Sweden with five gold medals and
Finland with four, were the great winners of the
World Masters Orienteering Championships WMOC 2016's first finals, that took place this morning in Tallin, Estonia. Held in the beautiful Old
Town Quarter, the race had the participation of 3257 athletes, representing 42 different countries.
Tallinn's medieval Old Town is known
for its well-preserved completeness and authentic Hanseatic
architecture. But the historical space it's also a great sprint
terrain with parks, city streets, some climbing and interesting route
choices, as could live and feel the more than 3,200 athletes who
competed this morning in the Sprint Final of the World Masters
Orienteering Championships WMOC 2016. Nice courses, quite interesting
challenges and tight fights were the 25 competition classes’ common
denominator, with 711 male athletes and
562 female attending the Final A.
With more than eight hundred athletes entered,
Finland is the most represented country in the World Championships, having achieved four gold medals in the first of two finals of the
event’s program. Better than Finland, just Sweden, with five gold
medals, one of which by the most veteran athlete present in Tallinn, Astrid Andersson, the first athlete ever to compete in
the W95 class in 21 editions of the Championships. In the WMOC 2016’s
book of honor, the host country is in the third place with three gold medals. Overall, there were sixteen countries with representatives
on today’s podiums, with thirteen of these reaching the gold.
Finally, some interesting facts about
today's race. The podiums of M70 and W70 classes were fully painted
with the colours of Finland and Norway, respectively. The Bulgarian
Tsvetan Todorov was the only athlete achieving the title for the
second year in a row, repeating the gold reached in Göteborg,
Sweden, in the previous edition of the Championships. The duels in
several classes were particularly balanced, with the Czech Alena
Rosecka achieving the tightest victory by the narrow margin of one
second over the Norwegian Unni Strand Karlsen, in the W60 class.
Other wins by narrow margin were those of the British James Crawford
on the Australian Geoff Lawford by 5 seconds at M60 class, the
Swedish Annika Björk on the Estonian Kirti Rebane for 6 seconds in
the W40 class, the Estonian Airi Alnek on the Finnish Anne Nurmi for
7 seconds in the W50 class and also the Estonian Ilse Uus on the
Swedish Birgitta Olsson, also by a margin of seven seconds, in the
W75 class. In the W35 class, the Russian Galina Vinogradova, bronze
medal in the last World Championships, achieved one of the most
comfortable victories over the Finnish Katri Lindeqvist by the
difference of 1:37.
World Masters Champions 2016
Sprint
M35 Dmitry Mihalkin, BLR
M40 Petteri Muukkonen FIN
M45 Thomas Jensen DEN
M50 Tsvetan Todorov BUL
M55 Stefan Bolliger SUI
M60 James Crawford GBR
M65 Raimo Hyyryläinen FIN
M70 Olli Lehtinen FIN
M75 Helmut Conrad GER
M80 Jaroslav Havlik CZE
M85 Atsushi Takahashi JPN
M90 Arvo Majoinen FIN
W35 Galina Vinogradova RUS
W40 Annika Björk SWE
W45 Natasha Key AUS
W50 Airi Alnek EST
W55 Marje Viirmann EST
W60 Alena Rosecka CZE
W65 Maria Nordwall SWE
W70 Kari Timenes Laugen NOR
W75 Ilse Uus EST
W80 Ebba-Lisa Flygar SWE
W85 Vre Harzenmoser SUI
W90 Elvy Fredin SWE
W95 Astrid Andersson SWE
Complete results and further
information at http://wmoc2016.ee/.
[Photo: WMOC 2016 /
facebook.com/wmoc2016/photos/]
Joaquim Margarido
