JWOC debutant, Niamh Hunter (WCOC), was the star performer for Team GB today in the testing middle qualification race at Bocsa, where temperatures hit 29 degrees and the open areas became sand-baked furnaces. Running a controlled race, this technician from Cumbria kept a cool head throughout and ended up in 9th, only 2:49 off the leading time in the heat, making it comfortably into the A final tomorrow. She was understandably elated at the finish, and she should be rightly proud of a fantastic job done on her maiden appearance in a demanding qualifier. Joining her were a group of five, including sprint silver medallist, Matthew Fellbaum, along with Aidan Rigby, Alastair Thomas, Fiona Bunn and Laura King. No-one from this pack declared that they'd had perfect runs, with all losing some time at points on the course, but they'd managed to hold their nerve and keep their techniques together in their fight for a good result. Although there were some anxious moments in the arena, as the clock began to run down and the final few runners emerged from the forest, all of them did just enough to make it through and put themselves on the start line for what promises to be one of the most technical races of their young careers tomorrow.
The planner kept most of the very green tricky parts back from the qualifier, using mainly the forest to the south of the map, and this led to fewer mistakes than anticipated across the various heats. This meant that any miss was costly and, unfortunately, the pack of Grace Molloy, Emma Wilson, Chloe Potter, Daniel Spencer, Alex Carcas and Eddie Narbett all narrowly lost out on the A qualification times because of these small time losses accrued across their runs. However, to have all of the twelve runners within six and a half minutes of the respective winning times, and the lowest placing being 31st, indicated a solid performance for the team in very challenging conditions and bodes well for the final races coming in the next two days.
GB Results:
9 |
Niamh Hunter |
GBR Great Britain |
W20-2 |
12:14:00 |
27:29 (9) |
+02:49 |
17 |
Matthew Fellbaum |
GBR Great Britain |
M20-2 |
10:14:00 |
28:47 (17) |
+04:01 |
18 |
Aidan Rigby |
GBR Great Britain |
M20-1 |
11:52:00 |
28:30 (18) |
+03:08 |
18 |
Alastair Thomas |
GBR Great Britain |
M20-3 |
12:48:00 |
28:07 (18) |
+03:10 |
18 |
Fiona Bunn |
GBR Great Britain |
W20-1 |
11:28:00 |
28:36 (18) |
+04:40 |
18 |
Laura King |
GBR Great Britain |
W20-3 |
10:45:00 |
29:44 (18) |
+04:44 |
22 |
Grace Molloy |
GBR Great Britain |
W20-3 |
11:06:00 |
30:46 (22) |
+05:46 |
26 |
Chloe Potter |
GBR Great Britain |
W20-1 |
12:37:00 |
29:58 (26) |
+06:02 |
26 |
Emma Wilson |
GBR Great Britain |
W20-2 |
10:17:00 |
30:55 (26) |
+06:15 |
28 |
Daniel Spencer |
GBR Great Britain |
M20-2 |
10:59:00 |
31:11 (28) |
+06:25 |
29 |
Alex Carcas |
GBR Great Britain |
M20-3 |
11:33:00 |
29:56 (29) |
+04:59 |
31 |
Eddie Narbett |
GBR Great Britain |
M20-1 |
10:28:00 |
30:53 (31) |
+05:31 |
Follow the final tomorrow on jwoc2018.hu and LiveOrienteering.com.