Nopesport

Yesterday saw Stage one of this year’s Oringen, whilst many Brits came prepared for glorious sunshine, the rain continued to fall heavily for the first part of the day at least. As people say in Sweden for good luck; ‘We are all pulling our thumbs’ for better weather. However the orienteering must go on and the day saw some impressive results in the tough marshy and hilly terrain from the British contingent.

In the Super-elite, it was stage 2 there was change at the top for the men’s, the prologue victor, Tobias Andersson fell to 13th overall, While the impressive form of Valentin Novikov shone through again with an astounding 4 minute victory, which puts him into an overall lead of 5:30 over second and third places Mats Haldin and Eric Axelsson. A disappointment for the British hopes today as Jamie Stevenson was disqualified, as yet it is unclear why.
Other developments on the Men’s super-elite after Stage 1, a couple of the elites fell into the trap of a combination of noisy crowds and ‘slow units’ at the special online controls which meant that it did not register on the SI card. Australia’s Troy De Haas and Sweden’s Jan Troeng both suffered the consequences despite protests.

It was Business as usual in the Women’s Super-elite. The domination of the Ulricehamns runners continued with Jenny Johansson and Simone Niggli-Luder occupying the first two spots respectively, only 14 seconds separating the two. The pair seem to be running away from the field with almost 4 minutes back to Karolina A Höaard. The overall position is much the same with the top 3 today, occupying the top 3 overall. Jenny now has the tidy sum of 20000kr for two stage victories, of course she can only collect this if she completes all stages such are the rules this year. British interest in the form of Helen Winskill and Jo Stevenson produces to solid results with Helen in 23rd and Jo in 35th.

In the other elite classes, there were also some very good results,
Mhairi Mackenzie 8th,D20E
Alison O’Neil 11th, D20E
Cerys Manning 11th, D18E
Helen Gardner 15th,D18E

Ewan McCarthy 14th,H21E
4 top 50 finishes in H20E
2 top 50 finishes in H18E

The JWOC girls’ good form is certainly continuing and us here a Nopesport wish the girls luck for the rest of the week.

The rest of the Brits must have been at home in the rain, as there were some impressive results. In the men’s there were 4 top 20 finishes and in the girls there was 6 top 20 finishes.

Peter Hodkinson, on H13 ran extremely well in the tough terrain to finish 8th.
Mark Saunders, in the hotly contested H45 class finished just 3 seconds outside of the top 10 in 11th spot. Perhaps we will be cheering him on the podium tomorrow?
Dave Godfree, (in the quest for holiday glory?) Finished a very good second just pipped by 30s. We shall be cheering him on the podium tonight!
Charles Bromley-Gardner was 12th on H40K

Liz Campbell, on D50 was 10th
Joy Hodkinson, continuing the family’s good form ending up 11th on D10.
GBR did well on the D15 class today with two
Top 20 finishes, Holly Orr in 13th and Victoria Stevens in 19th.
Kath Ivens finished a solid 17th on D21 Short.
Marsella Macleod finished strongly in a tough field slotting into 19th place on D40.

On the downside there were quite a few disqualifications for the Brits today. But best of luck for the rest of the week!

We wish everyone at the 5 days good luck for the rest of the week