POM 2015: Victory for Halden SK in the SPORTident Sprint Relay

The Portugal O 'Meeting 2015 has started. On day 0, the attentions were focused in the Municipality of Mira, for a well disputed SPORTident Sprint Relay. Kine Hallan Steiwer, Antonio Martínez Pérez, Espen Fiskum and Mari Fasting, took the victory to the Norwegian team of Halden SK O-POR.

Mira received today the SPORTident Sprint Relay in the start of Portugal O' Meeting 2015. Recently adopted by the International Orienteering Federation – at the World Championships level, it was introduced only in 2014 - the Sprint Mixed Relay format was held today for the first time ever in Portugal, showing also at Mira why it is so “media friendly”. Another innovation had to do with the SPORTident system used, the “touch free” SPORTident AIR +, an absolute premiere in Foot orienteering events in our country. Only the rain decided not to cooperate with the organization, ended up being one of the journey protagonists by the worst reasons.

The course took place inside the perimeter of Mira Villas urbanization, having the participation of 56 teams in the Competition Class and 37 in the Open Class, for a total of 368 participants. At the same time, there was an Open Sprint attracting 180 participants in six classes. In the major event, the victory smiled to the Norwegian team of Halden SK O-POR, with Kine Hallan Steiwer, Antonio Martínez Pérez, Espen Fiskum and Mari Fasting, with a time of 1:05:25 and a lead of seven seconds over Russia, with Yulia Novikova, Georgiy Mavchun and Galina Vinogradova, enhanced by the Portuguese João Figueiredo Mega. Before the last leg, however, the leadership belonged to Järla Orientering, which saw Karolin Ohlsson doing a 'mp', thus staying out of the fight for the victory. With a very young team, Scotland 2 was at the highest level, but Jessica Tullie failed in the final leg, losing the advantage got by his colleagues Ruth Holmes, Alasdair McLeod and Hector Haines, and staying in the third position, with more 37 seconds than the winners.

In the Open Class, the victory smiled to the POM-BÄR 0 (Samuel Keller, Niklaus Rey, Ismael Röthlisberger and Philipp von Arx). In the individual event of Sprint, Mia Bekhus (Fredrikstad SK - OPO) and Aleksander Ivanov Ivail (Begun Varna - OPPO) were the winners in the Youth classes W/M, Bente Madsen (Johnsen Airways) and Ivailo Ivanov Venelinov (Begun Varna - OPPO) triumphed in Masters W/M and Inga Kazlauskaite (OK Linné) and Frédéric Tranchand (PR) were the winners in Senior Women and Men, respectively.

Results

SPORTident Sprint Relay

1. Halden SK O-POR 1 (K. H. Steiwer, A. M. Pérez, E. Fiskum, M. Fasting) 1:05:25

2. Russia 0 (Y. Novikova, G. Mavchun, J. M. Figueiredo, G. Vinogradova) 1:05:32

3. Scotland 2 (R. Holmes, A. McLeod, H. Haines, J. Tullie) 1:06:02

4. Halden SK O-POR 2 (I. M. Næss Bjørgul, F. Eliasson, F. Portin, H. H. Nordbrøden) 1:06:58

5. Austria Team 3 (A. Goetsch, M. Groll, M. Peter, T. E. Gvildyte) 1:07:35

6. Swiss Orienteering 2 (M. Seiterle, K. Hägler, B. Rollier, F. Doerig) 1:08:15

Learn more at www.pom.pt/en/

[Photo: Susana Reis / facebook.com/portugal.o.meeting]

Joaquim Margarido