European Orienteering Championships: 18 nations in Middle Distance final
Posted on | May 14, 2012 | Category: News
Helena Jansson, Sweden, won one of the qualification heats on the middle distance.
Photo: Erik Borg
Today the first qualification races, over Middle Distance, were held at Falun, wit the results showing that eighteen nations will have runners in the final on Thursday. Defending men’s champion Valentin Novikov RUS made his intentions clear by winning his heat, whilst defending women’s champion Simone Niggli SUI came second behind Anne Margrethe Hausken Nordberg NOR.
The other women’s heat winners were Minna Kauppi FIN and Helena Jansson SWE. Kauppi had the most impressive victory in all of today’s heats, winning by 1:59 over Ines Brodmann SUI. Tove Alexandersson SWE showed she has quickly put the winter SkiO season behind her, finishing 0:45 slower than Jansson in second place.
In the men’s heats it was very tight at the top in heat 1: Novikov was just 3 seconds faster than his team-mate Dmitry Tsvetkov and Mikhail Mamleev ITA who shared second place. It was a Norway 1 and 2 in the second heat with Olav Lundanes 0:37 quicker than Carl Waaler Kaas, where Great Britain’s Graham Gristwood surprisingly failed to qualify. The relatively little-known Swede Johan Runesson won the third heat by 15 seconds over Thierry Gueorgiou FRA.
The first 17 from each heat qualify for the final. In women’s heat 3 17th place was shared by Olga Sluta UKR and Indre Valaite LTU and both go through to the final. 14 nations will be represented in the women’s final and 16 in the men’s.
Two nations, Norway and Sweden, will have 12 runners in the finals – all their runners qualified. Switzerland has 11 runners through and Finland and Russia 10. The Czech Republic has 9 and Lithuania will be very pleased to have 8 through.
Full results from today’s race can be found on www.eoc2012.se.
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