Natasha Key was once again the lead Australian as the long distance qualifying for the World Masters Orienteering Championships finished in Portugal on Thursday. For the fourth race in succession, she was a close second behind former Finnish WOC representative Katja Honkala in W35, and will go into Saturday’s final as the second seed.

She was the only Australian to run a place in qualifying and will go into Saturday as our best medal chance, but with a few results remaining to be finalised it appears that about 20 Australians will be running A finals. Those with chances of high places include Warren Key (M45), Blair Trewin (M35) and Jim Russell (M45), who continued their good sprint form to place fourth, fifth and sixth repsectively, and Judy Allison and Ted van Geldermalsen, who were also sixth in W60 and M50. Unfortunately, Hermann Wehner will not get the chance to repeat his sprint medal after narrowly missing out on qualification in M80.

Results and splits are available on the WMOC website.