Nopesport

The final straight day of competing in O Ringen 2005 was held at Ljuset vid Vättern, an area of somewhat spilt personalities across the road from the previous day´s Swiss style terrain. The majority of the area was rather flat undulating woodland, covered in typical Swedish style vegetation of short bilberries, which made for very fast running. In the South East corner of the map visited by the longer courses, was the "Magnetic Mountain," a large outcrop of iron ore with incredibly steep sides which caused compasses to spin uselessly, making them obsolete for the three or four controls up there. This led to some really tricky legs diagonally ascending and descending slopes, which led to huge mistakes for a few of the Brits. In general however, minutes per kilometre were down and there was some very close racing.

Once again our growing star Joy Hodkinson led the way in D10, giving her a three and a half minute lead in the chasing start tomorrow. We reckon she´s undefeatable and will be coming home with an interesting array of prizes. Rebecca Roberts of South Ribble was back on form today and just sneaked inside the top ten. Becky Carlyle messed up early on in the course, with compass errors costing five minutes, but still managed to come in at her lucky fourteenth position. Both Beckys are in tenth position going into the chasing start tomorrow, and will be hoping to make some inroads into the top ten.

After a fantastic week Rhys Findlay Robinson will go out in 4th position tomorrow on H20L, after fifteenth position today. Six minutes lies between Rhys and second place, with Pelle "Should be on the elite course" Åkerberg leading by a massive fourty three minutes. Another solid run from Ivor Noot in H65 means he goes into the chasing start in ninth position, while Peter Hodkinson, also fifteenth today chases from twenty ninth.

It was a great day for our Senior Elites today, as Claire Ward and Matt Speake both made huge inroads into the top ten. Speakey was only two and a half minutes down in fifth position, with Claire thirty seconds down in second place. This means both of them will chase from just outside the top twenty, with a top twenty position within 3 minutes. Once again Doug Tullie led the Brits in H18E with a respectable thirty seventh, he chases from mid table tomorrow. In D18E Ruth Holmes finally had an error free run and pulled herself out of the nineties where she will chase from eighty sixth.

Follow it all live at Oringen Online and check out the maps & courses available at RunOway