Nopesport

This weekend saw OK Hällen’s Stigtomta Relay take place near Nyköpings, very close to next weekends Tio Mila.

The men’s relay has a slightly unusual format. The relay started at 21:00 Friday night, were the first three night legs are run. 9.5km, 9.5km then 7.8km. The relay then stops for the night and restarts with the overnight leaders going off at 09:30 Saturday morning and the rest of the teams setting off however far down they were over the first 3 legs, kind of like a chasing start. The final 3 day legs were 8.6km, 10.2km and 10.2km.
Leksands OK were the winners, Kalle Dalin gave them a 5 minute lead on the 4th leg and they held this to the end. Södertälje-Nykvarn took silver medal with Erik Axelsson running the fastest time on last leg, however it wasn’t enough. In 3rd place was Linköpings OK.
Matt Speake had a strong first leg run coming back in 7th place for OK Tisaren, he would have been 4th however power house Speake got stacked on the run in. Matthew had this to say about the incident “**** ********* **** ****** **** ******* ****”.
Other Brits in the men’s relay: Stephen Palmer on 5th leg for Malungs OK, who were 13th. Andrew Etherdon and Nick Barrable, 5th and 6th legs respectively for OK Ravinen 2, 17th place. Mark Nixon, 6th leg for Stora Tuna IK 2, 31st place. Dave Rollins, 4th leg for OK Tyr 2, 44th.

The women’s relay was run all in day over 3 legs. IK Hakarpspojkarna were the winners, Lena Eliasson was able to run away from Södertälje-Nykvarn’s Ingunn Fristad on last leg. Jo Stevenson who was been having some fantastic runs in Scandinavian Relays recently continued her form to come back 2nd on 1st leg for SNO. Leksands OK took third place.
Kim Buckley ran 1st leg for OK Ravinen, 16th place. Sarah Rollins ran last leg for OK Tyr pulling the team up 14 places. Helen Palmer was on 1st leg for OK Ravinen 2, 34th.