Sarah Hagstrom in the walled town of Soave, a few minutes from taking the EOC 2023 Sprint Relay win for Sweden. Note grapes used for Soave wine drying traditionally in the tower! Photo: On The Red Line
The European Championships in 2023 were in the sprint formats in historic towns of Northern Italy. The event centre was in Pescheira del Garda and the races were in Verona, Soave and Vicenza. The Sprint Relay was won by Sweden, and the GB team was 6th. Ralph Street made the podium on all the race days with the sprint relay and two fourth places, but he didn't win a medal. Megan Carter-Davies, Jonathan Crickmore and Nathan Lawson had top-20 results. Cecilie Andersen, Peter Hodkinson, Eddie Narbett all got through qualification on one or two days, and Freddie Carcas missed out by the narrowest of margins. In fact the individual days were full of the competition of narrow margins.
Tove Alexandersson and Matthias Kyburz both won two gold and one silver in three races. Sara Hagstrom and Jonatan Gustafsson won two medals each and made the podium every day.
Freddie Carcas just missed out on the knockout stages. He was tied in the final qualification spot in heat 3 and lost out because he has fewer ranking points than the other runner.
The European Champs Knockout Sprint racing took place on Sunday 8th October in Vicenza. The morning qualification (athletes in quarantine by 7:30) was in the suburbs, on the Creazzo map. The heats reduced the fields from 142 men and 131 women to 36 of each for the finals, for six "quarter-finals" of six runners each. The finals were in the largely pedestrianised centre of the City, with quite a few pedestrians and cyclists, mostly unaware of "high-speed" runners until whistles and shouting announced their approach.
The qualification races were very tight as expected, and for the many near the cutoffs it was quite chancy. The knockout stages were full of excitement and noise, fast running in the streets, some possible danger and some tiny margins.
Ralph Street made the podium but not a medal in the European Champs Sprint 2023: 5 seconds off gold, 2 seconds off silver, 1 second off bronze, photo: On The Red Line
The European Champs Individual Sprint racing took place on Wednesday 4th October in Verona.
It is a 2-race format, with qualification and finals. Both sets of courses were relatively straightforward by the standards of international sprint racing, and it was mere seconds deciding the quakification and the medals - especially in the men's race..
In the morning qualification races, held away from the centre of Verona, the fields were reduced from 144 men and 134 women to 45 of each for the finals (actually 46 women as in one heat two runners tied for the final qualification spot.)
In the afternoon, next to the Roman Amphitheatre and running through the Old Town near Juliet's balcony, the medals (and places, and World Cup points) were decided.
Cecilie Andersen is one of 14 GB athletes in Northern Italy for the European Champs, Cecilie photo: by Rob Lines at the previous round of the World Cup this year.
The European Champs start early on Wednesday morning 4th October, continue on the 6th, and finish on Sunday 8th. It's the turn of the sprint disciplines and a large British team has gathered in Northern Italy. If you're not there the best way to follow it via the Live Internet TV with English commentary at 25 Euros for three broadcasts (or individual ones at 9 euros each), but if you don't have that then there are free online services.
(Photos by Wendy Carlyle)
Originally from the Scottish Borders, I've always been into sport and started orienteering at 10 years old joining Roxburgh Reivers (RR).
I decided to focus on orienteering after being selected for Scotjos age 13. I first represented GB at European Youth Championships...
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Charlotte Ward starts (from the IOF Web-TV)
World Cup Sprint race - Tuesday 29th October 2019 - Songtang Village
Update - Results
"Perfect sprint orienteering terrain" said Jonas Merz on the commentary. The races were close. The narrow, and sometimes very narrow, alleys are not something that many of the athletes have experience with. Exceptions might be men's winner Yannick Michiels who has done quite a lot of races in China with Park World Tour, and of course the home team athletes.
It was the most consistent runners who took the wins. Yannick Michiels only had one fastest leg, and Shuangyan Hao only three. Women's runner-up Simona Aebersold was close to the win - she lost more than the winning margin on leg 14-15. And Tove Alexandersson lost more than the winning margin on leg 2-3.
- Men - 1.Yannick Michiels; 2.Maxime Rauturier; 3. Li ZhuoYe.
- Women- 1.Shuangyan Hao; 2.Simona Aebersold; Sara Hagstrom.
Charlotte Ward and Kirstin Maxwell. credit: Hello 5G.
Sunday 27th October 2019 - Nanhai Movie and TV Town
The Sprint Relay of the China World Cup Round took place at 06:45 UK-time. The venue was:
An extremely scenic location of an open-air film studio complex with numerous replica townscapes and temples, combining the landscape of a city park and suburban park with strong cultural atmosphere. There is both planted and natural vegetation, with some small areas of open forest depending on route choice. Very good runnability.
There were five teams in contention at the start of the last leg, three of them Swedish. Handling the complex navigation well and running strongly it was Elena Roos of Switzerland who took the victory. The Swedish second team, with Sara Hagstrom, were second, and Norway with Andrine Benjaminsen were third.
The Great Britain team of Charlotte Ward, Peter Hodkinson, Ralph Street and Cecilie Andersen, were 13th, eighth nation.
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The fourth and final round of the 2019 World Cup takes place in Nanhai District, Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China. This is close to Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions, around the Pearl River Delta. Teams from China, Hong Kong China and Macau China are taking part.
- Saturday 26th October - Middle Distance (c5am-10am UK time)
- Sunday 27th October - Sprint Relay (start 6:45am UK time, TV broadcast starts 6:30am)
- Tuesday 29th October - Sprint (c5am-8:30am UK time, TV broadcast starts 6am)
There is Live Internet TV coverage (for a fee) with commentary from Katherine Bett and Jonas Merz. Sunday's Sprint Relay, in Nanhai Movie and TV Town - a purpose built facility occupying over a square kilometre and used for over 500 TV programmes and movies rates to be particularly good to watch, and being so early it may get you in the mood for taking exercise in the rest of the day.
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Kris Jones, winner of the JK Sprint the last three years (and planner in 2014), is not running this year. He is currently recovering and training in Albuquerque, New Mexico. So we will have a new men's champion. Kris wrote about his injury for "Fast Running".
Kris provides his thoughts about the racing, and bravely predicts which of his fellow GB Squad athletes might take the wins.
We think both these races look very open.
Image: Map Extract, World Cup Final Middle Race - Embargoed Area
The final 2018 round of the World Cup - the last outing for the GB team this season - is this weekend in the Czech Republic. This item will be updated with news as the races happen.
- Thursday 4th: Knockout Sprint (Prague)
- Friday 5th: Sprint Relay (Prague) - starting 14:30 UK-time
- Saturday 6th: Middle Distance Race (Turnov – Valdštejn)
- Sunday 7th: Sprint (Mladá Boleslav)
Live Services - with a new TV service provider.
- Thursday TV starts at 14:10 UK-time.
- Friday TV starts at 14:15 UK-time.
- Saturday TV starts at 10:30 UK-time.
- Sunday TV starts at 9:00 Uk-time.
Image: Wikipedia Commons.
Friday 21st - Sunday 23rd September is Euromeeting in Denmark, a runup event for the 2020 World Championships..
On Friday, 3pm UK-time, there is a Sprint Relay from Arena Kolding North.
On Saturday there is knockout sprint, with a qualification race in the morning, and then quarter-finals. semi-finals and finals from 2pm UK-time at Arena Assens.
On Sunday, from 9am UK-time, there is a sprint race in the Christiansfeld UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in 1773 by the Moravian Church and largely built in the years up to 1800.
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Image: Sprint Scotland Map Extract - Grangemouth Course 2
Sprint Scotland, mimicking the World Champs Sprint Weekend, had three races in two days. All but one of the British WOC team sprinters were there, and they were joined by some of the best in the world. It was generally assessed as terrific preparation immediately before the World Champs. All the races had World Ranking (WRE) status.
Meanwhile other WOC athletes were doing their final preparations too - some days of O-ringen, last training camps for example - and writing about them. And the World Universities wrapped up with the relays.
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Photo: Sprint Scotland Organiser Graham Gristwood
Sprint Scotland has three sprint races this weekend with all but one of the British WOC team sprinters running. They are joined by some of the best in the world, two weeks before the World Champs. All the races have World Ranking (WRE) status.
(The British WOC team sprinter not in Scotland is Megan Carter-Davies. She is in Finland.at the World Universities Championships.)
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Photo: by Steve Rush
Charlotte Ward won the World Ranking (WRE) Sprint in Antwerp yesterday, with the field including athletes from several nations preparing for the World Championships. Teresa Janosikova (CZE) was second and Sigrid Alexandersen (NOR) third.
Megan Carter-Davies was fifth, and Kirstin Maxwell ninth.
The men's race was won by Frederic Tranchand (FRA) with Tim Robertson (NZL) second, Yannick Michiels (BEL) third, and Chris Smithard fourth. Dane Blomquist was ninth and Peter Hodkinson 13th.
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Story (and great photo) on Jukola website about two British runners who were first back from leg 1
Photo: Screen grab from the international TV broadcast of Kris and Ralph running together to the map exchange.
See the race develop in one of the most technical forests, even by Finnish standards - Leg 1 GPS
In an interesting postscript, and emphasising Kris's summary of his running in his recent interview "no two races are the same", Kris won a 5K track race the following weekend.
UPDATE 26th 4:30pm - race video at http://www.runjumpthrow.com/videos/24296
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Photo: Charlotte and Kirstin at the sprint weekend
The top GB sprinters gathered in York two weeks before the European Champs sprint races for a final group training weekend.
Graham Gristwood was the planner and he has put together a short video of the running giving a flavour of what went on. Several locations and several formats are evident.
Thanks to Steve Whitehead, Paul Murgatroyd, Peter and Christine Roberts, Bill Griffiths and EBOR Orienteers.