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Kris Jones takes 4th in the first race of the World Orienteering Championships

                      

 

World Orienteering Championships 2016 began today with the individual Sprint races in Stromstad writes Ed Nicholas.

An intense day of sprinting took place with the qualifications in the morning and finals late in the afternoon.  

Qualification races are always a little tricky because athletes have to judge their pace  to guarantee qualification whilst at the same time saving energy for the  final later in the day.  Five of the six athletes, representing GB, qualified -  Kris Jones, Peter Hodkinson and Ralph Street in the men's race and Alice Leake and Charlotte Ward in the women's race. Jo Shepherd unfortunately missed out by just two seconds. This was Jo’s debut at the World Championships and she ran strongly but ran past a control and had to double back, which cost her the time.  Of course she was disappointed with the final outcome  but knows that she is still on the steep part of the learning curve as far as racing at this level is concerned and is determined to learn lessons from today.  Jo will also race in the middle and the long finals later in the week.  The rest of the team qualified well in their heats and we were all excited to see what would happen in the finals.

The women raced first.  Alice started off very strongly and, at the spectator run-through, was racing into a top position. An error in the second half of the race proved costly and Alice finished up in 22nd place.

Alice said: "It was a race of two halves. I committed and ran on my limits and had an almost perfect first half of the race. Unfortunately I just couldn't hold it together all the way until the end. Although I was initially really disappointed, on reflection it's actually quite exciting how well I was doing. I'll take a lot of confidence, learning and self belief out of today and going forwards." 

Charlotte Ward did not start the Sprint Final. Charlotte’s main aim for this World Championship is the Mixed Sprint Relay and so her goals for the individual race were all about getting ready to race tomorrow.  As a result of achieving these goals, in the qualifier, a team decision was taken that she would not start in the final and, instead, save her legs for the Mixed Sprint Relay tomorrow. 

In the men's race, Kris Jones achieved the best British result finishing in fourth place. This was a very good result however agonisingly close to the medal he wanted. 

Kris has had a great summer bringing home two gold medals from the World Universities Orienteering Championships and making significant progress on his fitness and speed. After the race, he commented: "Fourth place. It is a tired saying but it is bittersweet. I know that I have raised my game this year, which is great, but I'm gutted that I didn't execute the race that I was capable of. It was an okay race but I was too scrappy and made too many small mistakes. It's a fine line. It is a new day tomorrow though and I am ready and excited for the Sprint Relay."

Ralph Street was the next Brit in 17th place. Ralph was disappointed after his race with a crucial error taking away the top 10 and potential podium place he has been working towards. His focus now shifts to the forest races with the Middle race and Relay.

Peter Hodkinson, in his debut World Championships, achieved 22nd place.

Peter said afterwards:  "I really enjoyed my World Orienteering Championships debut today and it has been a positive experience for me going forward. I found the course quite simple and was generally pleased with my navigation and execution but finished feeling that I hadn't got everything out there physically. This is disappointing for me and I had hoped that a technical performance like this would be worth a higher placing, but I'm happy to have handled the big race nerves well and to have started and finished with a smile on my face! As always I'm super excited for the Sprint Relay tomorrow!"

The whole team has worked hard for these world championships and it is  exciting  to see their progress.  Tomorrow (Sunday 21st August), Strömstad will host the Mixed Sprint Relay.

Full results from today's final sprint races can be found here.


 

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