New Zealand – a gold that inspires
Posted on | July 15, 2012 | Category: Arena
The Kiwis are really on their way up with map and compass. A top result at the Junior World Championships (JWOC) last week has given the senior team new energy and optimistic thoughts.
“It was really great with Matt Ogden’s gold at JWOC”, says Thomas Reynolds. “That shows that it’s possible for us.”
Ogden won the Middle distance last Thursday at JWOC in Slovakia after an amazing race, and became the first orienteer from New Zealand to win a distance at JWOC and the second from Oceania. Hanny Allston from Australia won the Long in 2006. A little bit later that year she also won the Sprint at WOC in Denmark.
Lizzie Ingham in the New Zealand team also did very well in the Sprint yesterday, winning her qualification heat and having a great race in the Final where she finished ninth.
For Reynolds it didn’t end with an entry for the A-final at either Sprint or Long in Lausanne. The boy from New Zealand was just a bit too slow, but he hasn’t been in his best condition either. Now he will start taking some medicine. “I didn’t start with the medicine before the Long distance. I hoped for a good race”, he says.
The 23-year-old athlete will not take part in the Middle distance, but he hopes to be in the relay team. Since the middle of June he has been living at Kongsberg in a summer when there has been a lot of cold weather and rain. It has been a summer like the weather at present at home ‘down under’.
At the beginning of next year it will be summer time in New Zealand, and at that time there will also be World Cup races there.
Thomas Reynolds hopes that he can end the WOC week in Lausanne by taking part in the relay.
Photo: Erik Borg
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