Day 1 of the PreO competition of the World Trail Orienteering Championships was held in a nature reserve on the beautiful island of Saltö yesterday.  It was a short and highly technical course with 14 controls packed closely together either side of a path leading down to the beach, where there were a further 7 controls in a spectacular setting on rocky hills around the bay, one of which was later voided because the single flag had been incorrectly misplaced on a spur. There was one timed control station with three problems.

Competition was fierce. In the open class, there are currently eight competitors with a perfect score of 20, followed by a further nine on 19 points. Martin Jullum of Norway is the overall leader, taking only 15 seconds for the timed controls, one second ahead of Marit Wiksell of Sweden.

Of the British team, John Kewley lies 21st on 18 points with Nick Barrable 28th with the same score but more time penalties. Ian Ditchfield lies 49th.

Photo (above): Ian Ditchfield.  Credit:  Joaquim Margarido


Photo (above):  Nick Barrable.  Credit:  Joaquim Margarido
 
In the Paralympic class, Pavel Shmatov of Russia has a clear lead of 20, ahead of several competitors on 18. Peter Roberts lies 21st and Dick Keighley 27th.

Results from Day 1 can be found here.

Public Race results can be found here.

Day 2 promises a much longer course with 28 problems on the Tolvmanstegen windfarm, and doubtless there will be many positional changes at the end of two day’s competition.

The weather forecast is not encouraging.  Furthermore, the programme states “Close to the windmills, the compass can be unreliable!”

In addition, the public race on a similar course featured 28 Brits competing amongst the 103 runners including all the members of the Junior Regional Orienteering Squads tour. Tom FellBaum (Manchester and District Orienteering Club) is the leading Brit on Day 1.

Great Britain Team

The full programme is available on the World Trail Orienteering Championships website.

British Orienteering wishes the Great Britain team all the very best as they continue to compete tomorrow (Friday 26 August) in the World Trail Orienteering Championships, PreO Day 2.

Item posted by Jennie Taylor, Marketing Manager on behalf of Richard Keighley, Chair of TrailO Development Steering Group, British Orienteering.