World Orienteering Championships: Maja Alm and Jonas Leandersson are Sprint champions
Posted on | August 2, 2015 | Category: News
Maja Alm, Denmark and Jonas Leandersson, Sweden are the new World Champions in Sprint after today’s Final in Forres, north-east Scotland. Maja Alm’s victory was by almost 40 seconds.
A large crowd turned out to watch the Sprint Final on a cloudy afternoon, with rain arriving just after the finish of the men’s race. The women’s race was a triumph for Maja Alm who now has won 2 gold medals in 2 days, especially with the pressure of being massive favourite after both Tove Alexandersson and Judith Wyder withdrew because of injury. Nadiya Volynska, Ukraine won the silver medal and Galina Vinogradova, Russia the bronze.
Volynska, Alm, Vinogradova Photo: Erik Borg
In the men’s race, Jonas Leandersson, with fifteen other athletes starting after him, had to wait some time and watch several of them close to challenging his time but not quite making it. One of these, Yannick Michiels from Belgium, was unlucky to catch his leg on a fence he was trying to hurdle on the approach to the spectator passage, and this led to him losing many precious seconds as he fought the pain of the resulting crash-landing. Closest challenger to Leandersson proved to be Martin Hubmann, Switzerland, with last starter Jerker Lysell, Sweden making a great effort towards the end to take the bronze by 3 seconds.
Men’s podium Photo: Erik Borg
The courses included some intricate route choices amongst the narrow streets and alleyways of Forres but also including some parkland and a tour through the extremely colourful flower gardens that Forres is renowned for.
Next medal race is the Middle Distance in Darnaway Forest on Tuesday. This forest was also used for a World Championships race in 1976.
Leading results, Sprint Final
Women
- Maja Alm DEN 13.32.5
- Nadiya Volynska UKR 14.12.3
- Galina Vinogradova RUS 14.24.5
- Sara Luescher SUI 14.26.5
- Hanny Allston AUS 14.26.7
- Minna Kauppi FIN 14.27.1
Men
- Jonas Leandersson SWE 13.12.1
- Martin Hubmann SUI 13.14.0
- Jerker Lysell SWE 13.16.6
- Mårten Boström FIN 13.19.9
- Yannick Michiels BEL 13.20.0
- Daniel Hubmann SUI 13.21.0
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