World Orienteering Championships Middle race: gold for Billstam and Lundanes
Posted on | July 11, 2014 | Category: News
Annika Billstam, Ida Bobach and Tove Alexandersson celebrating their medals. Photo: Erik Borg
World Champions 2014 at Middle distance are Annika Billstam, Sweden and Olav Lundanes, Norway. On a fine day in a delightfully scenic setting in the limestone Dolomites, a large crowd watched the two races unfold to exciting conclusions in both cases.
Until two controls out it looked as though Ida Bobach was going to emulate her brother in the Sprint and bring a gold medal home for Denmark. But at control 14 when she had a narrow but significant lead, she made a small parallel error amongst some groups of rocks, and lost precious time. At the end she was racing for the finish to get in ahead of Tove Alexandersson, Sweden, and this she achieved by 2 seconds.
Annika Billstam approaching the finish. Photo: newspower.it
Both Sweden and Denmark had two finishers in the top six. Minna Kauppi, Finland, a big favourite for this race who was last starter today, made a mistake at control 1 and others later, and finished well out of medals time.
In the men’s race it was Long Distance Champion Thierry Gueorgiou who registered the fastest time at the finish, but when his electronic tag was downloaded it was immediately clear that he had failed to visit control 6 and was therefore disqualified. The GPS tracking shows that he went direct from 5 to 7. Fabian Hertner, Switzerland took the silver medal, 18 seconds slower than Lundanes, and the bronze went to Oleksandr Kratov, Ukraine. The Swiss men had three in the top six.
Tomorrow the final race of the Championships will be held, the Relay, using the same arena as today.
Leading results, Middle Distance
Women
1. Annika Billstam SWE 37:03
2. Ida Bobach DEN 37:25
3. Tove Alexandersson SWE 37:27
4. Sara Luescher SUI 38:37
5. Mari Fasting NOR 38:53
6. Maja Alm DEN 39:00
Men
1. Olav Lundanes NOR 38:12
2. Fabian Hertner SUI 38:30
3. Oleksandr Kratov UKR 38:46
4. Baptiste Rollier SUI 39:45
5. Andreas Kyburz SUI 40:05
6. Lauri Sild EST 40:39
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