EOC Sprint Relay: Russian GOLD after intriguing battle!

Jan Kocbach May 21, 2016 Orienteering News Comments Off on EOC Sprint Relay: Russian GOLD after intriguing battle!

[With maps and results] At the start of the last leg it looked like Sweden was the certain winner – then Denmark emerged as the clear winner candidate. But Russia’s Galina Vinogradova kept her head cool and orienteered safely to GOLD for Russia.

At the start of the last leg Sweden’s Helena Jansson had a clear 20 second lead to Russia’s Galina Vinogradova with Switzerland’s Rahel Friedrich another 9 seconds behind. The big favourite Denmark was 1:17(!) behind after some time losses at the second and third leg. At this stage of the race everything pointed towards gold for Sweden – with Jansson usually being a safe and strong runner.

At this stage of the race everything pointed towards gold for Sweden – with Jansson usually being a safe and strong runner.

Orienteered their way to victory

Orienteering is however the key element in this sport – and this is how Russia won the relay today. It started already on the first leg where Natalia Vinogradova (not related to Galinia Vinogradova on the last leg) came first after steeling meters on Swiss Judith Wyder due to better orienteering in many places. Second leg runner Gleb Tikhonov lost a few seconds, but kept Russia in the top. Third leg runner Andrey Khramov – veteran with EOC Gold medal back in 2008 on the relay – lost some seconds to Swedish Jonas Leandersson (who is in great shape these days; deciding 10Mila for SNO less than a week ago). But with only 20 seconds up to leading Sweden, Galina Vinogradova was in perfect position at the start of the last leg.

nataliavinogradova

Andrey Khramov

» Runner profile at runners.worldofo.com

Galina Vinogradova

» Runner profile at runners.worldofo.com

Russian Gold medal team. Photo: EOC 2016.

Russia wins ahead of Denmark and Switzerland. Photo: EOC 2016.

Sweden misses first control on last leg

Helena Jansson did however have a really bad start for Sweden on the last leg – two years after she lost a lot of time at the first leg of the WOC Sprint Relay in Trento, Italy after loosing her shoe. On the way to the first leg she did not see that a fence made it impossible to run a straight route choice – and thus turned around, changed her route choice, and lost significant time. Meanwhile Denmark’s Maja Alm ran a good route to the other forking control (there was not significant difference in the time for the two forkings, though) – and caught more than 45 seconds on Jansson. Below is a comparison of the routes of the two.

The other top teams also lost time to the first control, and a few controls later Alm had brought Denmark up into the lead of the Sprint Relay – from a hopeless situation 1:19 behind! On top of that, Sweden skipped the 5th control and was disqualified.

Alm ran the wrong way out of the 16th control and lost more than 20 seconds – and Russia’s Galina Vinogradova could run past to celebrate a clear victory

Now everything looked like Denmark would take another Sprint Relay victory. But then to the 16th control – with Alm in a seemingly safe lead ahead of Russia – Alm ran the wrong way out of the 16th control and lost more than 20 seconds – and Russia’s Galina Vinogradova could run past to celebrate a clear victory and the first ever European Championships gold medal in Sprint Relay went to Russia. Denmark finished second while Switzerland took the bronze medal.