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Share  Tweet Monday 16th May 2016

British Orienteers succeed at Tiomila.

                                                             

 

The biggest race of the year for Swedish, and arguably all Scandinavian Orienteering Clubs, took place this weekend writes Liz Campbell.  British team athlete Ralph Street (centre bottom row) was part of the winning Men’s Team Södertälje Nykvarn.

There was British interest near or at the top of the field from the very start of the women’s relay to the final seconds of the men’s race.  Most of our elite athletes run for a Scandinavian club and regularly race in the big relays like 10Mila and Jukola; In addition every year a small but dedicated group of non elite British Athletes make the journey to Sweden.  The atmosphere and quality of orienteering that this event produces makes it quite addictive and each year there are around 1600 runners in the women’s race and 3500 in the men’s - athletes go back each year just for the buzz and of course to try for that illusive perfect run.    If you are a competent TD 5 orienteer then start building your team for 2017 now, this is a 24 hour intense orienteering experience which you cannot afford to miss!

This year the event took place in Falun about 2.5hours drive North West of Stockholm.  The women’s race is the first of the two main relays and starts on Saturday afternoon. There are five legs, all forked with a shorter 4th leg and a long last leg.  The terrain was not too technical by Scandinavian standards but was uncharacteristically hilly with the arena in the bowl at the bottom of a ski slope. 

After the women’s mass start Halden SK came back in the lead on first leg with Jess Tullie (Domnarvets) coming in just 47 secs down in 11th place. Halden SK continued to lead which meant Hollie Orr  on third leg went out in 1st.  She later described it as a ‘terrifying experience’ but was delighted to be able to stay focused and stay in the lead.  Halden slipped back on last leg to finish in 8th with Maya Alm (Pan Arhus) winning a sprint finish against Anne Margaretta Hausberg Norberg (Nydalens SK). 

The British men took over where the women left off with both Will Gardner (OK Södertörn) and Alan Cherry (Varegg) finishing in the top 20 on first leg.  Kris Jones (still recovering from an ankle injury at the JK) commented that there were just too many ‘huge GB performances to pick a stand out one’ but special mention should go to Dane Blomquist ( M20) who when he agreed to run the ‘Long Night’ leg for his club Lillomarka cannot have expected to be sent out 2 minutes in the lead!   It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to race 16.6km at night being hunted down by 340 other runners. To his credit Dane held it together and came home in 6th place. The British dramas continued when at 0330 in the morning Ralph Street found himself in a similar position to Hollie and Dane.  His team mate handed over to him in the lead! Ralph describes the experience as the ‘best orienteering feeling ever’ he went out in the lead and came back in the lead helping his team, Södertälje-Nykvarn OF  to victory by all of 2 seconds!  A sprint finish between two teams in the women’s race and three teams in the men’s race must have been an organiser’s dream result. 

Selected further British results were as follows (team overall finishing position , team, leg, athlete)

Damkavlen

5th Domnarvets  1st Jess Tullie

8th Halden SK 3rd Hollie Orr

13th OK Linne 3rd Cat Taylor

26th Halden SK 2 5th Jo Shepherd

Tiomila

1st Södertälje-Nykvarn OF 8th Ralph Street

4th IFK Lidingö SOK 2nd Hector Haines

15th Lillomarka 4th Dane Blomquist, 8th Ali McLeod, 10th Matt Speake

17th IFK Mora 8th Graham Gristwood

Complete results can be found here http://www.10mila.se/index.php/en/

Next weekend is the start of the second series of World Cup Races.  The European Championships in Czech Republic.  We have asked our runners to bottle some of that excitement, the commitment and the passion that was so evident this weekend and use it to inspire their next performances.  All of our athletes have work to do to make it to the very top, next week is about delivering a personal best performance on an international stage.  There is no better inspiration than feeling part of an outstanding weekend of racing at 10Mila.

[Photo Jonas Leandersson -  https://twitter.com/J_Leandersson ]

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