As expected beforehand and from the results of the earlier races in the competition it was the Nordic teams that made the running. Countries can enter many teams, with the one that finishes first counting for the World Cup Podium.

GBR had two teams in each race.

We put a clip of the women's relay start on Twitter.

Women's World Cup Relay begins, go @GBRorienteering ! pic.twitter.com/z7UpclQnoZ

— On The Red Line (@OnTheRedLineO) April 30, 2023

Men's Race

Men Relay Start, photo: IOF / Terje W Pettersen

The big nations: Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Finland, field teams of runners all from the top of the sport, and often very strong 2nd teams too (and third teams in the case of Sweden.) The French and the Czechs have stronger teams than Britain can field too.

Britain is amongst the next tier of nations, a large group that includes, depending on the location and athlete availaibility: Denmark, Austria, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Italy.

GBR-1 was Joshua Dudley, Ben Mitchell and Ralph Street, and GBR-2 was Chris Smithard, Alastair Thomas and Joe Woodley.

Leg 1

In M21 the British and JK Relays this Spring had produced close races but only Chris Smithard of the runners involved was in Norway.

In the middle race the day before Joshua Dudley had come 65th. In Great Britain he runs for MAROC, one of the North-East Scotland clubs, and not a strong relay club, at least in M21. He is settled in Gothenburg however, and trains and runs most of the time with the elite club IFK Göteborg, one of the strongest clubs in the World: and TioMila winners in some recent years. So Joshua will know about relay running, but it is quite another thing to actually produce the accuracy when you must run at maximum speed in an international relay, and this relay was about as quick as it could possibly be.

Norway World Cup Round 1 2023; Men's Relay 6th,7th and 8th at the Arena Passage are Topi Syrjalainen, Ruslan Glibov and Jonatan Gustafsson

At the the arena passage, 20 minutes and three gaffles into the race, the top 10 included eight runners with a higher World Ranking than the highest ranked GB runner (Ralph Street is currently ranked 39th). The other two were World Knockout Sprint medallist Jonatan Gustafsson (PB of 14:08 for 5000m who had not made any of the three Swedish teams - he was running for "MIX 5") and the Polish runner Wojciech Kowalski (5000m PB 15:14, but that was a while ago.) So Joshua was doing well to be in the stream following them - he was 18th, 30sec behind the 10th runner.

He maintained speed for most of the second loop (one more gaffle) but inevitably gaps stretched and then the group he was with missed the best route to the penultimate control. His final position was 25th, just three minutes down on first back Ukraine's Ruslan Glibov. But it was a relay of relatively short legs at 32 minutes target time, in fast terrain, and leading teams would not be giving back three minutes.

At the front, in the block led by UKR, were SWE-1 and SWE-2, FIN-1, NOR-2, Gustafsson, POL (well run) and finally, just, SUI-1. SUI-2 were next, but 11sec behind their first team, and that was too much to be in touch with the leaders. Joey Hadorn for the Swiss first team sprinted hard to get contact with those ahead; Florian Howald for the second team, a little ahead of NOR-1 and the Czechs, made a more typical start. Just a few seconds at a handover can make all the difference to the next runner.

World Cup Relay Norway: Start of Men's Leg2. pic.twitter.com/t73uqaofss

— On The Red Line (@OnTheRedLineO) May 4, 2023

At the end of the relay this first group of eight teams would provide the first four teams.

Meanwhile Chris Smithard had the leg 1 runner's nightmare - not getting the first control in the pack. Of course when that happens proceedings then tend to be a bit of a damp squib for the whole team. Chris came back 39th, not alone but a long way back, nearly 11 minutes off the lead.

Leg 2

Ben Mitchell begins leg 2 for the GBR first team. Alastair Thomas waits in the changeover pen.

Ben Mitchell began in 25th place, did the 26th fastest leg time, and finished in 25th. He was pleased with his run, although in one place an area mapped green had been more difficult to run in than he had expected based on experience in the earlier races this week.

At the front of the race the leg ended with Joey Hadorn leading in a group of six teams within 12 seconds: SUI-1, FIN-1, SWE-1, SWE-2, NOR-1, and NOR-2.

Alastair Thomas had a sound run, a minute slower than Ben, and brought GBR-2 up to 36th.

Alastair Thomas starts near the Belgian leg 2 runner

Ben Mitchell near the end of his leg

Leg 3

So six runners set off at the front, spread over only 12 seconds.

• Matthias Kyburz (SUI-1, world ranking 2)
• Miika Kirmula (FIN-1, world ranking 10)
• Gustav Bergman (SWE-1, world ranking 4)
• Axel Elmblad (SWE-2, world ranking 90)
• Kasper Harlem Fosser (NOR-1, world ranking 1)
• Havard Sandstad Eidsmo (NOR-2, world ranking 46)

It was now that the gaffling may have played a significant role. The first control was as usual for a relay, gaffled, and one of the three options was shorter than the others. Only Gustav had that, he ran hard and hit it cleanly and, in the words of the Ivarnational Podcast "in that situation there is no-one better than Gustav at orienteering quickly and cleanly and putting pressure on the others." At the arena passage he had a one minute lead, and of course he learned that position on the run-through, so was able to be super careful on the last loop.

The winning team was Martin Regborn (world ranking 9), Emil Svensk (world ranking 8), and Gustav Bergman.

Gustav Bergman reaches the control before the arena passage

The next three runners finished almost together, and it was Miika Kirmula who took second place, with Havard Sandstad Eidsmo third and Matthais Kyburz fourth.

Men relay positions 2, 3 and 4 are decided, photo: IOF / Snore Veggan

Sweden-2 were 5th, and Norway-1 sixth.

4th leg GPS.

Ralph Street took the third leg for GBR-1. He was able to overtake some teams and brought the team in 18th. He passed teams for Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Italy and Ukraine, which made GBR 9th nation. That is behind the six strongest nations, and Poland and Estonia.

For GBR-2 Joe Woodley picked up a couple of places for 34th.

The GBR 9th nation is a pretty good result by recent standards. In last year's relays GBR men had been 18th nation (Estonia, European Champs) and 12th (Switzerland, World Cup Final.)

Ralph Street begins the arena passage

Women's Race

It is a similar story for the background in Women's team competition. As we have noted elsewhere it is like Sweden can be balanced against other nations combined in the same way that Golf's Ryder Cup (men) and SolheimCup (women) balances USA against Europe. In the Women's Middle Race the day before Sweden had eight women in the first 14, and the runners first, second and fourth were Swedish.

In last year's forest relays GBR had finished 12th nation in both the European Champs (Estonia) and the World Cup Final (Switzerland.)

The strongest nations were, as with the men, the big four: Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Finland. Last year the Czechs had done brilliantly to break into this group and come second in Estonia, and Denmark make up the top-6. There are then a group of countries including GBR, but they would not find it easy to match Sweden 3, let alone Sweden-2 or Sweden-1.

GBR-1 was Cecilie Andersen, Fiona Bunn and Megan Carter-Davies. GBR-2 was Jo Shepherd, Niamh Hunter and Chloe Potter. It was a slightly longer race than the men had had (34 minutes target time per leg.)

Leg 1

As with the men's race there were a group of teams together at the end of the first leg. Ten teams finished within one minute, led by Sweden-1 (Hannah Lundberg) and Sweden-2 (Karolin Ohlsson.) The others were: SUI-1, NOR-1, DEN-1, EST-1, FIN-3, NOR-2, FIN-2 and CZE-1.

SWE-3 mispunched and were running near the front but wouldn't count when that became known later.

Unfortunately the race did not go well for Cecilie Andersen, who became injured during her run. She did finish but eight minutes off the lead.

Jo Shepherd had a strong run for GBR-2, often leading her group, and finishing 17th, three and a half minutes behind Hannah Lundberg.

Jo Shepherd leads Anna Groell of Austria at the arena passage. Jo finished ahead of both Austrian teams

Leg 2

Multiple World Champion Tove Alexandersson took over from Hannah Lundberg, with middle race winner Sara Hagstrom to run the final leg for SWE-1. But the World Number 1 had a poor run, finishing three minutes down on NOR-1 and NOR-2 who were together at the front. Even SWE-1 would not come come back from that.

SWE-2 were still there, just 5 seconds down on the Norwegians, and Switzerland and Estonia were very close too. A minute down were FIN-3, just ahead of FIN-1 and FIN-2. Then came Czechia.

For GBR-2 Niamh Hunter had a steady run, with only a minute or so time loss, running the 23rd best time on the 2nd leg and slipping a few places to 22nd.

Niamh sets off after the changeover

Fiona Bunn, leg 2 for GBR-1, at the arena passage

Fiona Bunn did not have such a good run for GBR-1, but did gain several places bringing the team to 25th - Winsplits

On Leg 3, Chloe had a 7 minute start on Megan (but did not know that.)

Leg 3

At the front the runners setting off at the front (with three Finnish runners a minute or so behind, and then Sara Hagstrom further back) were:

• Andrine Benjaminsen (NOR-1)
• Ane Dyrkorn (NOR-2)
• Lisa Risby (SWE-2)
• Simona Aebersold (SUI-1)
• Sigrid Ruul (EST-1)

The first four all have World Champs medals (Andrine has four and Simona eight). Sigrid Ruul understandably couldn't keep up and was back with the Finns by the time of the gaffled control 1.

Lina Strand (five WOC medals), SWE-3, was also with the group but we know now her team was not in the race because of the leg-1 mispunch.

Ane dropped back before the arena passage. At that point Andrine was a bit behind Lisa and SImona because she had not got her previous gaffle cleanly.

At the penultimate control they were back together and then Lisa's speed won the day. Simona was second and Andrine third.

The winning team was Karolin Ohlsson, Elin Mansson and Lisa Risby.

In the GBR mini-race Chloe did not hold off Megan. Megan did the 16th best leg-3 time and brought GBR-1 in at 22nd, one place ahead of GBR-2. This was 12th nation - the same position as at the World Cup Final last year. As well as the top six countries, GBR were behind Estonia, France, Poland, Latvia and Austria.

The Women's Podium, photo: IOF / Snore Veggan