealand’s sole representative Michal Glowacki tied with David S for 45thplace
The women’s sprint was contested by Thorlene Egerton who unfortunately rode past control 4 resulting in a DSQ. Thor was well pleased with her navigation and her splits demonstrated this. Ksenia Chernykh of Russia won the Sprint with a time of 13.51, 36secs ahead of Micheala Gigon of Austria. Czech television showed the Sprint live and it can be seen here. It makes great viewing.