POM Day 3 WRE: 4 Minute wins for Gueorgiou & Jansson

[9/2: Updated with split analysis & maps!] Big 4 minute wins with excellent competition in a tough long distance in Portugal shows that Thierry Gueorgiou (France) and Helena Jansson (Sweden) are well prepared for the 2016 season. Down to 6th place the gap was 8 and 13(!) minutes, respectively.

In the men’s class the Swedish National Team runners Albin Ridefeldt and Olle Boström were closest to Gueorgiou – more than 4 minutes behind.

Day 3 of Portugal O-Meeting was a long distance World Ranking event – and due to its World Ranking status the most important day of Portugal O-Meeting 2016.

Gueorgiou on top

– It was necessary to think twice before making a choice and this is very interesting in a Long Distance. It is this duality, both physical and technically, that we found often in the Portuguese terrains (Thierry Gueorgiou)

In the men’s class the Swedish National Team runners Albin Ridefeldt and Olle Boström were closest to Gueorgiou – more than 4 minutes behind. Another minute down were Swiss National Team runners Baptiste Rollier and Olli-Markus Taivainen. Jan Prochazka (Czech Republic) in 6th was nearly 8 minutes behind.

– Well, it is for this type of event, I keep going to Portugal in pre-season, Gueorgiou wrote in his training log after the race. – Another pretty extreme terrain, which is probably not too enjoyable at any other speed than competition speed.

Still Gueorgiou took the best out of the experience.

– Some experiences are really special like today. So, I enjoyed a lot and that’s what matters. The terrain was very difficult, very tricky, very demanding physically because of the climbing but also technically, asking for a good navigation between the rocks and the green.

Note also Gueorgiou’s rant about GPS-watches being forbidden in WRE-races in today’s training log. Time to allow GPS-watches in WRE-races?

Splits analysis Men

Thierry Gueorgiou won 3:54 minutes ahead of Albin Ridefelt with Olle Boström in 3rd at 4:02. Thierry Gueorgiou won 10 of 30 legs and lost 37 seconds or less to the leg winner on all legs – that was least of all runners in this race.

The biggest mistakes/time losses among the Top 15 where at the three first controls(see map below). Unfortunately no GPS-tracking available, so no details to be found.

Looking at the second leg is still interesting – also without GPS-data available. Gueorgiou ran down to the right here – you can easily lose a lot of time by trying something direct, and even left would lose you some time fighting your way up to the path (note that absolute lengths on the map below are not correct – length has not been calibrated):

Lot’s of grouping: Thierry Gueorgiou (1st) was in contact with Olle Boström (3rd) for 21 controls (3 controls behind). Albin Ridefelt (2nd) was in contact with Jonas Leandersson (7th) for 22 controls (3 controls behind). Baptiste Rollier (4th) was in contact with Jan Prochazka (6th) for 24 controls (6 controls behind). Olli-Markus Taivainen (5th) was in contact with Kubat Pavel (8th) for 22 controls (11 controls behind). Kubat Pavel (8th) was in contact with Andris Jubelis (11th) for 23 controls (1 controls behind).

Double Sweden: Jansson ahead of Billstam

In the women’s class, yesterday’s winner Annika Billstam was closest to Jansson – 4 minutes down. Another 5(!) minutes after Billstam followed Eva Jurenikova (Czech Republic), Anastasia Rudnaya and Svetlana Mironova (both Russia). Lina Strand (Sweden) in 6th was 13 minutes off Jansson.

I’m really happy. I did a good race. I had some trouble going to the first control, but then I took it easy. It was a really technical race and I kept focused all the way, Jansson said to the Portuguese Orienteering Blog after the race.

– I could run together with Annika and Eva and it was really nice. It was a good start field also today and I caught some other girls. It’s always nice to compete against the best and I’m happy for doing a good technical race. 

Splits analysis women

Helena Jansson  won 4:10 minutes ahead of Annika Billstam with Eva Jurenikova ([8737] Halden SK) in 3rd at 9:01. Helena Jansson won 6 of 23 legs and lost 35 seconds or less to the leg winner on all legs – that was least of all runners in this race. Marika Teini took the lead at the first control and stayed in front until control 2. Helena Jansson took over the lead at control 3 of 23 controls and kept it until the finish.

The fifth leg was troubling for many runners – quite tricky small detail on 1:15.000 scale:

Lot’s of grouping: Helena Jansson (1st) was in contact with Annika Billstam (2nd) for 16 controls (0 controls behind). Eva Jurenikova (3rd) was in contact with Annika Billstam (2nd) for 9 controls (6 controls behind). Anastasia Rudnaya (4th) was in contact with Annika Billstam (2nd) for 11 controls (4 controls behind).

Maps

Maps from today’s men and women elite:

Results

Results Men SuperElite

1	Thierry Gueorgiou	KR	FIN	1:35:21
2	Albin Ridefelt	OKL	SWE	1:39:15
3	Olle Boström	Järla	SWE	1:39:23
4	Baptiste Rollier	KR	FIN	1:40:55
5	Olli-Markus Taivainen	PelPo	FIN	1:42:37
6	Jan Prochazka	KR	FIN	1:43:17
7	Jonas Leandersson	SNO	SWE	1:43:32
8	Kubat Pavel	VaajTe	FIN	1:44:42
9	Arturs Paulins	Igtisa	LTU	1:48:06
10	Lucas Basset	JOG	FRA	1:48:51
11	Andris Jubelis	Igtisa	LTU	1:48:58
11	Kiril Nikolov	KR	FIN	1:48:58
13	Jarkko Huovila	Individual FIN	FIN	1:49:23
14	Bartosz Pawlak	WKS Grunwald PoznaD	POL	1:50:00
15	Hannu Airila	KR	FIN	1:51:52

Results Women Elite

1	Helena Jansson	OK Ravinen	SWE	1:23:55
2	Annika Billstam	OKL	SWE	1:28:05
3	Eva Jurenikova	Halden SK	NOR	1:32:56
4	Anastasia Rudnaya	MSP	FIN	1:34:02
5	Svetlana Mironova	Koovee	FIN	1:35:28
6	Lina Strand	GMOK	SWE	1:37:16
7	Marika Teini	Pohjantahti	FIN	1:39:05
8	Karoliina Sundberg	Lynx	FIN	1:43:53
9	Outi Hytönen	KangSK	FIN	1:45:09
10	Jessica Tullie	BASOC	GBR	1:45:58
11	Amélie CHATAING	KR	FIN	1:46:01
12	Kristin Löfgren	Varegg	NOR	1:46:09
13	Kine Gulliksen	BSK	NOR	1:46:49
14	Isia BASSET	JOG	FRA	1:47:58
15	Lone Karin Brochmann	BSK	NOR	1:48:48

• All results from live results – official results will be available here