World Orienteering Championships Long Distance: Gueorgiou retains his title
Posted on | July 9, 2014 | Category: News
Thierry Gueorgiou, France retained his Long distance title in the forests near Lavarone, northern Italy today ahead of two former champions, Daniel Hubmann, Switzerland and Olav Lundanes, Norway. The women’s race was won by Svetlana Mironova, Russia, with Tove Alexandersson, Sweden in silver medal position and Judith Wyder, Switzerland taking the bronze.
On a day of alternating bright sunshine and very heavy showers, the course was largely quite runnable, but set to give plenty of route choice. The men ran 16.36 km with 820 m climb, and Gueorgiou’s time was 2.15 faster than the course planner’s estimate. Gueorgiou had a largely error-free run, whereas both Lundanes and Hubmann made small mistakes. Comparative tracking shows Gueorgiou slightly ahead throughout the race. Hubmann finished 1.27 down and Lundanes 2.24 down. Switzerland had three runners in the top six.
Svetlana Mironova came into the limelight in taking the silver medal at the European Championships in Portugal in the spring, and was an early starter in today’s race. She finished in a time almost 3 minutes longer than the estimated winning time, but as the race progressed it became gradually apparent that no-one was going to beat it. Closest came Tove Alexandersson, only 31 seconds behind at the end, but she had made a couple of mistakes as had Judith Wyder who finished 50 seconds down. Decisive, however, was a long leg in the middle of the course where Mironova selected a route way to the west of the direct line, but largely on good tracks, and it proved to be much faster than the more direct route through the terrain taken by the others.
Mention should be made of the performance of the young Norwegian Goril Ronning Sund, who took fifth place from the third start time in the race.
The next medal race is the Middle Distance on Friday, on limestone terrain – very different from today.
Leading results – Long Distance
Women
1. Svetlana Mironova RUS 1:19:44
2. Tove Alexandersson SWE 1:20:15
3. Judith Wyder SUI 1:20:34
4. Mari Fasting NOR 1:22:06
5. Goril Ronning Sund NOR 1:22:38
6. Annika Billstam SWE 1:22:40
Men
1. Thierry Gueorgiou FRA 1:34:45
2. Daniel Hubmann SUI 1:36:12
3. Olav Lundanes NOR 1:37:09
4. Fabian Hertner SUI 1:38:39
5. Matthias Kyburz SUI 1:40:12
6. Fredrik Johansson SWE 1:40:16
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