Nopesport

It was a disappointing day for Team GBR today as they wilted in the heat, but there were impressive victories for Australia and Norway.

The star for Great Britain today was the early starter Anne Edwards who ran together with her Swedish 2-minute girl for most of the course, to secure 36th place: "not bad for a 16-year old" coach Jason Inman said.

As the day wore on temperatures continued to rise, sapping the energy from later starters who also had to deal with some tough forest. James Tullie described the area: "Basically there was this big area of beautiful white forest in the middle of the map and we had one leg in it, we ran straight through it. The rest of it was green and really bushy."

Scott Fraser was a lot of peoples hope for the day after a string of good JWOC performances, including 12th in the long race last year. However it was not to be, as he has been suffering from stomach problems and is complaining of a total lack of energy. He will probably now skip the middle race in the hope of recovering for the relay where he "wants to achieve something special". Some might question this tactic but he says he is just "Thinking outside the box".

Duncan Coombs dropped out early, sufferring from a problem with his ITB. He hopes to be fit for the relay.

Hanny Allston took her first JWOC gold with a run reminiscient of Olav Lundanes' epic victory in Switzerland last year, indeed the winning margin was identical, as she finished 4:37 ahead of her nearest rival, Betty-Ann Bjerkriem Nilsen of Norway. Two years ago Betty-Ann's big brother Audun won the middle distance race in Poland - and my Norwegian sources tell me that their younger sister Inger-Liv is the most talented of the family. Watch out world!

In the mens race Olav Lundanes graciously handed his title over to his clubmate Anders Skarholt. Olav came through the specator control with a 3 minute lead and extended that over the final third of the course. However even while he sat on the top of the podium he was tipping Anders to beat him. And that he did, by three minutes, with the Estonian bronze medallist a further 3minutes back.

Women
1 Allston Hanny AUSTRALIA 53.43
2 Nilsen Betty Ann Bjerkreim NORWAY 58.21
3 A Skantze Elin SWEDEN 59.59
4 Svensson Eva SWEDEN 61.40
5 Kozlova Tatyana RUSSIA 63.13
6 Weltzien Ingunn Hutgren NORWAY 63.24
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36 Edwards Anne GREAT BRITAIN 72.35
68 Adams Lizzie GREAT BRITAIN 84.56
79 Roberts Rebecca GREAT BRITAIN 88.20
88 Holmes Ruth GREAT BRITAIN 93.03
97 Hodkinson Rose GREAT BRITAIN 100.01
100 Hill Tessa GREAT BRITAIN 104.42

Men
1 Skarholt Anders NORWAY 70:27
2 Lundanes Olav NORWAY 73:07
3 Puusepp Markus ESTONIA 76:43
4 Kristensson Mikael SWEDEN 77:29
5 Krajcik Michal SLOVAKIA 77:52
6 Bobach Christian DENMARK 77:55
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41 Fraser Scott GREAT BRITAIN 88:09
52 Chepelin Oleg GREAT BRITAIN 92:22
67 Tullie Douglas GREAT BRITAIN 96:43
72 Tullie James GREAT BRITAIN 98:07
80 Simonin Nicolas IRELAND 101:16
90 Mercer Joe GREAT BRITAIN 105:12
101 O Boyle Seamus IRELAND 110:19
Coombs Duncan GREAT BRITAIN disq

With thanks to SIman for the results.

-rocky, live from JWOC HQ.