Nopesport

The European Relay Championships, which is the traditional end to any championship week, had fast head to head team racing. It was 3 in a team, running long, medium, long. First into the forest; the men. First out of the forest, unpredictably was Ingo Horst of Germany, closely followed by Bulgarian legend, Kiril Nikolov. They lead a large pack of 15 runners which included Jarkko Huovilla, Bjørnar Valstad, European classic Champion Kalle Dalin and Nick Barrable for GBR Team 2. Jon Duncan came back just over 1:30 minutes down on the leaders. With all top the top teams together the race was anything but over. Andrej Khramov (sprint silver medallist) ran the fastest time on middle leg to bring Russia back in 1st, closely chased by Sweden. In the next minute Sweden 2, Denmark 1, Finland 1 & 2, and Norway 1 handed over to their 3rd legs. In the end it was Mats Haldin to take victory, running the fastest time of the day and bringing gold back to Finland. The legend that is Carsten Jørgensen took silver medal for the home nation, just 10 seconds behind. 10 seconds after that Emil Wingstedt finished off Swedens team in Bronze position.

1 FIN 1 2:06:32
Jarkko Huovilla
Pasi Ikonen
Mats Haldin
2 DEN 1 2:06:42
3 SWE 1 2:06:53

4 NOR 1 *5th team
5 RUS 1 *7th team
6 FRA 1 *9th team

14 GBR 1
Jon Duncan
Dan Marston
Jamie Stevenson
GBR 2 DSQ

In the women’s race things were not so close. Heli Jukkola took the first leg for Finland 1, with a pack of just over 10 runners, which included both Swedish and Norwegian teams, but not Switzerland 1 who were over 2 minutes down. Both of Britain’s teams were well off the pace. Jenny Johansson ran one of the fastest times on middle leg to bring back Sweden1 in first place, 10 seconds behind was Norway 1, and in 3rd place was Sweden’s 2nd team! Finland, Poland and Lithuania were also in contact with the front runners, the top 6 teams all within 30 seconds. The race was now on between Norway and both Swedish teams, knowing that the second team wouldn’t be awarded any medals. Gunilla Svärd of Sweden 1 came back to take the gold medal, finishing just 11 seconds of Hanne Staff for Norway. Emma Engstrand ran a slightly slower time, but still managed to finish in 3rd place but no bronze medals for them. It was Russia who took the bronze, finishing a minute down on Sweden 2.

1 SWE 1 1:54:18
Karolina A. Höjsgaard
Janny Johansson
Gunilla Svärd
2 NOR 1 1:54:29
3 RUS 1 1:58:36 *4th team

4 FIN 1
5 POL 1
6 SUI 1

24 GBR 1
GBR 2 DNF

For full results visit the EOC website HERE