World Cup: Sweden wins Sprint Relay after tight finish

World Cup: Sweden wins Sprint Relay after tight finish

Sweden won the nail-biting Sprint Relay at the World Cup Final in Switzerland after a super exciting finish to an ever-changing competition.

Like Friday’s sprint, the relay was run in Uster, which again offered flat and fast orienteering terrain in urban areas and some legs in park areas.

41 teams to start. Photo: Silvan Schletti

As expected, the first leg started out as a close race and despite frequent forking, many of the 41 starters were within a short distance to begin with.

Towards the end, two of the favorites, Switzerland (Natalia Gemperle) and Norway (Victoria Hæstad Bjørnstad) created a lead and came together into the exchange with a nine-second gap to Spain and Great Britain and a further nine seconds down on the next pursuers.

The later winners from Sweden were 20 seconds behind the leaders in eighth position after Alva Sonesson’s first leg run.

Strong Brits and Finns
Switzerland (Timo Suter) and Norway (Eirik Langedal Breivik) held onto the lead on their second leg run, but the gap to the pursuers shrank as a strong Freddie Carcas (GBR) gained four seconds on the lead.

Eirik Langedal Breivik (NOR) ahead of Timo Suter (SUI) on the second leg. Photo: Silvan Schletti

Behind them, Akseli Ruohola ran a great leg for Finland, climbing six places to fourth place and halving the gap to the leading teams.

The Finnish team also played a key role in the third leg, where Tuomas Heikkilä ran the Finns all the way into the lead.

Kasper Fosser started by holding the Norwegian lead, which he held until the arena passage. On the final loop, Heikkilä was incredibly strong and created a six-second lead over Norway.

Martin Regborn gained nine seconds and two places and brought Sweden fully into the medal race, from which Switzerland with Tino Polsini, on the other hand, seemed to disappear completely when the Swiss slipped to sixth place, 31 seconds behind Heikkilä.

Four teams fought for gold
And the excitement level continued to rise on the fourth leg, which looked like it would be a fight between Finland (Venla Harju), Norway (Pia Young Vik) and Sweden with Hanna Lundberg quickly closing the gap to the leading Nordic neighbours.

Yesterday’s sprint winner, Simona Aebersold, also set off at a killer pace and gained half a minute, so that suddenly there were four nations in the fight for gold.

Aebersold and Lundberg stood out, so before the final loop it was clear that one of them would end up with the victory.

Simona Aebersold (SUI) ahead of Hanna Lundberg (SWE), who went on to take the win for Sweden. Photo: Silvan Schletti

But perhaps Aebersold had spent too much effort catching up, perhaps it was Hanna Lundberg’s slightly faster route choice around a house at the third-last control that made the difference.

In any case, Lundberg sprinted home the victory for Sweden and was able to celebrate the first Swedish sprint relay victory since the European Championships in the fall of 2023 together with Alva Sonesson, Jonatan Gustafsson and Martin Regborn.

Switzerland finished three seconds behind in second place, while Pia Young Vik held off Venla Harju, so the Norwegian European champions took third place.

Following Finland’s fourth place, France and Czechia was fifth and sixth respectively.

Find results, GPS-tracking, links for TV and maps in IOF LIVE.

The last international orienteering competition in 2025 is be held on Sunday afternoon, when the World Cup Final concludes with a Knock-Out Sprint.

Here are the top 36 women and men from Friday’s sprint qualified for the quarter finals, which begin at 11:00 CEST (UTC+2).

The TV broadcast will begin from the semi-finals at 13:00

Go to IOF TV