The summer of success continued for the GB juniors today, as Megan Keith (Gold) and Grace Molloy (Silver), repeated their medal winning performances from JWOC in the JEC Sprint, held in the historic town of Roums, France.
Megan's success was by the narrowest of margins, as she held off the local girl to win by just one second. Speaking afterwards, she said:
"It certainly wasn't the best run I've had, as I lost time in the early part of the course, with all the artificial barriers confusing me in the parkland area, and meaning that I was about 20 seconds down at the spectator run through. However, I managed to get on top on things in the second half and ran really strongly through the old town to finish well."
Grace also commented on her run, saying: "I nearly messed up after the run through, as I hadn't spotted the control at the end of the tapes, and this also came at the map flip as well, but fortunately I realised, as I headed to 12, that I hadn't punched 11, so had to turn back to rectify the mistake. Apart from that, it was a pretty solid run".
This tricky aspect of the course caught out a number of runners, including the top Swiss female runner who would have taken Gold, and Alastair Thomas, who was on for a top 10 performance before being dsq'd for also mispunching.
W18 | [H:]M:S | min/km | ||||
1. | Megan KEITH | GBR | Great Britain | 13:08 | 4'11" | |
2. | Cécile CALANDRY | FRA | France | 13:09 | 4'12" | +0:01 |
3. | Csilla GÁRDONYI | HUN | Hungary | 13:11 | 4'12" | +0:03 |
W20 | [H:]M:S | min/km | ||||
1. | Eline GEMPERLE | SUI | Switzerland | 14:53 | 4'18" | |
2. | Grace MOLLOY | GBR | Great Britain | 15:08 | 4'22" | +0:15 |
3. | Elisa BERTOZZI | SUI | Switzerland | 15:17 | 4'25" | +0:24 |
Other solid performances were registered by Eilidh Campbell, (21st in W18), David Bunn (24th in M18) and Zac Hudd (22nd in M20) and this has set the team up for the rest of the weekend, with the Long (Saturday 28 September) at Croix de Bauzons at 1300m above sea level.
Full results from the Junior European Cup the Sprint are available here.
Many congratulations to Megan Keith (Inverness Orienteering Club) on her W18 GOLD medal win at this year's Junior European Cup and to Grace Molloy (Forth Valley Orienteers) on her W20 SILVER medal performance.
Photo credits: @photogractif