WOC Sprint: Live from 08:00 / 16:54 CET

The first final in this year World Championships is the sprint final which start Monday early evening at 16:54 CET. The  qualifications are run in the morning from 08:00 CET. Three heat for men and three for women – 15 runners from each heat qualify for the finals.

• Links to live services: Online results, GPS-tracking, Live TV payment. See also WOC 2013 webpage. See also Instructions about purchasing Live services (10 Euro)

The sprint is special this year because it is pressed in between the long qualification and long final. That means that a number of the worlds best sprinters skip the sprint in order to fully focus on the long distance.

Below you see the course details. The qualification is run mostly in part terrain with a small forest area, whereas the final is mainly flat urban area with some park type forest.

Reigning champions: Simone Niggli and Matthias Kyburz

Sprint has been a Swiss/Swedish discipline for the men and a Swiss/Swedish/Danish discipline for the women the last years – with Switzerland dominating on home ground in the World Championships last year. The Swiss men won a triple with Matthias Kyburz ahead of Matthias Merz and Matthias Müller – whereas Simone Niggli took care of the gold medal in the women’s class. In the World of O Sprint Ranking for men, the 8 first positions are held by Swiss and Swedish runners – whereas the 8 first positions for women are held by Swedish and Danish runners in addition to Niggli on top.

Men: Matthias Kyburz against the other Swiss – but what about Sweden?

There have been three individual start sprint races in the World Cup this year, and Matthias Kyburz has won all three of them. Very impressive in a discipline like sprint where everything has to be perfectly right in order to win. Thus Kyburz is obviously the big gold favourite.

However, sprint is a often considered the most open discipline, as the margins are so small. A 5 second mistake can easily lose you not only the gold medal – but all medals. The other Swiss runners will be at the front of the line, trying to “steal” the gold medal away from their team mate Kyburz. Neither last year’s silver medalist Matthias Merz or one of the best sprint orienteers the world has seen – Daniel Hubmann – are on the start line in the sprint. Both are focusing on the long distance instead. Last year’s Swiss bronze medalist Matthias Müller is also not on the start – Müller was not selected for the Swiss team this year. Instead Fabian Hertner, Martin Hubmann and Andreas Kyburz are on the start line. All three fight for the medals – and especially Fabian Hertner is a man who can beat Matthias Kyburz even on one of Kyburz’s good days.

Two Swedish runners must be added to the favourites: Jerker Lysell and Jonas Leandersson. Lysell is a fantastic sprinter – especially in flat, urban terrain. After a lot of injury problems this spring, he somehow managed to get the energy for a 2nd place on the Nordic Tour sprint in Finland late this spring. Leandersson won the sprint at the European Championships last spring, and may very well fight for gold this time again.

Outsiders: There are quite a few outsiders who might fight for the medals. Scott Fraser, Kiril Nikolov, Frederic Tranchand, Mårten Boström

Dark horses: Øystein Kvaal Østerbø, Gustav Bergman, Yannick Michiels, Jan Prochazka

Women: Simone Niggli against Sweden and Denmark

In the women’s class Simone Niggli is the big favourite – as always when she is on the start line in a World Championship race. The biggest fight may very well come from two Danish runners: Emma Klingenberg and Maja Alm – both eager to climb up to the top of the podium. Klingenberg has the speed to beat Niggli – but has she got the stability? And has Alm got the top speed? At least the Danes have the advantage of being two against one. The Swedes  have also two runners who can fight for gold; last year’s bronze medalist Annika Billstam and Lina Strand. In addition the Swedes have a number of women not on the start line who would have been favourites – Tove Alexandersson and Lena Eliasson (running long) and Helena Jansson (injured just ahead of WOC).

Outsiders: Galina Vinogradova, Rahel Friedrich, Anne Margrethe Hausken, Venla Niemi,

Dark horses: Lizzie Ingham, Judith Wyder

Useful links

• Team overview WOC 2013 – with updated profile data.
• WOC 2013 webpage
• WOC Program
• Information about WOC on TV
• WOC 2013 Bulletin 4 – all updated information about the competition
• Results from earlier WOCs and WOC history by country

WOC Teams – sorted by country

Note that all teams have received login information to update the athlete data / profile miniature picture. If you are a competitor and have not received a link, please contact your team leader.

Argentina	Australia	Austria
Azerbaijan	Belgium	Belarus
Bulgaria	Canada	China
Croatia	Czech Republic	Denmark
Spain	Estonia	Finland
France	Great Britain	Germany
Hong Kong	Hungary	Ireland
Israel	Italy	Japan
Latvia	Lithuania	Moldova
MNE	Norway	New Zealand
Poland	Portugal	DPR Korea
Romania	South Africa	Russia
Serbia	Switzerland	Slovakia
Sweden	Chinese Taipei	Turkey
Ukraine	Uruguay	United States