Nopesport

It's been a very exciting relay day over in Estonia, with the top 4 women's teams fighting it out over the last few controls and 11 men's teams battling for the medals on the last few hundred metres!

It was a quite mixed first leg in the Women's, but no disasters for the top teams. After second leg a more natural order has returned with FIN, SWE, SUI and NOR all within 2 minutes. These teams all had awesome last leg runners and at the penultimate control they were announced all within 10 seconds, with Minna Kauppi a few meters in the lead. It came to a 4-way sprint off, but there were only really 2 runners in it, Minna Kauppi and Simone Niggli. It was a very climatic finish and Minna Kauppi kept her lead by just meters and won the Gold medal for Finland.

1. 118:10 Finland (Haapakoski, Jukkola, Kauppi)
2. 118:11 Switzerland (Müller, König-Salmi, Niggli)
3. 118:18 Sweden (Engstrand, Nilsson, Höjsgaard)
4. 118:24 Norway (M. Riddervold, B. Riddervold, Andersen)
5. 121:12 Russia (Novikova, Korzhova, Mikhalko)
6. 122:30 Sweden 2 (Jansson, Bäckström, Eliasson)

13. 131:37 Great Britain (Bridle, Whitehead, Rollins)
21. 155:19 Great Britain 2 (Ward, Elder, Whitehouse)

The Men's relay saw the formation of some big packs containing all the top teams on the first leg. On second leg there were some mistakes on the last loop, and the top 12 teams were through within 2 minutes. On last leg David Andersson held off Thierry Gueorgiou on the same gaffel for most of the course as they were chased down by a huge pack. At the last radio control, only a few hundred meters from the finish, the pack had caught them - there were now 11 teams fighting for 3 medals, but they all wanted 1 thing, the gold! As they came to the last control Andersson still had the lead for Sweden just ahead of Gueorgiou for France and then a long line of legends. Andersson gave it everything he had and held off the Frenchman to take the gold. France got silver, and Øystein Kvaal Østerbø had the fastest time on last leg to get bronze for Norway 2. This must have been one of the closest international relays ever.

1. 139:59 Sweden (Jonasson, Öberg, Andersson)
2. 140:02 France (Gonon, Renard, Gueorgiou)
3. 140:05 Norway 2 (Skjeset, Waaler Kaas, Kvaal Østerbø)
4. 140:06 Czech Republic (Lucan, Smola, Losman)
5. 140:07 Sweden 2 (Pilblad, Löwegren, Troeng)
6. 140:09 Switzerland (Müller, Hertner, Hubman)
7. 140:10 Norway (Nordberg, Kristiansen, Hott Johansen)
8. 140:20 Russia (L. Novikov, V. Novikov, Khramov)
9. 140:30 Finland (Lakanen, Huovila, Föhr)
10. 140:37 Finland 2 (Muukkonen, Harju, Ikonen)

15. 1:46:42 Great Britain (Duncan, Crance, Stevenson)
26. 1:48:31 Great Britain 2 (Gristwood, Baker, Johnson)

I hope you have enjoyed the 2006 European Championships, see you in Denmark for the World Championships 2006, form 29th July - 5th August.