The second round of the WTOC 2019 PreO competition was held yesterday in Quinta dos Ciprestes, near the picturesque hill town of Monsanto. The open area was dotted with olive trees and cork oaks and low scrubby areas. There was plenty of contour detail, granite rockfaces and crags, large and small, and a multitude of boulders and rock pillars: a TrailO planner’s dream and a challenging area for all the competitors.

Early starters had pleasant temperatures to start with but as the cloud burned away, later starters endured temperatures of around 30C on a course with a two-hour time limit for its 30 controls compressed into 900m. One control was later voided.

The testing course forced many errors and many of the top competitors on Day 1 fell by the wayside.

In the Open class, only the Lithuanian Robertas Stankevic had a clear round, but the Day 1 leader, Pinja Makinen of Finland, with one error, held on to be the overall Gold medallist over the two days, a point clear of Norway’s Geir Myhn Oien, who took Silver, and Kreso Kerestes, of Slovenia, who won the Bronze.

Tom Dobra (BOK) was the best GBR performer in the Open class. Tom was one of 18 competitors with only one error on the course, but a mistake at one of the timed controls put him in 17th place and 19th overall.

After his disappointing round in PreO 1, Charles Bromley Gardner (BAOC) returned to form, with a score of 27 and no time control errors, placing him 27th on the day and 48th overall, whilst John Kewley (MDOC) was 32nd on Day 2 with a score of 26 points, and finished 28th after the two days.

In the Para competition, the winner was the ever-reliable Swede, Ola Jansson, winning Gold. The Silver was won by the Russian, Pavel Shmatov, with another Swede, Michael Johansson, the highest Para scorer on Day 2 with 27 points, taking the Bronze.

Of the GBR para-athletes, Colin Duckworth (TVOC) finished 15th on Day 2 and 15th overall: a most satisfactory debut, whilst Dick Keighley finished in 21st position on the day and 21st overall.

In the public competition, held later in the day over the same course, Ian Ditchfield (MV) and Peter Huzan (SLOW) also had excellent results. Their chance to shine comes with the TempO competition on Saturday.

Charles, Tom and John have been selected as the GBR team for the Open Relay team in today’s competition at Cidral, near Monsanto, when the temperature is expected to rise to 35C.