Ending the Portugal O’ Meeting
2013′s 3rd day, the Sprint race at Monsanto was an unforgettable
event. Sure of a very special moment, many were those who were keen
to be present in ‘the most Portuguese village in Portugal’. In
the end, Simone Niggli and Thierry Gueorgiou carried, once again, the
laurels of victory!
To visit Monsanto is to plunge into a
sea of serenity. Sighted at distance, the village merges into the
granite as something mystical, magical. On every street, in every
home, we can see deep marks of a time stopped in time. Each stone is
a piece of life and every body, every face, displays a telluric
energy that invades us, making us feeling more alive.
It was a tribute to this land, Monsanto
– the ‘ship of stone’ that Fernando Namora described so well in
his ‘Fragments of a Doctor’s Life’ – that the Organization of
Portugal O’ Meeting reserved for the second half of the 3rd day.
After an exhausting WRE Middle Distance course, the whole
orienteering ‘tribe’ moved to Monsanto, to encounter this
‘monument to creation’ and a map that, in the end, would deserve
from Thierry Gueorgiou this comment: “I do not keep a lot of maps
in my archives any more, but I have to find a room for today´s POM
sprint map…” And a very special room, we must say!
Clash of Giants
Made of alleys and stairways, and
narrow passages between houses or on the rocks – but always, always
rising up to the towering castle – the planned courses put
unimaginable challenges to the 970 participants, in what was, to all
of them, a unique orienteering experience. And a life lesson, too.
Thierry Gueorgiou (Kalevan Rasti) and
Matthias Kyburz (Swiss Team), respectively 3rd and 1st in the IOF
World Ranking, fought for the triumph in a clash of giants. They were
the only ones to achieve under 19 minutes to cover the 2.1 km of the
race, but the victory eventually came to Gueorgiou by a difference of
37 seconds (18:17 to 18:54), after using all his enormous courage and
skill. In the next three places, more than a minute after the winner,
were classified Severin Howald (Swiss Team), Gernot Kerschbaumer (Pan
Kristianstad) and Antonio Martinez (Colivenc).
Simone Niggli, again!
In the Women Elite class, the best
orienteer of all time showed herself in Monsanto at a high level.
Just two hours after winning the ‘queen race’ of the Portugal O’
Meeting 2013, Simone Niggli (Swiss Team) came here to fulfil her
route of 1.6 km in 15:51, leaving behind, by 1:06, her compatriot
Julia Gross. Anastasia Tikhonova (MS Parma), Ausrine Kutkaite (SNO)
and Elena Roos (Swiss Team) occupied in this order the next
positions.
But this was only the ‘second act’
of the POM Sprint Cup, a set of two events that started in the night
of the first day at the urban centre of Idanha-a-Nova. So, while
Thierry Gueorgiou enjoyed a decompression training, Matthias Kyburz
tried hard, achieving victory both in the stage and in the overall
POM Sprint Cup. In the Women’s Elite class, Anastasia Tikhonova was
the big winner, as well as taking the overall victory.
Joaquim Margarido
[Sponsorized by Orievents, SERI and
Municipality of Idanha-a-Nova]
No comments:
Post a Comment