World Orienteering Championships: Sprint qualifiers identified
Posted on | July 14, 2012 | Category: News
The Sprint qualification races have taken place in the university district of Lausanne on a fine sunny morning, so all the 90 finalists – 45 women and 45 men – are now known.
Winners of the three women’s heats, and therefore last starters in the finals this afternoon, are Helena Jansson, Sweden, Lizzie Ingham, New Zealand and Annika Billstam, Sweden. Helena Jansson was 3 seconds faster than the hot favourite for a gold medal, Simone Niggli. Annika Billstam had a 16-second lead over the young Norwegian Silja Ekroll Jahren, and Lizzie Ingham, clearly inspired by the gold medal achieved 2 days ago by her compatriot Matt Ogden in the Junior World Championships, led another young Norwegian, Heidi Östlid Bagstevold, by 4 seconds. Unluckiest qualifier was Kirti Rebane, Estonia who missed out on 15th place in her heat by just 1 second.
It was notable that the Chinese women are training hard to become a force in orienteering; all three qualified for the final.
In the men’s heats, the winners were Adam Kovacs, Hungary by 2 seconds over the Swiss Sprint specialist Matthias Kyburz; home runner Matthias Merz by 18 seconds over Scott fraser, Great Britain; and Frederic Tranchard, France by 3 seconds over Rasmus Thrane Hansen, Denmark.
Here all the ‘big names’ qualified apart from the Norwegian Öystein Kvaal Österbö, who was 4th in the Sprint in 2010. He finished in 16th place in his heat today.
Full results from the qualifying races can be found on the World Championships website, accessed by clicking on the World Championships logo on the right-hand side of this page.
This afternoon’s Sprint Final will start at 16.01 with the women’s race, followed by the men’s with the first start at 17.11. The races will be televised live by the Swiss broadcasting company SRF.
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