6th CISM Military World Games: Switzerland and Russia take the gold in Relay

With the victories of Switzerland and Russia in the Relay, came to an end the Orienteering program included in the 6th CISM Military World Games. Overall, Russia showed all his power, winning six of eight gold medals.

After a well earned break, Orienteering has returned to 6th CISM Military World Games for the last stage. Similarly to what happened in the individual races of Middle and Long Distance, the uneven area around Dongyang University, at Mungyeong (South Korea), hosted the Relay, putting on trial 37 male teams and 16 female. Starting by the women's competition, after the higher performances of Tatiana Ryabkina and Yulia Novikova in the individual races, nobody expected anything other than a Russian victory. Called to join the team, Svetlana Mironova proved to be a weight reinforcement and, in the end, the demonstration of Russian's superiority translated into a new victory with the time of 1:46:46, and a lead of seven minutes on Latvia, second placed and 8:36 over Lithuania, ranked third.

In a more detailed analysis to the course, it is worth noting that Russia took the lead from the start, with Tatiana Ryabkina finishing the first leg with a comfortable advantage over Lithuania and Norway, at the time her most direct opponents. Latvia had a disastrous first leg, with Elina Karklina losing more than fourteen minutes (!) for the leadership and to leave her team in the 7th place; but Aija Skratina first and, in the final leg, Laura Vike, were perfect to ensure the best split times, crowning with the silver medal an absolutely sensational recuperation. After the achievement in the previous edition of the Games (Rio de Janeiro, 2011), where they reached the bronze medal, the Brazilians were this time many holes below than what would be expected. Franciely de Siqueira Chiles, the current Brazilian Champion, got badly on the map and the penultimate place in the end of the first route lay down any hope for a good result. Tania Maria Jesus de Carvalho still would regain a position, but the performance of Leticia da Silva Saltori eventually fixed Brazil in the 15th final position, at 1:24:23 from the lead.

Matthias Kyburz, the “golden boy”

In the men's course, the fight between Switzerland and Russia was running high, with only ten seconds separating, in the end, the two teams. Austria started best, thanks to Gernot Kerschbaumer's great performance, but it was Russia who took the lead at the entrance for the decisive leg, with Dmitriy Tsvetkov having an advantage of 24 seconds over the Austrians, while Switzerland and Estonia ran already something apart, with a disadvantage of 2:31 and 2:44, respectively, for the lead. The truth is that Matthias Kyburz was absolutely unstoppable in this final leg, blanking the time that separated him from Tsvetkov and reaching the victory with the final time of 2:02:33. Russia finished, as stated above, ten seconds later, leaving the third place to Estonia, with a time of 2:03:51, thanks mainly to the performances of the brothers Lauri Sild and Timo Sild. With Leandro Pereira Pasturiza, Ironir Ev and Sidnaldo Alberto Farias Sousa in the team, Brazil finished in the 12th place with a time of 2:33:37, being the first non-European team overall.

In the final accounts of these 6th CISM Military World Games, we can see that only five countries have reached medals, with Russia taking six gold medals, four silver and one bronze. With two gold medals, one silver and one bronze, Switzerland ranked second in the medalist of the Games, while the third place fell to Latvia with two silver medals and two bronze. France, with a silver medal and Estonia with two bronze medals, occupied by this order the fourth and fifth positions.

Complete results and further information at http://cism-orienteering.com/.

[Photo: CISM Orienteering / www.cism-orienteering.com]

Joaquim Margarido