World Orienteering Championships, Long distance qualification: 28 nations in finals

World Orienteering Championships, Long distance qualification: 28 nations in finals

Photo: Erik Borg

Twenty-three nations in the women’s final and twenty-four in the men’s. Those are the bare statistics from a warm and dry race-day in Vuokatti, Finland, where the first race has taken place today.

For both women and men, the best fifteen athletes from each of three heats qualified for the final.  All the established stars qualified successfully today, and nations such as Ireland and Israel will be pleased to have a runner in the final this year. Twenty-eight nations in all will be represented at the final on Tuesday.

Switzerland has a full complement of 7 athletes in the finals (including a reigning world champion), and the Czech Republic, Finland, Latvia, Russia and Sweden have 6 runners through. In addition, Lithuania has 3 athletes in the women’s final, and Belarus and Norway have 3 in the men’s final.

Heat winners in the women’s race were Simone Niggli, Switzerland – making her presence known from the start – Catherine Taylor, Great Britain and Tove Alexandersson, Sweden. All ran similar times. It was nice to see former sprint gold medallist Hanny Allston, Australia, back at a World Championships – she finished third in her heat today.

In the men’s heats, the vociferous home crowd welcomed Tero Föhr and Jani Lakanen into the finish as leaders in their heats, and they stayed in front to the end. The other heat winner was the popular Latvian Edgars Bertuks who sprang into the limelight at last year’s World Orienteering Championships by winning the Middle distance race. Jani Lakanen ran the fastest time of the three heat winners.

The terrain was quite fast overall and the courses included a challenging long leg across quite marshy terrain.

The Sprint qualification takes place tomorrow morning, and the Opening Ceremony in the late afternoon in a sports stadium in the nearby town of Sotkamo. The Opening Ceremony will be followed immediately by the Sprint final.

Full details of the World Championships competitions and extensive live coverage can be  found on www.woc2013.fi.

Interviews will be published in the Around the Arena section on the IOF website.