Nopesport

Over the past week several athletes from UK have travelled to sunny Portugal for some warm weather training and also test how their winter training has gone in the Portugal O Meet and Norte Alentejano “O” Meeting.

Portugal O Meet:

First up was the 4 Day Portugal O Meet based just east of Porto. Several national teams travelled including the GB Junior squad and several from the GB senior squad. In a strong M21 elite field, which was won by Theirry Geourgiou, Oli Johnson showed some early season form with 3rd place. In the W20 class GB had two in the top 3 with Victora Steven winning overall and Chloe Haines in 3rd. There were also good individual runs from Rob Baker (18th - day 1), Hector Haines (25th - day 2), Duncan Coombs (28th - day 2) and Douglas Tullie (27th - day 3) all running M21E.

The GB junior women also ran well with the best junior result coming from Cathrine Taylor finishing 7th on Day 1. She followed that up with a 16th on day 3 but was surpassed by Jess Halliday who finished 13th. All results showing good form for the juniors early in the season.

Norte Alentejano “O” Meeting

The following weekend was the Norte Alentejano “O” Meeting, a 3 day event with a classic, night and a middle race. World ranking points were up for grabs in the classic race and gb grabbed their fair share. The Johnson family again ran well with Oli taking bronze just over a minute down on Swede Anders Norberg. Jenny just missed out on a medal by 18sec to Fin Sanna Heinonen. Laura Daniel, back in the orienteering fold, was just behind Jenny in 5th place and the British women dominated the top 10 with Lizzie Adams and Aislinn Austin in 8th and 9th respectively.

The good British results continued in the night race with Aislinn Austin turning the order upside down from the classic by taking the win. 4th, 5th, 6th & 7th were all British with Laura Daniel leading the way and continuing her good weekend. Neil Northrop was the top result in the mens race taking 3rd, closely followed by Mike Sprot. Oli Johnson took 7th in the race which was won by Norways Øystein Kvaal Osterbø.

Øystein Kvaal Osterbø carried on where he left off in the night race to win the middle. The margin was only 12sec as he battled it out with his countryman Lars Skjeset but it was enough. Oli Johnson rounded off a good week for him with a 9th place just 2mins off the lead.

Aislinn Austin couldn't quite match Osterbø's performance but still ran very well to take 2nd in the womens middle ahead of Norways Marianne Riddervold. Jenny Johnson was slightly further back in 5th place with Laura Daniel completing a good weekend with 8th.

Portgal O Meet results

Norte Alentejano “O” Meeting results

WRE results