European Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships – Victories to Benham and Laurila in the Middle Distance
Posted on | August 1, 2017 | Category: News
After an intense sprint in a University Campus in Orleans in France on Sunday the European Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships had found its way out to a forest in Ormes for the Middle Distance. The terrain waiting for the competitors in Ormes was fairly flat with fast tracks and some areas with a dense network of bike and running trails. The areas combined gave the athletes a great challenge and everything was set for a very interesting Middle Distance.
As in the Sprint, the Women’s competition became a duel between Martina Tichovska from the Czech Republic and Emily Benham from Great Britain. By making an almost perfect race Benham got her revenge from the sprint where she forgot to punch the last control in the arena. Tichovska had a lead on Benham in the beginning of the race but made a few smaller mistakes half way while Benham picked up her pace. Benham was fastest around the course and took the gold with 23 seconds in front of Tichovska. The reigning champion from 2015, the French Gaelle Barlet took a sweet bronze medal on home ground, almost 2 minutes behind Benham.
In the Men’s class the Finn Jussi Laurila set a very strong finish time from a fairly early start. The later top seeded athletes struggled to be close to his passing times. Krystof Bogar from the Czech Republic and the two Frenchmen, Cedric Beill and Baptiste Fuchs fought close to Laurila for a long time, but towards the end of the Estonian Lauri Malsroos started closing up to Laurila’s time. It must have been very nervous for Laurila waiting for Malsroos to finish, knowing he had only been seconds behind his time at the last checkpoints. Even with a super sprint, Malsroos could just not make it and lost by the closest possible margin of 1 second to Laurila. Bogar managed to take the Bronze just some seconds in front of Fuchs, 24 seconds behind Laurila.
In the junior classes, the Swiss Adrian Jaeggi won by just a small margin of 5 seconds over the French Jeremi Pourre in the Men’s class and Vilma Kralova took a clear victory in the Women’s class.
Jan Hasek from the Czech Republic and Saara YliHietanen from Finland took both clear golds in the M17 and the W17 categories.
Results
For complete results and further information, please visit IOF Eventor and the event web page.
Men Elite:
1. Jussi Laurila, Finland 54:51
2. Lauri Malsroos, Estonia 54:52
3. Krystof Bogar, Czech Republic 55:15
4. Baptiste Fuchs, France 55:27
5. Anton Foliforov, Russia 56:06
6. Luca Dallavalle, Italy 56:51
Women Elite:
1. Emily Benham, Great Britain 52:38
2. Martina Tichovska, Czech Republic 53:01
3. Gaelle Barlet, France 54:37
4. Olga Shipilova Vinogradova, Russia 55:23
5. Algirda Zaliauskaite, Lithuania 55:39
6. Marika Hara, Finland 55:57
Men 20:
1. Adrian Jaeggi, Switzerland 44:36
2. Jeremi Pourre, France 44:41
3. Anathael Dott, France 44:54
Women 20:
1. Vilma Kralova, Czech Republic 48:34
2. Olga Mikhaylova, Russia 49:46
3. Mathilde Sipos, France 49:52
Men 17:
1. Jan Hasek, Czech Republic 33:07
2. Jason Bedry, France 35:27
3. Tobias Micko, Austria 36:15
Women 17:
1. Saara YliHietanen, Finland 36:41
2. Lucie Rudkiewicz, France 37:31
3. Kaarina Nurminen, Finland 37:53
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