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European Orienteering Championships - Individual Sprint

You can't always get what you want from an area and Lazne Jesenik, the venue for today's sprint final, did not play to the strengths of the British team writes Ralph Street.

In my life I have not been at a sprint race where there as been so much routechoice where height has played such a significant role. This is in contrast to the generally flatter housing estates and university campuses where the British team do the majority of their technical training. However, the hilliness of the area was something that we were aware of, but it is one thing to imagine running various legs in the area but actually executing them on the day is a different matter.

To whittle down the field before the final, a qualification race took place in the morning, in Jesenik. For one British athlete, this meant waking up in the small hours of the morning in order to eat in enough time before starting. The town was not closed to the public during the race and so running through the streets whilst dodging the public gave an added challenge to the complex routechoices. The qualification race must always be treated with respect and there is a requirement to run hard in order to qualify. All four British men made it through to the A final while in the women's it was a heartbreaker for Kirstin Maxwell as she missed out by the closest possible margin but two out of three isn't bad, Charlotte Ward and Alice Leake in with room to spare.

Everybody hurts in a sprint and this final was no exception with a steep climb to control one, which really made sure the lactate began to build from the start. Following the climb, the crazy routechoice legs began with the classic “climb vs distance” choice being enhanced by artificial barriers and forbidden areas.

In the men's race, Matthias Kyburz won in front of Gustav Bergman and Florian Howald. In the women's, Judith Wyder took the title ahead of Nadiya Volynska with Galina Vinogradova and Maja Alm in joint 3rd. Of the top 10 athletes in both men's and women's, there were just four who were not from Switzerland or Nordic countries.

Kris Jones finished with the best result of the British team, 15th place. Kris commented: “It was okay, I am bit disappointed because I expected my shape to not be so good, but in the end it was my technique which let me down. It was a really brutal course, but really cool and really tricky”.

Peter Hodkinson (pictured) was just 15 seconds behind Kris but with the close packing this put him into 27th. “I had an average run. I was quite safe and clean, but I wish I had been a bit more aggressive at times. My goal was a top 20, and I am disappointed to not make that goal, but I can take positives from it as I got very close.

Alice Leake (pictured) came in 37th, Jonny Crickmore 39th, and Chris Smithard and Charlotte Ward both finished in 46th place.

We are young as a sprint team though and the experiences of these tough championship races can only help us for the future.

Picture - Men's team (left to right): Chris Smithard, Kris Jones, Jonathan Crickmore and Peter Hodkinson
                                            

 

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