World Cup Round 1 Qualification Results

The competition started on Wednesday with a qualification race. There were 15 GB athletes on the start line, where they faced mountain terrain of mostly coniferous forest with very few green areas and some open areas.  

Women and men were divided into three heats to complete a shortened Long Distance of approximately 7.5 kilometres for women and 8.5 kilometres for men. The fastest 20 in each heat would qualify for A Finals in Long and Middle Distance later in the week.  

It was a very fast, open forest, but with some tricky detail, meaning that any errors were costly. 

Luke Fisher put in a great performance in Heat 3 to finish in 15th position and qualify for the A final. Euan Tryner and Joshua Dudley ran well in Heat 2 but narrowly missed out on the A final.  

Speaking to Luke Fisher post-race, he told Team Manager Donald McCarthy: I'm really happy. Technically, everything was almost all perfect, bar one mistake at the end. The terrain is amazing, really fast and really clean - you can see for hundreds of metres, so if you know where you are going, you can run really fast! I had a great time."

In the women’s race, both Jo Shepherd and Grace Molloy finished well up the field and were very happy with their runs, both qualifying for the A final. 

Final results from the Qualification race are available via the button below. 

Results