Gold for Czech Republic and Denmark at the sprint distance in the Junior World Champs in Gothenburg today. The Czech Stephan Kodeda took home the victory for Czech Republic in the mens class. Kodeda was one of the big favourites, and managed to put off the pressure. Emma Klingenberg from Denmark was todays big surprise!

Young Danish winner

A Danish medal in the women class was no big surprise - the surprise was that Emma Klingenberg was the winner. Maja Alm was the favourite among the Danes today - but 16 year old Klingenberg beat both Alm and all the others, and made it a superb start of the JWOC for Denmark. Sören Bobach made the day complete with a bronze medal in the mens class - and thus Denmark is the best nation after the first day of this years JWOC.

Czech sprint champion - again

As last years JWOC in Dubbio, Australia - Vojtech Kral of the Czech Republic won the sprint distance. In Sweden this year, there was again a Czech winner in the sprint with Stephan Kodeda. Kodeda has been living in Sweden for most of the last months preparing for the JWOC - a preparation which gave him the gold medal at todays sprint.

Map

Below you see a map extract from the mens sprint distance today. All of the course - and also the womens course - is available at the organizers webpage. Only a little part of the course was in the forest - but the forest controls proved to be the most important ones for the final outcome of the races.

Results

Men
1. Stepan Kodeda Czech Republic 13:21 +00:00
2. Johan Runesson Sweden 13:22 +00:01
3. Sören Bobach Denmark 13:28 +00:07
4. Matthias Kyburz Switzerland 13:34 +00:13
5. Andrea Seppi Italy 13:35 +00:14
6. Artem Panchenko Ukraina 13:42 +00:21

Women
1. Emma Klingenberg Denmark 13:40 +00:00
2. Silje Ekroll Jahren Norway 13:41 +00:01
3. Jenny Lönnkvist Sweden 13:42 +00:02
4. Sarka Svobodna Czech Republic 13:44 +00:04
5. Zenia Hejlskov Mogensen Denmark 13:48 +00:08
6. Tereza Novotna Czech Republic 13:54 +00:14

• See the full results at the organizers webpage.

On todays tough long distance (click for large map) Tero Föhr and Minna Kauppi took home victories. Kauppi beat Hausken only by a few seconds after the two being together for long parts of the course.

In the mens class, everything looked like a clear victory for Thierry Gueorgiou - but after Gueorgiou was celebrated as a winner for a few minutes, the splits showed that Gueorgiou had forgotten one of the three wings of the butterfly. Thus, victory went to Tero Föhr, who beat Emil Wingstedt in a duel from the second last control.

Results men

1 Föhr, Tero (7) FIN 1:43:12 00:00 1:41:22
2 Wingstedt, Emil (6) SWE 1:43:16 +00:04 1:41:30
3 Hubmann, Daniel (9) SUI 1:43:44 +00:32 1:41:25
4 Haldin, Mats (5) FIN 1:44:02 +00:50 1:42:28
5 Lassen, Tue (12) DEN 1:44:18 +01:06 1:41:42
6 Nordberg, Anders (1) NOR 1:44:28 +01:16 1:44:28

Results women

1 Kauppi, Minna (109) FIN 1:28:11 00:00 1:24:48
2 Hausken, Anne Margrethe (101) NOR 1:28:15 +00:04 1:28:15
3 Jansson, Helena (103) SWE 1:31:15 +03:04 1:30:00
4 Bäckström, Lina (107) SWE 1:31:16 +03:05 1:28:33
5 Billstam, Annika (104) SWE 1:31:17 +03:06 1:29:19
6 Johansson, Sofie (102) SWE 1:35:05 +06:54 1:34:09

• Online results

Victories went to Anne Margrethe Hausken and Anders Nordberg at todays middle distance race which counted as the fourth race in this years orienteering World Cup. For Hausken, this was the best international middle distance race - a discipline which has been difficult for Hausken in the past. For Nordberg - this was a very welcome triumph after a miserable European Champs in Latvia.

Taking over after Simone

Simone Niggli-Luder has been the queen of women orienteering for the last years - and now it seems like Hausken is taking over. Hausken was World Cup leader already before the World Cup round started here in Oslo - and with her victory today, the Norwegian is increasing her lead.

Results men

1 Nordberg, Anders NOR 38:28 00:00
2 Ikonen, Pasi FIN 39:10 +00:42
3 Gueorgiou, Thierry FRA 39:21 +00:53
4 Lauenstein, Marc SUI 39:43 +01:15
5 Haldin, Mats FIN 40:02 +01:34
6 Wingstedt, Emil SWE 40:14 +01:46

Results women

1 Hausken, Anne Margrethe NOR 35:55 00:00
2 Johansson, Sofie SWE 36:51 +00:56
3 Jansson, Helena SWE 37:10 +01:15
4 Billstam, Annika SWE 37:53 +01:58
5 Engstrand, Emma SWE 38:18 +02:23
6 Jukkola, Heli FIN 38:19 +02:24

Full results

For full results see:

• Live results

The middle distance courses in todays World Cup middle distance race at the O-festival in Siggerud south of Olso were challenging - with many of the top runners making large errors. The Norwegians mastered the terrain best on home ground - with Anne Margrethe Hausken and Anders Nordberg on top of the podium.

Above you see the map with the mens course. For full results see:

• Live results

Results men

1 Nordberg, Anders NOR 38:28 00:00
2 Ikonen, Pasi FIN 39:10 +00:42
3 Gueorgiou, Thierry FRA 39:21 +00:53
4 Lauenstein, Marc SUI 39:43 +01:15
5 Haldin, Mats FIN 40:02 +01:34
6 Wingstedt, Emil SWE 40:14 +01:46

Results women

1 Hausken, Anne Margrethe NOR 35:55 00:00
2 Johansson, Sofie SWE 36:51 +00:56
3 Jansson, Helena SWE 37:10 +01:15
4 Billstam, Annika SWE 37:53 +01:58
5 Engstrand, Emma SWE 38:18 +02:23
6 Jukkola, Heli FIN 38:19 +02:24

- The terrain this year is very demanding. Swiss and other Middle European runners will not be as strong at Jukola as they were on 10Mila this year, is the comment of the signature ‘hugo’ in a (Swedish language) discussion about Jukola 2008 at the Swedish website Alternativet.nu. - The teams with many non-nordic runners in the team will get difficulties, ‘hugo’ continues.

Non-nordic Jukola/Venla winners

These opinions by ‘hugo’ are probably a huge underestimation of the Middle European runners - but still it is interesting to take a look at the non-Nordic runners in the winning teams in the Jukola and Venla relay the last 10 years:

Non-Nordic runners are marked by red and blue (note - I may have forgotten some - please add a comment if there are omissions!). As you can see, the number of non-Nordic runners in the winning teams have increased the last 10 years. For comparison, 3 out of 10 in the Kristiansand OK 10Mila winner team were from Middle-European countries.

Old Maps from competition area

At the Jukola archive over at Jukola.com, there are maps with courses from all Jukola relays. The 1986 edition of the relay was in the same area as this years relay, and you can find the following maps to see what will meet you there:

• Jukola: 1st leg EsRa Markus Kaukonen
• Jukola: 5th leg. See also Java-applet.
• Jukola: Mika Huhtanen 2002 3.leg. See also Java-applet.
• Venla: 4th leg. EsRa Anneli Bergströ

Jukola 2008 online

All information about Jukola 2008 is available online at the Jukola 2008 website.

The best Jukola tactics is usually to get a good start in the first part of the relay, because then the next runners will have faster runners around them when running their legs. But how high up does your team need to be after the first leg to be able to gain from the teams around you? Exactly how much faster does the field go around position 100 compared to position 200 at the second leg? Many clubs are composing their team for the Jukola relay these days - below you find some useful curves which will bring you closer to these answers.

The running times of all teams and all runners in Jukola 2007 have been analyzed to look into these questions. If you have any questions to the analysis, please add a comment below. It might not all be too easy to grasp without thinking a bit;)

Note! Some special effects are seen at leg 3 and 4 when going down into the field due to the fact that the sun goes up and runners do not need to use their headlights anymore.

The routechoice comparison for the EOC 2008 Middle Final is again done in a way which gives you the possibility to think through each leg before seeing how the World Elite did it - similar to the popular Route to Christmas series here at World of O. This means that it takes a long time to load the page (many big graphics files), but for the interested orienteer, this should be worth it.

Note! Click on a graphic to see it bigger!

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The routechoice comparison for the EOC 2008 Middle Final is again done in a way which gives you the possibility to think through each leg before seeing how the World Elite did it - similar to the popular Route to Christmas series here at World of O. This means that it takes a long time to load the page (many big graphics files), but for the interested orienteer, this should be worth it.

Note! Click on a graphic to see it bigger!

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Here grouping graphics for the Middle Qualification at EOC 2008 is given. Again, a lot of grouping is seen.

Note! Colored boxes in the below figures show that two runners have been within 15 seconds of each other at a control. Boxed in the same color show that two runners are together. In each box, the position the runner has at this control is shown. The runner who is first in the pack is marked with bold. Also, a tooltip is shown which shows how much a runner is behind.

Being within 15 seconds of each other does not necessarily mean that the runners get help from each other for the orienteering or to keep up higher speed - but if two runners are within 15 seconds of each other in a large part of the course, it indicated that at least one of the runners has gained time due to the grouping. These types of graphs are especially interesting in order to find out how effective separation methods are in orienteering.

Men Heat A

Navn	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
Andris Kivlenieks	37	20	20	19	15	13	15	16	15	16	17	16	16	20	23	24	27	27	27	27
Denis Zlobin	37	28	27	28	28	16	17	18	19	20	21	20	20	24	25	25	31	32	32	32
Manuel Negrello	37	37	37	37	37	36	36	37	37	37	37	37	37	36	36	36	36	36	36	36
Liutauras Bilevicius	37	25	23	25	23	25	29	29	27	28	28	27	27	27	27	27	25	25	25	25
Marius Bjugan	37	30	30	29	26	22	21	21	22	22	20	19	15	15	15	15	16	16	17	16
Andreas Ruedlinger	37	14	14	14	13	23	22	23	25	25	26	26	26	26	26	26	24	24	24	24
Tomas Kuzminskis	37	4	5	5	21	12	12	14	14	15	15	15	23	25	25	23	23	23	23	23
Tue Lassen	37	18	17	18	13	6	9	9	7	7	7	10	8	8	9	9	9	8	8	7
William Lind	37	21	19	18	14	17	18	15	16	14	13	12	14	14	14	13	13	13	13	13
Matthias Muller	37	6	4	4	3	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Javier Gomez	37	36	36	36	36	37	37	36	36	36	36	36	36	37	37	37	37	37	37	37
Istvan Zsebehazy	37	24	29	30	29	32	31	32	30	30	30	31	31	32	32	33	33	33	33	33
Marek Nomm	37	12	16	21	19	20	19	19	17	18	22	22	19	18	19	22	22	22	22	22
Pavlo Ushkvarok	37	8	10	12	9	4	4	3	3	4	4	5	5	6	7	8	8	7	7	8
Bryn Davies	37	18	27	25	23	35	34	33	33	33	31	31	30	30	30	30	29	29	29	29
Roman Fedotov	37	29	28	26	27	20	26	27	28	27	27	29	29	29	29	29	28	28	28	28
Rasmus Soes	37	7	7	7	8	7	6	8	12	13	12	14	13	13	13	14	14	14	14	14
Janis Krumins	37	3	3	3	4	11	11	11	11	9	8	7	9	11	11	10	11	10	12	12
Michele Caraglio	37	26	25	27	30	31	30	30	32	32	32	34	34	34	33	32	32	31	31	31
Robert Kruger	37	31	31	31	34	34	35	35	35	35	35	35	35	35	34	34	34	34	34	34
Graham Gristwood	37	32	32	32	31	24	23	22	21	21	18	24	24	22	20	18	20	20	19	19
Sergey Detkov	37	1	1	1	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	3	3	4	4	3	3
Yury Tambasov	37	35	35	35	35	33	33	34	34	34	34	32	32	31	31	31	30	30	30	30
Vladimir Lucan	37	10	9	9	7	8	9	6	6	11	14	18	18	17	16	17	17	17	16	17
Philippe Adamski	37	18	13	12	16	26	25	25	23	23	23	22	18	17	17	16	16	15	15	15
Emil Wingstedt	37	9	9	8	7	4	3	5	4	3	3	3	3	3	3	2	2	2	2	2
Michal Smola	37	20	16	15	25	15	14	13	13	12	11	11	11	10	8	6	6	11	11	10
Fabien Pasquasy	37	22	21	16	11	28	27	26	29	29	29	28	28	28	28	28	26	26	26	26
Felix Breitschadel	37	34	34	34	33	29	28	28	26	26	25	25	21	22	22	22	21	21	21	21
Dmitriy Tsvetkov	37	27	24	23	20	10	10	10	8	6	6	6	6	5	5	5	6	5	5	5
Erkki Aadli	37	5	6	7	5	18	17	17	20	20	19	17	22	19	18	20	20	19	20	20
Wojciech Kowalski	37	12	19	22	24	21	20	20	18	17	16	13	12	12	12	12	12	12	10	9
Oli Johnson	37	15	11	13	18	10	7	8	9	10	10	8	8	7	6	8	7	6	6	6
Damien Renard	37	14	12	12	10	27	25	24	24	24	24	23	25	24	21	19	18	18	18	18
Jarkko Huovila	37	24	22	20	17	5	5	4	5	5	5	4	4	4	4	4	3	3	4	4
Daniel Portal	37	33	33	33	32	30	32	32	31	31	33	33	33	33	35	35	35	35	35	35
Anders Nordberg	37	2	2	2	2	15	13	12	11	8	9	10	10	9	10	11	10	9	10	12

Men Heat B

Navn	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
Yevhen Kandybey	39	13	14	12	14	24	18	18	17	18	18	20	21	20	19	22	24	23	23
Christian Bobach	39	23	19	22	21	16	16	12	9	16	15	17	23	21	20	17	17	17	17
Daniele Pagliari	39	32	31	36	37	36	34	35	35	35	35	35	33