26 nations represented in JWOC Middle A-Final

26 nations represented in JWOC Middle A-Final

In the A-Finals at Middle Distance tomorrow, 23 nations will be represented in the men’s and 18 nations in the women’s, 26 nations in all. Only the Norwegian and Swedish women’s teams have got all their six athletes into the A-Final.

On a sunny morning in the hilly forests around Kocaeli, Turkey, winning times were quite fast in the 3 men’s and 3 women’s qualification heats, from which the best 20 in each heat progress to the A-Finals. Hungarian athletes won two of the women’s heats, and the other heat winners came from Denmark, France, Italy and Russia. These athletes will be the last to start in the races tomorrow.

Tymofii Teremetskyi, Ukraine in open terrain      Photos: Selcuk Toklucu, JWOC

Competitors had to contend with quite varied terrain, with oak forest and more diffuse bushy areas, good contour detail and some stony and rocky ground.

In places visibility was low and a compass was needed: Reneta Nenkova, Bulgaria

As is the case throughout JWOC, today’s race was live-streamed in the LIVE part of this website, and is well worth watching: a good number of cameras including a drone camera over the arena coupled with a good and informative commentary (in English) together with access to GPS tracking and a live results service.

Qualifications for the A-Finals are as follows:

Men: Austria (2), Belgium (1), Bulgaria (1), Czech Republic (4), Denmark (3), Estonia (1), Finland (5), France (5), Germany (2), Hungary (5), Italy (3), Japan (1), Lithuania (1), Norway (4), Poland (1), Portugal (1), Romania (1), Russia (4), Slovakia (4), Spain (1), Sweden (5), Switzerland (4), Turkey (1).

Women: Austria (1), Bulgaria (1), Czech Republic (4), Denmark (5), Estonia (2), Finland (5), France (4), Hungary (3), Italy (2), Latvia (5), Norway (6), Poland (3), Russia (5), Slovenia (1), Spain (1), Sweden (6), Switzerland (5), Ukraine (1).

Heat winners (time-gap to second place in brackets)

Men 1  Jacob Steinthal DEN (0.42)

Men 2  Ilian Angeli ITA (0.08)

Men 3  Mark Tutynin RUS (0.34)

Women 1  Csilla Gardonyl HUN (0.31)

Women 2  Dominika Mero HUN (0.24)

Women 3  Cecile Calandry FRA (0.33)