World Cup Sprint Relay Czechia 2023: Maps, Results & Analysis

Jan Kocbach August 3, 2023 Orienteering News 1 Comment

[Updated with analysis] With many very challenging route choices, today’s World Cup Sprint Relay in Česká Lípa, Czechia was a tough challenge for the runners. Switzerland took a clear victory after four good legs by Simona Aebersold, Joey Hadorn, Matthias Kyburz and Elena Roos.

Behind Switzerland, the battle for the podium was dominated by many route choice mistakes. For a long time it looked like Sweden’s first team would be able to give Switzerland fight for the victory – with the two teams being almost together far ahead of the competition after the first (45 seconds) and second leg (one minute). Matthias Kyburz did however open a gap of one minute to Gustav Bergman on the third leg, and from then on it was clear that Switzerland would take the win.

Instead the battle for second place got interesting when Sweden’s last leg runner Emma Bjessmo (reserve for Tove Alexandersson who had to withdraw in the morning before the relay) started losing a lot of time on the last leg. Czech Republic‘s Tereza Janiskova caught up more than a minute on the Swede, taking the home team from 7th place to 2nd place on the last leg to a very popular second place along with team mates Denisa Kosova, Jakub Glonek and Tomas Krivda. Sweden 1 finished third with Sweden’s second team in fourth ahead of Norway 1 and Switzerland 3. Looking at the 6 best nations, Norway finished 4th ahead of Spain and France. See full results at the bottom of this article and maps/GPS-tracking below the leg analysis.

Below the leg times are shown graphically with the current leader as reference.

Leg analysis

Control 3 to 4/5

The key leg of the course was the forked long leg to the fourth control. Here the best routechoice was clearly to the left if you had the leftmost control – and to the right if you had the rightmost control. In addition you could go wrong on the routes as well. The typical time loss for taking the wrong route was 10-20 seconds.

On the first leg, only 3(!) runners took the route to the left which should be taken by half of the teams – one of them the winning team’s Simona Aebersold. Thus more than 20 runners took the wrong route, losing a lot of time (note that the times below are not from the official split times and can thus be off by some seconds).

Here is an example for the rightmost control for the second leg – not that big timelosses here, but also here you lost significant time by taking the wrong route.

Below you see the theoretical analysis of the leg (length of route choices) delivered by the organizers to media ahead of the race (thanks to Daniel Wolf for preparing these and the organizers for sharing this and the other legs shown below). The measured lengths for the different alternatives shows that you need to run 40 to 80 meters longer if you take the wrong choice – as done by many of the runners.

An excellent “trap” set by course setter Radek Novotny – very difficult to solve correctly with the pressure you have at the start of a sprint relay. In the media briefing this was also pointed out to be the key leg, along with the probable mistakes to be done by the runners (which proved to be correct). Note that the forking also seemed to be fair in that you used the same time for both control alternatives with good execution (as seen on the first leg with Aebersold and Hagström).

Control 13 to 15 – Men

Control 13 to 15 for the men was a similar type of control – but a shorter leg with less time differences, and also less runners taking the wrong route. Still, this was right out of the relay course setters handbook: different optimal route choices for the different forking options, and punish runners who follow the best route to the other forking option.

Here you can see how some runners were punished on the second men’s leg.

Control 5 to 6 – Men

Control 5 to 6 in the men’s course was a shorter leg with several route choice alternatives of different length. Theoretically there cold be some time differences here, but based on the GPS-data it looks like there were not very big time differences between the fastest on the different alternatives, but execution and the time used for making your choice was key here. Notably few took the shortes middle route here.

Control 11 – 12 (women) / 12 – 13 (men)

This leg had many different options and served well to split up the runners, but the length differences (and also time differences) are not very big. However, some runners did mistakes here – notably Sweden’s first teams’ last leg runner.

Control 15 – 16 (men)

Another leg with many alternatives which helped splitting up the runners, but not very significant length differences. The GPS data (see example for men’s second leg below) does not show very large differences between the best on each alternative (but again both execution and running speed was important).

Maps and GPS-tracking

See the map for the women’s legs at the top and the men’s legs below. GPS-tracking is available here:

Results

1	SUI 1				1:06:32
	1. Simona Aebersold	16:33	2	+0:01	16:33	2		+0:01
	2. Joey Hadorn	16:26	5	+0:21	32:59	1	-1		-0:01
	3. Matthias Kyburz	15:56	2	+0:03	48:55	1	0		0:00
	4. Elena Roos	17:37	6	+0:50	1:06:32	1	0		0:00
2	CZE 1				1:07:47			+1:15
	1. Denisa Kosova	18:42	30	+2:10	18:42	30		+2:10
	2. Jakub Glonek	16:25	4	+0:20	35:07	18	-12	+2:08	-0:02
	3. Tomas Krivda	15:53	1		51:00	6	-12	+2:05	-0:03
	4. Tereza Janosikova	16:47	1		1:07:47	2	-4	+1:15	-0:50
3	SWE 1				1:07:54			+1:22
	1. Sara Hagstrom	16:32	1		16:32	1
	2. Jonatan Gustafsson	16:29	6	+0:24	33:01	2	+1	+0:02	+0:02
	3. Gustav Bergman	16:54	18	+1:01	49:55	2	0	+1:00	+0:58
	4. Emma Bjessmo	17:59	11	+1:12	1:07:54	3	+1	+1:22	+0:22
4	SWE 2				1:08:15			+1:43
	1. Josefin Tjernlund	17:45	10	+1:13	17:45	10		+1:13
	2. Oskar Andren	16:42	11	+0:37	34:27	5	-5	+1:28	+0:15
	3. Martin Regborn	16:03	3	+0:10	50:30	3	-2	+1:35	+0:07
	4. Alva Sonesson	17:45	7	+0:58	1:08:15	4	+1	+1:43	+0:08
5 / 4th nation	NOR 1				1:08:18			+1:46
	1. Marie Olaussen	18:22	26	+1:50	18:22	26		+1:50
	2. Mats Eidsmo	16:08	2	+0:03	34:30	7	-19	+1:31	-0:19
	3. Kasper Harlem Fosser	16:28	10	+0:35	50:58	5	-2	+2:03	+0:32
	4. Andrine Benjaminsen	17:20	2	+0:33	1:08:18	5	0	+1:46	-0:17
6	SUI 3				1:08:22			+1:50
	1. Paula Gross	17:52	12	+1:20	17:52	12		+1:20
	2. Tino Polsini	16:55	19	+0:50	34:47	10	-2	+1:48	+0:28
	3. Martin Hubmann	16:15	6	+0:22	51:02	7	-3	+2:07	+0:19
	4. Sabine Hauswirth	17:20	3	+0:33	1:08:22	6	-1	+1:50	-0:17
7	SUI 2				1:08:59			+2:27
	1. Eline Gemperle	18:02	14	+1:30	18:02	14		+1:30
	2. Riccardo Rancan	17:01	21	+0:56	35:03	14	0	+2:04	+0:34
	3. Timo Suter	16:29	12	+0:36	51:32	12	-2	+2:37	+0:33
	4. Natalia Gemperle	17:27	4	+0:40	1:08:59	7	-5	+2:27	-0:10
8	SWE 3				1:09:00			+2:28
	1. Elin Mansson	18:21	25	+1:49	18:21	25		+1:49
	2. Isac von Krusenstierna	16:05	1		34:26	4	-21	+1:27	-0:22
	3. August Mollen	16:29	11	+0:36	50:55	4	0	+2:00	+0:33
	4. Andrea Svensson	18:05	12	+1:18	1:09:00	8	+4	+2:28	+0:28
9 / 5th nation	ESP 1				1:09:01			+2:29
	1. Nerea Gonzalez	17:40	8	+1:08	17:40	8		+1:08
	2. Eduardo Gil Marcos	17:06	24	+1:01	34:46	8	0	+1:47	+0:39
	3. Alvaro Casado	16:27	8	+0:34	51:13	9	+1	+2:18	+0:31
	4. Ana Isabel Toledo	17:48	8	+1:01	1:09:01	9	0	+2:29	+0:11
10 / 6th nation	FRA 1				1:09:15			+2:43
	1. Isia Basset	18:16	23	+1:44	18:16	23		+1:44
	2. Adrien Delenne	16:50	17	+0:45	35:06	16	-7	+2:07	+0:23
	3. Loic Capbern	16:35	13	+0:42	51:41	13	-3	+2:46	+0:39
	4. Cecile Calandry	17:34	5	+0:47	1:09:15	10	-3	+2:43	-0:03