2008 WUC Orienteering: Day 4
August 2nd, 2008
The XVIth World University Orienteering Champion in Relay are Finland and Sweden
The XVIth World University Orienteering Championship gold medals in relay belong to Finland and Sweden
Men’s competition
Men’s competition was lead by Czechs, Estonians, Hungarians and Swedes almoust from the beginning. They changed places in each leg and in finish Sweden took the gold, Estonia silver and Hungary bronze. Czech team was the 5th. After the first leg Czech team was leading the competition as most of the competitors expected. Very good race did also Lithuanian, Norwegian, Estonian and Sweden teams. At the changeover the first five were: 1. CZE (Jan Prochazka) - 46:33 2. LTU (Vilius Aleliunas) - 46:39 3. NOR (Andreas Hoye) - 46:43 4. EST (Lauri Tammemäe) - 46:45 5. SWE (Martin Hammarberg) - 46:49 In the second leg Sander Vaher, yesterday’s Champion, did the best race and Estonians were on the lead. They were followed by Hungarian (Zsolt Lenkei) and Sweden (Emil Andersson) teams with the time difference only couple of seconds. In the third leg, which was almoust 2 km shorter that the first two legs, Czech team and Jan Sedivy came the first. Only 20 seconds behind him were Sweden (Erik Thorsson) and Estonia (Peeter Pihl).
The most exciting was the last leg. At the spectators control the first place was not anymore taken by Czech team (Michal Smola), but already by Estonians (Markus Puusepp). The second team Sweden (Jakob Lööf) was behind less than 10 seconds. Estonian team made a very small mistake with the last control and the World University Orienteering Champions in Men’s Relay is Swedish team. Hungary (Adam Kovacs) won the bronze. Czech team came the 5th after Russia. 1. 7 SWE 02:42.50 02:42.50 1 MARTIN HAMMARBERG - 00:46.49[5] 2 EMIL ANDERSSON - 00:45.05[4] 01:31.54( 3) 3 ERIK THORSSON - 00:36.10[3] 02:08.04( 2) 4 JAKOB LÖÖF - 00:34.46[4] 02:42.50( 1) 2. 11 EST 02:43.03 - +0:13 1 Lauri TAMMEMÄE - 00:46.45[4] 2 Sander VAHER - 00:45.01[3] 01:31.46(1) 3 Peeter PIHL - 00:36.23[6] 02:08.09(3) 4 Markus PUUSEPP - 00:34.54[5] 02:43.03(2) 3. 12 HUN 02:45.22 - +2:32 1 Andras SZABO - 00:46.55[7] 2 Zsolt LENKEI - 00:44.55[2] 01:31.50(2) 3 Mate Kristof KERENYI - 00:38.36[10] 02:10.26(5) 4 Adam KOVACS - 00:34.56[6] 02:45.22(3) Jakob Lööf, Swedish team last leg runner, felt very nice before the start and he was in a good shape. “I missed the control in the beginning, but made very good leg to the 5th control. I did catch Estonian team on the second last control. I ran very fast and without any mistakes to the last control and that’s how Sweden became World Champion!”.
The Championships are organised by the Estonian Academic Sports Federation, OC Põlva Kobras and Estonian Orienteering Federation. Official website of the Championships can be found at www.easl.ee/wuoc2008 and includes startlist, finish protocols, live competition comments and photos of each day. For more information please contact: Kaidi Ruusalepp WUOC 2008 Media Team Phone: +372 52 86 351 e-mail: kaidioone@hotmail.com www.easl.ee/wuoc2008
Women's relay
Women's relay started successfully for United Kingdom (Mhairi MacKenzie) and USA (Samantha Saeger), but from the second leg it was clear, that Czech (Radka Brozkova), Lithuania (Indre Valaite), France (Karine D'Harreville) and Finland (Heini Wennman) are to be taken very seriously. After the second leg Lithuania was holding already the first position, followed by Czech and Great Britain. First and second leg had to run 5,1 km with 10KP). The third and the fourth legs were shorter – 3,9 km with 10 controls. The third leg did not change anything on the first three positions – Lithuania and Gabija Razaityte finished more than 3 minutes before the second place. Martiina Joensuu made a very good race for Finns and she came to the finish on the second position. The third place was taken by Czechs (Iveta Duchova). While the Lithuanians started the last leg more than 3 minutes ahead of the second place, they were the first to be expected to the spectator’s control (1 km from the finish). But at the spectator’s control two times World University Champion Bodil Holmström was already the first. She was first in the finish and Finns took the gold medal. Lithuania (Rasa Ptasekaite) on the second, Czech (Dana Brozkova) on the third and France (Capucine Vercelotti) on the fourth position in the spectator’s control were only 18 seconds from each other and the last kilometre was very tense for these teams. World Champion Dana Brozkova did what she was expected – took the second place, winning Lithuania with 3 seconds. 1. 53 FIN 02:11.09 1 Laura HOKKA - 00:39.02[9] 2 Heini WENNMAN - 00:38.26[4] - 01:17.28(4) 3 Marttiina JOENSUU - 00:27.42[1] - 01:45.10(2) 4 Bodil HOLMSTRÖM - 00:25.59[3] - 02:11.09(1) 2. 57 CZE 02:12.31 - +1:22 1 Jana PANCHARTKOVA - 00:38.51[7] 2 Radka BROZKOVA - 00:36.46[2] - 01:15.37(2) 3 Iveta DUCHOVA - 00:32.25[7] - 01:48.02(3) 4 Dana BROZKOVA - 00:24.29[1] - 02:12.31(2) 3. 58 LTU 02:12.34 - +1:25 1 Kristina RYBAKOVAITE - 00:38.11[4] 2 Indre VALAITE - 00:35.34[1] - 01:13.45(1) 3 Gabija RAZAITYTE - 00:28.14[2] - 01:41.59(1) 4 Rasa PTASEKAITE - 00:30.35[6] - 02:12.34(3) Dr Verena Bruk, FISU Assessor, was very peased with the World University Orienteering Championships here in Tartu, Estonia. She said: “I congratulate Estonians for yesterday’s gold. It is always nice, when the hosts get a medal. The final competition today was very interesting and lot’s of countries reached to the medal. Congratulations to Sweden and Finland for today’s gold medals! I also want to congratulate the organisers for this wonderful event! It is deffinitely one of the bests FISU Championships. I hope that Estonia will host next WUOC event very soon. I think that all participants leave Tartu and Estonia with warm memories of hospitality and friendliness!” On the http://www.easl.ee/wuoc2008/index.php?sisu=results under the “races” you can look competitors races of each days.
