JWOC Long Distance

Finnish Olli Ojanaho won a second Gold medal at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Rauland, Norway after a great race. Swedish Sara Hagström won a well deserved Gold medal in the women’s class after trouble on both sprint and middle.

On what was very tough terrain the courses today were always going to be a physical challenge given the amount of marshes on the map. As well there were some significant technical challenges as the analysis of the splits shows, with some fairly big mistakes being made. The JWOC long distance is a very challenging event due to the number of runners and it appears that starting later yesterday was a significant benefit with what must have been tracking in the terrain especially in the marshes.

Section of the map showing the long leg on M20 course

Matt Doyle was the best Aussie finishing in 41^st place. Matt was wearing GPS so we could follow his progress and he had a very consistent run with only three small technical errors and his running speed was consistent. In his previous two JWOC Matt has finished 102^nd (2013) and 88^th (2014). He is making good progress in competing at this level. Henry McNulty after some early problem finished the course with very good running speed to be in 64^th place.

Aussie's Time Behind Winner — Aussie’s Time Behind Winner

Three of our women finished very close together and with only some small mistakes they had almost the same running speed. Winnie Oakhill 68^th, Anna Dowling 69^th and Hannah Goddard 70^th. Winnie and Hannah are in their first JWOC so this is an impressive start to their international career.