EOC Long Final: Map and Results

Extraordinary performance by Simone Niggli – and another great win by Olav Lundanes! No matter if middle distance and long distance – Niggli and Lundanes take the gold medals. Niggli had four(!) minutes down to Tatiana Riabkina in second – Lundanes victory margin was one minute down to Matthias Merz. Minna Kauppi and Valentin Novikov took the bronze medals.

The runners were met by a tough course – with many route choice alternatives. The time differences between the different alternatives were not the biggest – the important thing was again to run fast and stick to your plan.

Maps

• Map men (from GPS tracking)
• Map women (from GPS tracking)

Men: – I have improved technically since last year

Lundanes (Gold):
– Physically I had a very good winter training, and I also feel that I have improved technically since last year.
– It was a tough race today. In the beginning I felt good and was running fast. I started feeling tired half way through the race, and the last part was just a lot of fighting.
– The relay is a big goal for us on Sunday – but not more than the other races – We want to win them all.

Merz (Silver):
– Obviously this type of terrain is not too bad for us Swiss. For me personally I feel it was mainly my general experience, which brought results today. It took only a few days of training here to feel quite comfortable with the terrain. But the terrain is unusual for us because we do not have this type of terrain at home
– For the relay we always have a big goal for a medal. For obvious reasons (home ground this year)the world champ relay is the main relay event for us this year.
– We have a big team, and the selection will be tough, but I am sure that this fact will help pushing us to great results

Novikov (Bronze):
– I just decided that I should use full speed for this terrain and didn’t think too much about if it would be good enough for the whole race. Then I thought about it, and decided to continue with this high speed ;)
– The podium on the long is very important for me because the last few years I have not been so good in the long races in Champs. So this has given me a lot of confidence and from now on I also believe in myself on long distance

Women: – I could not have run many seconds faster

Niggli (Gold):
– Today I had an almost perfect race. It is not so often that I run this well in a championships race. It was physically and technically a very good race. I could not have run many seconds faster!
– Yes, I was more than 4 minutes faster today, but we are all just women that love orienteering. the diffence today was that I am in very good shape and also managed to have full confidence in my orienteering all the way.
– My goal for the week is to run four stable races. I have now two gold medals, and I am very happy.

Riabkina (Silver):
– The race today was better than yesterday. I tried to go fast all the way. I believe that I chose good route choices today. I took the controls in the detailed areas without any mistakes. This felt very good. At the end of the race it was very tough and I was very tired, but I fought all the way.
– I have to say that my favourite distance is middle, but I also looking forward to the relay

Kauppi (Bronze):
– I am really happy for my medal today, actually. Of course you feel slightly disappointed by being this far behind Simone, but still I am really happy to be here [on the podium] today.
– The middle was my main goal for EOC this year, but I am also looking forward to the relay on Sunday. We have a very strong track record in relay and will of course go for the gold

• Full results