News Archive

News

Share  Tweet Saturday 2nd July 2016

Long lessons taken into relay at EYOC today

The European Youth Orienteering Championships continued today with the relay events. Once again, the athletes awoke to baking-hot temperatures and, once again, they faced particularly tough courses with "gully after gully after gully" (Aidan Rigby).

Last night, the team got together to discuss lessons learnt from yesterday's long event and approaches that would be taken today. Many of the athletes also got on the phone to personal coaches and family at home and went into the relay with solid plans.

 

 

 

The W18s and M18s started together at 0930hrs. Alex Carcas (pictured left) put in a solid run, on first leg, that brought him back in 8th place to hand over to Aidan Rigby who ran very well and brought the team up to 7th. Matt Fellbaum ran the anchor leg and also put in a very credible performance that secured the team in 10th place.

 

 

 

 

 


Meanwhile, Emma Wilson (pictured right) went out on the first leg for the W18s. Unfortunately, things didn't go well for Emma and she handed over to Laura King in 21st position. Laura used the opportunity of being on her own to concentrate on her navigation, that hadn't gone so well the day before and, by doing, this, achieved the 10th fastest time on her leg. Lucy Haines put in another very good performance on the last leg and also ran the 10th fastest time, bringing the team back in 14th.

After the race, Aidan Rigby said, "I had a completely different approach today after a very disappointing run yesterday that saw me pull out at the spectator control. I had tried to run too fast early in the race yesterday and hadn't quite appreciated the conditions or the level of technical difficulty. Last night I discussed it with my coach, Sarah Hague, and my family and they helped me to decide on my plan. My aim was to go out slower and be technically correct.  It was nice to hit the first control well and then run solidly through the rest of the course. Physically, I am very fit at the moment and I think I found ‘the edge’ but it was the right side of the edge!"

Laura King also explained how a more steady approach paid off: "I was a lot cleaner. I took my time, concentrated on not going fast and stuck to my compass better. I used the contours rather than paths and the plan and picture came together."

The M16s and W16s also started together. For Great Britain this was a combined team of 16s with Alastair Thomas, Jake Chapman and Grace Molloy running the M16 race. Alastair (pictured left) went out first and handed over to Jake in 8th place. Jake had a storming run, clocking the 5th fastest time on his leg before handing over to Grace who used the experience positively and worked well throughout the course.

Afterwards, Jake spoke with satisfaction of how he laid yesterday's diappointment to rest. "Neither speed nor outcome was on my mind. I wanted to be clean. I started nervously and hesitated to number one but nailed it and then got on with the rest of the course. It was a huge improvement on yesterday."

 

 

 

 

The mixed team relay was the third race of the day and Great Britain's Pippa Dakin (pictured) ran with W18s from Denmark and Austria. Pippa ran the first leg and she too enjoyed the race and improved her performance from yesterday. At the time of going to print the mixed results were not ready but can be found on the link below once they have been finalised.

http://eyoc2016.pl/

Photo credit - Lisa Boileau

Top