WUOC Sprint Relay

Today’s Sprint Relay was held downtown in Miskolc and was a very spectacular event with good visibility of the runners, big screen and also GPS available in the arena. Relays can be very exciting and this one certainly was. The comment from those Aussies present was “why don’t we have more events like this one?” I can only agree with this sentiment.

The Great British team are certainly demonstrating their strength in sprint orienteering. After their successes in the individual sprint they were clear winners today by 50 seconds from Czech Republic with Norway in 3^rd place.

The Australians who do not get much experience in relays let alone sprint relays had a very impressive team performance finishing in 13^th place only 5:14 down on the winners. All runners had good runs with some small errors but the combined result of 13^th which is four places higher than two years ago. Krystal Neumann was 14^th on her leg, Henry McNulty 12^th, Ian Lawford 11^th and Michele Dawson was 17^th on her last leg.

Tomorrow is the middle distance event on a map with some negative terrain and rocky areas that should lend itself to some good middle distance courses. Australia will be represented by:

Men- Matt Doyle, Henry McNulty, Andrew Barnett and Brodie Nankervis.

Women- Heather Muir, Nicola Blatchford, Belinda Lawford and Michele Dawson.

Sorry too late for analysis and any photos.

Nick Dent