WTOC 2015: Antti Rusanen is the new World Champion in TempO

Antti Rusanen is the new World Champion in TempO. In a tight competition, he was the fastest and most consistent in the decisive journey of Blato, Zagreb, finally reaching the highest place on the world podium. Luís Gonçalves and Inês Domingues were absolutely brilliant, reaching the 6th and 7th positions respectively.

It was a day of celebration, that lived in the Golf & Country Club Zagreb in Blato, in the southwest of the capital of Croatia. On one hand, Antti Rusanen celebrated his first world title, after silver medals in Kiev, Ukraine (2007) and Savoie, France (2011) and the bronze medal in Vuokatti, Finland (2013), all in PreO. On the other, Portugal placed two athletes in top7 raising on a higher level in this particular discipline of Orienteering.

The grand finale of Blato was preceded of a Qualifying hold out the day before in the city of Karlovac and in which 83 athletes took part. In addition to the disqualification of Czech Libor Forst, Jiří Kalousek and Pavel Kurfürst, for violation of competition rules, this course was marked by the avoidance of one of the eight stations, precisely the latest, corresponding to the point of spectators. This decision - correct! - of the organization did some scramble in the 36 qualified for the final with the Czech Tomáš Leštínský to achieve a score of 188 seconds to be the fastest, ahead of Norwegian Sondre Ruud Bråten and Finnish Antti Rusanen. The Norwegian Martin Jullum, World Champion in title, stayed in the 14th position. Portugal lined up in this competition with four athletes, with Edgar Domingues (8th), Inês Domingues (20th) and Luís Gonçalves (25th) secured smoothly into the final. Better than the Portuguese, only the Norwegian and Finnish, with four athletes each in the decisive course.

The final turned out some surprising results, first with Martin Jullum to stay out of the podium and having to settle for 12th place. Also the Swedish Marit Wiksell, the girl prodigy of the world's Trail Orienteering, wasn't far than the 21st place. Much better were the Norwegian Sondre Ruud Bråten and Lars Jakob Waaler, respectively ranked third and fourth and the Portuguese Luís Gonçalves and Inês Domingues, 6th and 7th classifieds. Between the two “pairs” positioned himself the Finn Lauri Mäkinen, as Sondre Ruud Bråten a very young athlete with an extraordinary future ahead. Another big surprise have been the silver medal achieved by the Slovak Ján Furucz while Antti Rusanen guaranteed the gold for comfortable margin of more than 30 seconds. Of the 35 controls of his course, the Finnish answered wrongly to a single question just presenting an extraordinary execution speed of around 6 seconds per challenge. Reference also to the 32nd place of Edgar Domingues, perhaps accusing the pressure of the extraordinary results achieved in Qualifying, and to the 23rd place of the Spanish Antonio Hernandez, showing that the Iberian Trail Orienteering is really in the good way.

Final results

1. Antti Rusanen (Finland) 242.5 seconds

2. Ján Furucz (Slovakia) 279.5 seconds

3. Sondre Ruud Bråten (Norway) 286 seconds

4. Lars Jakob Waaler (Norway) 303 seconds

5. Lauri Mäkinen (Finland) 325.5 seconds

6. Luís Gonçalves (Portugal) 336 seconds

7. Inês Domingues (Portugal) 339 seconds

8. Alessio Tenani (Italy) 364 seconds

9. Tomáš Leštínský (Czech Republic) 379 seconds

10. Martin Fredholm (Sweden) 380 seconds

Complete results and further information at www.wtoc2015.org.

Joaquim Margarido