EOC 2024 Middle: Analysis, Maps and Results

Eirik Langedal Breivik (Norway) and Simona Aebersold (Switzerland) won the European Orienteering Championships (EOC) Middle on very technical, Hungarian terrain that really challenged the runners. We saw big mistakes by many athletes, with Breivik and Aebersold managing to navigate well in the steep hills while keeping high speed.

In the men’s class Kasper Fosser (Norway) and Albin Ridefelt (Sweden) took silver and bronze – after both being ahead of Langedal Breivik a few controls before the finish. In the women’s class Natalia Gemperle (Switzerland) and Andrine Benjaminsen (Norway) took the other medals, with one of the biggest favourites, Tove Alexandersson (Sweden), finishing without a medal in 4th place after a big mistake early in the course. – Today it feels like I did all the types of mistakes one can make, Alexandersson said to Swedish media after the race.

Winning times of 42 and 40 minutes means that the courses where 5-6 minutes longer than they should have been. With high temperatures, and a tough long distance less than 24 hours later, this gives a big advantage to those fewb athletes focusing only on the long distance….

See maps, GPS-tracking and results below the analysis.

Analysis Men

Below you can see a graphical representation of the race development in the men’s class for the Top 10 along with Hungarian Jonas Ferenc who started the race extremely well.

Jonas Ferenc (Hungary) started very fast, having a clear lead at the 7th control, but after losing 90 seconds to the 8th control he was out of the battle for medals. Already from halfway through the course it was clear that this was a battle between the three medalists. Below we have included a corresponding plot for the Top 3 only, where you can have a closer look at this battle.

Fosser did a 20-30 second mistake to the first control, but caught up with the other medalists after a good leg to the 4th control.

Ridefelt did a 40 second mistake to the 12th control, but due to good speed and a small miss by Fosser to control 15, Fosser and Ridefelt where even when approaching the last controls.

Fosser and Ridefelt seemed to have slightly higher running speed than Langedal Breivik, slowly building up a lead of around which had increased to 70 seconds at control 18 (joint lead for Fosser and Ridefelt), with Fosser losing some seconds to control 19. The 20th control proved to be the crux of this course, though, with many runners making big mistakes. Fosser lost 1:12 and Ridefelt lost 2:19 – but both had a large enough gap down to the rest of the competitors to still secure a medal.

Looking at where the rest of the runners with medal speed lost their medal chances,  Tomas Krivda – finishing 4th in the end just like at last year’s WOC Long distance – ran a good first half of the race and was just a few seconds behind Langedal Breivik at the 11th control, but lost a minute to control 12 and was caught by Kasper Fosser there. From there Krivda run together with Fosser until control 19, but managed to avoid Fosser’s mistake and finished 43 seconds ahead of Fosser, securing the 4th place. If Fosser would have followed Krivda to the finish, that would have been enough for the gold medal…

Loic Capbern (France) also had an excellent first half of his race, being just 26 seconds behind Langedal Breivik at control 17 – clearly in contention for a medal – but then losing first a few controls to control 18, then half a minute to control 19, another half a minute to control 20 and finally 45 seconds to control 21. With only 1:10 up to the bronze medal, this 5th place surely did not taste too good for the French runner.

The Swiss veteran Daniel Hubmann is another runner who will surely go to bed feeling he lost a medal. At control 18 he was only 42 seconds behind Langedal Breivik – and it really looked liked this could be a fantastic ending for Hubmann. Unfortunately Hubmann seemed to try to navigate another leg, and lost 2 minutes to control 19, finishing in a disappointing 9th place.

Margin Regborn (Sweden) is another runner who was in clear contention for a medal – and maybe also the gold medal – until control 19, with less than 20 seconds up to Langedal Breivik. But a 6(!) minute mistake at control 20 where he checked out the edge of the map ruined all his chances…

We have had some requests for “comparison against superman”-type plots in the comments from previous analyses. Below both illustrations are shown on that form as well.

Analysis Women

Below you can see a graphical representation of the race development in the women’s class for the Top 10.

From the graph it is quite clear that Simona Aebersold was in a class of her own – finishing more than 2 minutes ahead of all her competitors. The most interesting battle ahead of the race was the battle against Tove Alexandersson. The big mistake of Alexandersson to control 3 makes it difficult to see the details of her run – we therefore provide a plot of only the top 4 to be able to look more at the details in the battle for the medals.

Tove Alexandersson said after the race that she had big problems keeping the direction in the flatter areas, after not preparing enough for the championships. And this was very clear when watching her GPS-track – her medal chances where nearly gone already to the third control, when she somehow managed to find the 5th control when aiming for the 3rd control. This cost Alexandersson 3:28 to Aebersold – and although she got as close as 60 seconds to the medals halfway through the course, she did too many small mistakes all the way to be able to take a medal. Her speed was fine, though – she was the only one who kept the speed of Aebersold, taking 1:20 on Aebersold from control 7 to control 12.

Gemperle also had good speed – but even without her three mistakes (control 5, 10 and 11) she would not have been close to Aebersold (who only had a small miss at control 10).

Benjaminsen’s speed was nearly on Gemperle’s level – with similar technical performance (small mistakes at control 4, 14 and 18 – with the largest time loss to Gemperle to control 18), in the end she was less than a minute behind Gemperle.

Looking at the other athletes, Paula Gross  was closest to the medals, 2 minutes behind Benjaminsen, but the Swiss runner lost more than 2 minutes on the first four controls, and did not seem to have quite the speed of the medalists.

Comparing the rest of the Top 10 directly with Benjaminsen, it seems clear that Marie Olaussen is the only one who really had both speed and stabile enough technical performance to beat Benjaminsen. But mistakes on control 5 and 6 – costing 3 minutes in total – ruined Olaussen’s chances.

Finally, as for the men, “comparison against superman”-type plots:

Maps and GPS-tracking

See the map from the men’s course at the top of the page and the map from the women’s course below. Click the thumbnails for GPS-tracking via omaps.worldofo.com.

Results

Men

1	Eirik Langedal Breivik	NOR	42:34		8:19
2	Kasper Harlem Fosser	NOR	42:58	+0:24	8:24
3	Albin Ridefelt	SWE	43:39	+1:04	8:32
4	Tomas Krivda	CZE	44:15	+1:40	8:39
5	Loic Capbern	FRA	44:49	+2:14	8:46
6	Emil Svensk	SWE	44:52	+2:17	8:46
7	Eskil Kinneberg	NOR	45:20	+2:45	8:52
8	Viktor Svensk	SWE	45:50	+3:16	8:58
9	Daniel Hubmann	SUI	46:02	+3:28	9:00
10	Ruslan Glibov	UKR	46:37	+4:03	9:07
11	Joey Hadorn	SUI	47:01	+4:27	9:12
12	Anton Johansson	SWE	47:14	+4:40	9:14
13	Ferenc Jonas	HUN	47:15	+4:41	9:14
14	Julien Vuitton	FRA	47:28	+4:54	9:17
15	Sander Arntzen	NOR	47:37	+5:03	9:19
16	Tino Polsini	SUI	48:17	+5:43	9:26
17	Reto Egger	SUI	48:19	+5:44	9:27
18	Loic Marty	FRA	48:30	+5:56	9:29
19	Quentin Andrieux	FRA	48:54	+6:20	9:34
20	Riccardo Rancan	SUI	48:57	+6:22	9:34

Women

1	Simona Aebersold	SUI	40:51		9:07
2	Natalia Gemperle	SUI	43:10	+2:19	9:38
3	Andrine Benjaminsen	NOR	44:09	+3:17	9:51
4	Tove Alexandersson	SWE	45:14	+4:22	10:05
5	Paula Gross	SUI	46:05	+5:13	10:17
6	Ines Berger	SUI	46:41	+5:49	10:25
7	Marie Olaussen	NOR	47:06	+6:14	10:30
8	Venla Harju	FIN	47:12	+6:20	10:32
9	Cecile Calandry	FRA	47:15	+6:23	10:32
10	Hanna Lundberg	SWE	47:34	+6:42	10:37
11	Jasmina Gassner	AUT	48:01	+7:09	10:43
12	Sanna Hotz	SUI	48:03	+7:11	10:43
13	Tereza Smelikova	SVK	48:22	+7:30	10:47
14	Miia Niittynen	FIN	48:27	+7:35	10:48
15	Johanna Ridefelt	SWE	48:34	+7:42	10:50
16	Maija Sianoja	FIN	49:21	+8:29	11:00
17	Evely Kaasiku	EST	49:24	+8:33	11:01
18	Tereza Rauturier	CZE	49:45	+8:53	11:06
19	Karolin Ohlsson	SWE	49:51	+8:59	11:07
20	Elza Kuze	LAT	50:03	+9:12	11:10

• See full results here