18th WUC Orienteering: Long Distance Results

Medallists Men’s Long DistanceALICANTE – Everybody got up this morning, with only one idea… to attend the long distance event in Tibi, starting from 8:30am. Tibi is a small and quiet town formed by white houses and located between the Maigmo, the “balcony of Alicante”, and the red rock, la “Pena Roja”.

Ola Kaberg, Chair for Orienteering since 1999, and having been a decent competitor who came second in the Swedish Junior championship in 1986, reported that the Organising Committee made all his efforts to bring good conditions for the long distance competition to all athletes.

Indeed, looking at the participants, everyone seemed to be happy of the competition itself.

The competition was held in quite a hot climate, but windy, under 27°C . The Organising Committee provided a lot of water to the participants, having to orientate in a hilly terrain with a height difference of 320 to 590 meters above the sea level. The area is crossed with ravines, and some sand stones formations. The vegetation of course is bushed on ravine areas with pronounced slopes and increasing difficulty. Unfortunately there was no spectator control, but which created excitement, as everybody was waiting together for the final results in a very good atmosphere.Medallists Women’s Long Distance

Directly after the official end of the competition, the victory ceremonies were held for both women and men. The first place came to Switzerland, both in women and men, with Isabelle FEER and Raffael HUBER winning the gold medals by respectively 1:05:32 and 1:15:38.

But Brigitta MATHYS, from Switzerland also followed Isabelle by making 1:05:37 only 5’’ difference. The third place in the women’s race was for Radka BROZKOVA, from Czech Republic arriving 1:05 minute after.

For the men, Czech Republic took the silver and bronze medals with Stepan KODEDA and Adam CHROMY by 1:16:07 and 1:17:52.

A press conference was held in the afternoon, followed by the team officials meeting, giving the schedule for tomorrow’s race: Sprint Distance.

(Source: Nicole Mangelschots, FISU Staff)

Results Long Distance Race

Men’s Long Distance

Men’s Long Distance Split Times

Women’s Long Distance

Women’s Long Distance Split Times