[Including comparisons for all legs] Reigning World Champions Simona Aebersold (Switzerland) and Kasper Fosser (Norway) both defended their titles from Switzerland in 2023 over the long distance at the 2025 World Orienteering Championships (WOC) in Kuopio, Finland. For Aebersold the margin was only 9 seconds after a thriller finish – while Fosser’s margin increased meter by meter up to nearly 3 minutes in the end.
In the women’s class Aebersold had a very tight battle with Wednesday’s Middle distance winner Tove Alexandersson (Sweden) towards the end of the race, with Alexandersson making a 2 minute mistake at the 21st control followed by another 30 second mistake at the 22nd control that cost here the gold medal – which it looked like she already had in her pocket. The gap down to Andrine Benjaminsen (Norway) in third was more than two minutes, with Natalia Gemperle (Switzerland), Sanna Fast (Sweden) and Venla Harju (Finland) finishing in the next places.
For Fosser this was the third WOC Long gold medal in a row – coming just at the back of Norways’ Olav Lundanes’ dominant period where he took four WOC Long gold medals in a row. Fosser went clear of the competition early – the biggest challenge seemed to come from Wednesday’s Middle distance winner Eirik Langedal Breivik who took a 20 second lead on the first TV control. Breivik had, however, started much too fast, and was empty after only 40 minutes of running and abandoned the race early. In the end Martin Regborn (Sweden) was closest to Fosser at 2:57, with Matthias Kyburz (Switzerland) taking bronze at 3:40. The Svensk brothers Emil and Viktor (both Sweden) finished 4th and 5th, with Finland’s Miika Kirmula in 6th.
Analysis Women: Tight finish after mistakes towards the end
See below for a graphical representation of the battle for the victory between Aebersold (red) and Alexandersson (green). Here the runners lose time to the best split time when the curve goes downwards, and have the fastest split time when it is flat.
As you can see, Aebersold has a very strong start, running best split times on nearly all legs until the 5th control – but then she gets a big mistake on the first TV-control, the 6th control (all legs with routes of top runners are shown at the bottom of the article, only selected legs are shown here).
Alexandersson on the other hand has a worse start, doing small mistakes and not choosing the fastest route choice on the leg to the second control – see the 6th leg below.
Aebersold continues to struggle and lose some time to control 8 and 9.
But on the next long leg to control 12 Aebersold runs the best route choice to the left, while Alexandersson runs straight and loses nearly a minute.
Both lose time to control 14 – but Alexandersson more.
Then Alexandersson wins 4 legs while Aebersold makes small mistakes – at this point in the course Alexandersson has a lead of 1:43 with only a few controls left to run, and everything points towards a second gold medal for the Swede.
However, at the 19th leg they both struggle, but Alexandersson more with a 2 minute mistake while Aebersold only loses half a minute due to uncertainty into the control.
With another mistake at control 20, this seals the day for Alexandersson – now the Swede is 19 seconds behind, and even with a strong finish it is not enough to beat Aebersold (the red route to the right below is Alexandersson’s route)
For a look at the battle for the bronze medal, see the graphical split time representation below. You can clearly see that the other runners have not got the speed of the two first women on most of the course – but Benjaminsen has a very strong period from control 12 to control 19 where she matches the speed of the top women and runs two fastest legs and several legs where she is very close to the fastest split time (and not due to running with Aebersold or Alexandersson – luckily the top contenters spent most of the race on their own this time). Even with a mistake at the first control and some losses towards the end, this is enough to secure her the bronze medal.
Analysis Men: One man above all others
See below for a graphical representation of the battle for the medals in the men’s class. Here again the runners lose time to the best split time when the curve goes downwards, and have the fastest split time when it is flat.
As you can see, Fosser has a very strong period until the 12 control where he steadily builds up the lead to his competitors to 1:42. Then he loses 42 seconds to Matthias Kyburz on the leg to control 13 on a slower route choice (straight instead of around on the path). From here on Fosser does very few mistakes, and builds out his lead to 2:57 in the end, running best split time or very close to the best split time all the way. In the battle for the other medals, the long leg to control 11 proved very decisive: Here Emil Svensk ran the slower route to the right and lost the silver medal. Kyburz’s did several small mistakes, including to the 5th control and the routes to the 16th and 18th control, but it was still enough to secure the bronze medal.
GPS-tracking
WOC Long distance Women (11.05)

» See map in omaps.worldofo.com
WOC Long distance Men (12.38)

» See map in omaps.worldofo.com
Routechoices for all legs: Women
Routechoices for all legs: Men
Maps
Results
Women
1 | Simona Aebersold | 1:34:51 | 7:07 | ||
2 | Tove Alexandersson | 1:35:00 | +0:09 | 7:08 | |
3 | Andrine Benjaminsen | 1:37:16 | +2:25 | 7:18 | |
4 | Natalia Gemperle | 1:38:22 | +3:31 | 7:23 | |
5 | Sanna Fast | 1:39:11 | +4:20 | 7:27 | |
6 | Venla Harju | 1:41:27 | +6:36 | 7:37 | |
7 | Sara Hagstrom | 1:44:21 | +9:30 | 7:50 | |
8 | Ida Haapala | 1:45:21 | +10:30 | 7:55 | |
9 | Hanna Lundberg | 1:46:24 | +11:33 | 8:00 | |
10 | Marie Olaussen | 1:48:17 | +13:26 | 8:08 | |
11 | Aleksandra Hornik | 1:49:19 | +14:28 | 8:13 | |
12 | Kamilla Steiwer | 1:49:35 | +14:44 | 8:14 | |
13 | Malin Agervig Kristiansson | 1:49:59 | +15:08 | 8:16 | |
14 | Grace Molloy | 1:50:12 | +15:21 | 8:17 | |
15 | Evely Kaasiku | 1:50:40 | +15:49 | 8:19 | |
16 | Tereza Rauturier | 1:51:56 | +17:05 | 8:24 | |
17 | Sanna Hotz | 1:52:57 | +18:06 | 8:29 | |
18 | Denisa Kralova | 1:54:18 | +19:27 | 8:35 | |
19 | Eef van Dongen | 1:55:19 | +20:28 | 8:40 | |
20 | Viktoria Mag | 1:57:25 | +22:34 | 8:49 |
Men
1 | Kasper Harlem Fosser | 1:37:50 | 6:06 | ||
2 | Martin Regborn | 1:40:47 | +2:57 | 6:17 | |
3 | Matthias Kyburz | 1:41:30 | +3:40 | 6:20 | |
4 | Emil Svensk | 1:41:41 | +3:51 | 6:21 | |
5 | Viktor Svensk | 1:43:10 | +5:20 | 6:26 | |
6 | Miika Kirmula | 1:43:33 | +5:43 | 6:28 | |
7 | Martin Hubmann | 1:44:44 | +6:54 | 6:32 | |
8 | Lukas Liland | 1:44:51 | +7:01 | 6:33 | |
9 | Akseli Ruohola | 1:46:00 | +8:10 | 6:37 | |
10 | Jannis Bonek | 1:49:48 | +11:58 | 6:51 | |
11 | Jonas Egger | 1:50:42 | +12:52 | 6:55 | |
12 | Quentin Moulet | 1:50:45 | +12:55 | 6:55 | |
13 | Jurgen Joonas | 1:51:01 | +13:11 | 6:56 | |
14 | Isak Jonsson | 1:51:32 | +13:42 | 6:58 | |
15 | Linus Agervig Kristiansson | 1:53:43 | +15:53 | 7:06 | |
16 | Vegard Jarvis Westergard | 1:56:43 | +18:53 | 7:17 | |
17 | Timo Sild | 1:57:06 | +19:16 | 7:19 | |
18 | Boyan Ivandjikov | 1:58:00 | +20:10 | 7:22 | |
19 | Mathias Blaise | 1:59:12 | +21:22 | 7:27 | |
20 | Eetu Savolainen | 1:59:37 | +21:47 | 7:28 |
Thank You Jan!
Another wonderful WOC analysis article (how can you make them so quickly?), this time showing clearly that this year the gold medals were determined by who made the least mistakes, both on the controls and on the amazing long legs. Even with a theoretical perfectly executed race, you would still need to be in the top 6 or so women in running speed, while even fewer men could have challenged Kasper.
I hereby suggest these courses for Course of the Year! :-)
is it really possible that the IOF rules allow now to seperate the top runners on the start list? after ages of flock running in the most long distance runs?
wow! but what is the new alorythm…?
Great analysis, Jan, and I agree with Terje, not only a worthy Course of the Year nominee, but also a very good planned course for TV broadcast, with excitement all the way. To compare, the middle was a bit disappointing in that matter as the first TV Control came after the trickiest section of the course. But this one was really great!
Arild/commentator NRK