Ski Orienteering World Cup Sprint Relay: Gold for Sweden

After Ulrik Nordberg's historical victory yesterday, Sweden showed up being on top rating, winning today's Ski Orienteering World Cup Sprint Relay. Ulrik Nordberg and Tove Alexandersson took a convincing victory by large 65 seconds over Finland.

As we could follow yesterday, the Swedish Ulrik Nordberg was an outstanding winner of the Sprint race, the first stage of Ski Orienteering World Cup's opening round, in Ylläs, Finland. Today, he could taste the gold again, this time together with Tove Alexandersson, crowning an exciting Sprint Relay. Sweden started better, but not by Ulrik Nordberg, the fourth after the first leg, nine seconds after his compatriot Erik Rost. The Finnish Sally Koskela was the fastest in the second leg and took the lead with a little advantage over Mira Koskinen, while the Swedish Tove Alexandersson kept the fourth position, fifteen seconds to the lead. The Swedish started to designed the victory during the third leg, with Ulrik Nordberg shortening the distance to the Finnish Ville-Petteri Saarela and fixing it in a single second. And when Tove Alexandersson decided to show all her potential in the fourth leg, smashing the concurrence by margins bigger than 20 seconds, the race was over.

Ulrik Nordberg did (along with Erik Rost and the Russian Vladimir Barchukov) the best time in the fifth leg, increasing for 57 seconds the advantage over Finland, still second placed, and Tove Alexandersson showed unbeatable again in the last leg, setting the final time in 42:08 to Sweden, against 43:13 from Finland, with Ville-Petteri Saarela and Sally Koskela, and 43:45 from Russia, with Vladimir Barchukov and Mariya Kechkina. “Really nice to have a victory! Yesterday wasn't a good day for me, but today everything was different. We made no mistakes and I'm very pleased with our performances”, said Tove Alexandersson to Skidorientering, the specialized webpage in Ski Orienteering from Swedish Orienteering Federation. Tove also targeted the race as “really fun, in a very technical Orienteering day”. Nordberg also left some ideas to the same media: “I probably didn't some route choices in the best way, but I made three good legs overall”, he conceded.

Results

1. Sweden 1 (Ulrik Nordberg and Tove Alexandersson) 42.08 (+ 00:00)

2. Finland 1 (Ville-Petteri Saarela and Sally Koskela) 43:13 (+ 01:05)

3. Russia 2 (Vladimir Barchukov and Mariya Kechkina) 43:45 (+ 01.37)

4. Russia 1 (Eduard Khrennikov and Tatyana Oborina) 43:54 (+ 01.46)

5. Sweden 3 (Erik Blomgren and Magdalena Olsson) 43:55 (+ 01.47)

6. Finland national team-1 (Jyri Uusitalo and Mira Kaskinen) 43:56 (+ 01:48)

Complete results and further information at http://ensilumenrastit.fi/2015/.

[Photo: Skidorientering / orientering.se/skido]

Joaquim Margarido