ATV TrailO Open: CPOC and DAHP got the Portuguese TrailO Relay titles 2016

Clube Português de Orientação e Corrida and Núcleo de Desporto Adaptado do Hospital da Prelada are the first TrailO Relay winners ever in Portugal. The event took place last Sunday and was attended by 33 competitors from six clubs.

Ferrel was, last Sunday afternoon, the venue of the Portuguese TrailO Relay Championships 2016. Organized by the Académico de Torres Vedras and having Claudio Tereso as course setter, the event ran on a seven control map, with three-competitor teams solving five tasks each element in the PreO and four tasks in the TempO station. Two teams in the Paralympic class and five teams in the Open class fought for the first National titles ever in this quite new and attractive format of Trail Orienteering.

Both from DAHP - Núcleo de Desporto Adaptado do Hospital da Prelada, the two Paralympic teams did a really close race, finishing the PreO segment with the same score of 540 seconds corresponding to 60% of wrong answers. Less accurate in the TempO segment but more faster than its opponents, DAHP 2 – with the international athletes Ricardo Pinto, Julio Guerra and Ana Paula Marques – could get the title by the narrow margin of two (!) seconds. In the Open class, the fight was also quite tight, although CPOC – Clube Português de Orientação e Corrida has been shown better than its opponents in the PreO, finishing with a good advantage of 120 seconds over the Ori-Estarreja – Clube de Orientação de Estarreja and COC – Clube de Orientação do Centro. In the TempO part, Ori-Estarreja could void the disadvantage after good performances of its two first team members, loosing the title in the very end. The key of CPOC's success was precisely in this last TempO leg, with Luís Gonçalves calling the gold to his team by the margin of 25,5 seconds. COC finished third with more 66,5 seconds than the winners.

During the morning, 7 competitors in the Paralympic class and 19 in the Open class participated in the Invacare PreO, the penultimate stage scoring for the Portuguese Cup in Trail Orienteering Invacare 2016. After a bad start, missing four out of the six first controls, Ricardo Pinto (DAHP) was able to do a clean race, finishing with 16 points and a comfortable advantage of 5 points over the second placed, Alexandre Guedes da Silva (Individual). Seven points after the winner, Cláudio Poiares got the third position. This was Pinto's sixth victory in the current season, reinforcing his leadership in the Portuguese TrailO Cup. In the Open Class, Nuno Pires (Ori-Estarreja) got the win after a hard fight with Luís Gonçalves (CPOC). Both athletes finished with 19 points out of 20 and both missed one task out of three in the timed controls. In the end, Pires was seven seconds faster than Gonçalves, getting a tasty victory, its first of the season. António Amador (Ori-Estarreja) reached the third place, with one point less than the winner.

Results

TrailO Relay Championships

Open Class

1. CPOC (Ana Porta Nova, Acácio Porta Nova, Luís Gonçalves) 523 seconds

2. Ori-Estarreja (Nuno Rebelo, Nuno Pires, António Amador) 548,5 seconds

3. COC (Paulo Olaio, José Bolrão, Inês Domingues) 589,5 seconds

4. GDU Azoia 2 (Pedro Cabeça, Noel Cabeça, Luísa Gaboleiro) 807,5 seconds

5. GDU Azoia 2 (Ana Casaca, Catarina Félix, Jorge Baltazar) 875 seconds

Paralympic Class

1. DAHP 2 (Júlio Guerra, Ana Paula Marques, Ricardo Pinto) 1022 seconds

2. DAHP 1 (Cláudio Poiares, António Amorim, José Laiginha Leal) 1024 seconds

Portuguese Cup in Trail Orienteering Invacare 2016

Open Class

1. Nuno Pires (Ori-Estarreja) 19 points / 87 seconds

2. Luís Gonçalves (CPOC) 19 points / 94 seconds

3. António Amador (Ori-Estarreja) 18 points / 106 seconds

4. Grigas Piteira (GafanhOri) 18 points / 153 seconds

5. Jorge Baltazar (GDU Azoia) 17 points / 95 seconds

5. Inês Domingues (COC) 17 points / 95 seconds

Paralympic Class

1. Ricardo Pinto (DAHP) 16 points / 96 seconds

2. Alexandre Guedes da Silva (Individual) 11 points / 226 seconds

3. Cláudio Poiares (DAHP) 9 points / 183 seconds

4. Júlio Guerra (DAHP) 7 points / 166 seconds

5. Ana Paula Marques (DAHP) 7 points / 229 seconds

Complete results and further information at http://www.atv.pt/actividades/evento/5/918.

[Photo: Luís Sérgio / facebook.com/ACADEMICODETORRESVEDRAS]

Joaquim Margarido

  

Chile is ready for the South American Orienteering Championships

Things are going fast for the Chilean Orienteering Federation. A month ago, they became one of the latest full members of the IOF, and in late October they will host the South American Orienteering Championships (SAOC) 2016.

– We want to make orienteering known to the Chilean people. We hope that the South American Orienteering Championships on home ground will motivate people to participate in future competitions and we are sure it will help us to promote orienteering, says Kai Ostermann, event director of SAOC 2016.

The competitors can look forward to three high-level events. The Sprint distance takes place in the streets of the amazing hills of Valparaíso, a UNESCO World Heritage site, where spectacular scenery awaits the participants. The Long and Middle distances will be held in the national park Lago Peñuelas, a little outside Valparaíso.

The Chilean Orienteering Federation has taken big steps in the right direction recent years. That were recognized by the IOF General Assembly in Strömstad, Sweden this year and, together with 12 other federations, Chile became a full member of the IOF.

[Press release from the International Orienteering Federation 2016-10-03]

WMMTBOC 2016: Time for the Masters!

Finland, with eleven gold medals overall, was the dominant nation at the 2016 World Masters MTBO Championships held last week in Kaunas, Lithuania. Mika Hakkinen, Heikki Saarinen and Ruta Staneviciene each won three gold medals and are the event’s big names.

Alongside the World Cup competitions for the Elite, the fight for the best places and the ups and downs in the standings, the Lithuanian event was a big party for the Masters too. 231 competitors from 24 countries rode for the world titles in Sprint, Middle Distance and Long Distance in 12 different classes.

With a strong field of 36 competitors, Finland had the biggest team of all and the one that achieved the largest number of medals. In total the Finns won 11 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze medals, with Mika Hakkinen (M40) and Heikki Saarinen (M65) taking all three titles. The second largest participation was from the ‘home team’, and it was a Lithuanian athlete who was the only one to take all the titles in the women’s competition: Ruta Staneviciene was unbeatable in the W60 class. Looking at the medals board, Sweden was the second-best team with seven gold, six silver and seven bronze medals, whilst Hungary got the same number of gold medals as Lithuania, but also three silver and one bronze. Overall, 17 countries were able to get at least one medal, with Turkey being a wonderful surprise thanks to the third place of Nermin Fenmen (W60) in the Sprint.

A special note about the tightest victory along the three days of competition: it was in the Sprint, with the Spaniard Monica Aguilera winning the W40 title by 8 seconds over the Hungarian Anna Fuzy. With a difference of 9 seconds, the Swede Jonny Engel beat the Russian Igor Bondarenko in the fight for the Middle Distance title in the M45 class. But the most impressive fight was in the W70 class in the Long Distance, with the Finn Tuula Ohramaa registering 1:24:25 against 1:24:36 from her one opponent, the Dane Ellis Sommer Byrgiel.

Complete results and further information at http://www.mtbo.lt/.

Joaquim Margarido

MTBO World Cup 2016: Double Czech winning

The MTBO World Cup 2016 ended with a double Czech victory. In a very technical Sprint race, Krystof Bogar and Martina Tichovska performed amazingly, getting the season’s last gold medals. With these results, both athletes could move up a couple of spots in the World Cup overall standings, finishing in an honourable third place.

A perfect day for the perfect ending of the MTBO season in another wonderful area. For the third day in a row, the best in the world biked on terrain that was as beautiful as it was challenging, searching for the perfect race and the best possible result. Lampėdžiai, a western suburban area of Kaunas, was the venue of the last World Cup stage of the MTBO season for a Sprint keenly contested by 65 Men and 46 Women Elite competitors.

After his two victories in the preceding stages, the Estonian Lauri Malsroos tried hard to get another gold, but he didn’t achieve his goal after an astonishing race from the Czech Krystof Bogar, a real devil in the forest today. After a long break, Bogar returned to competition this season and one could see from the beginning that he was here again to challenge the best. It took a whole season to get the desired result, but he didn’t miss in his last real chance. A terrific win in 25:55 and a 1:05 advantage over Malsroos was the final result. “It was a very technical race. I was able to avoid big mistakes, trying to bike as fast as I could in this difficult and very technical terrain and it went well,” were Bogar’s first words. Talking about the Lithuanian round, Bogar rates it highly: “Nice races, nice terrain, even though my performances were far from perfection on the other days because I always got lost. But not today,” he said. This was the perfect end to the season and is also a motivation for the 2017 season, as we can see from Bogar’s last words: “To repeat today’s good performance when returning to Lithuania and going for the gold will definitely be my goal for the next year.”

In the Women Elite, yesterday’s winner Marika Hara, Finland had a big crash close to the finish, and so lost the fight for the gold at a moment when she was in the lead. Martina Tichovska, Czech Republic, had a quite impressive race and could reach gold with the time of 28:22. Emily Benham and Ingrid Stengard got the next positions, less than one minute after the winner. Tichovska’s victory was unexpected, according to her words: “No, I didn’t expect to win today. During the race I could see that things were going well when I caught the two girls in front of me, and I’m very happy with the final result.” Being the last race of the season, this victory had a special meaning for Tichovska: “I’m very happy for winning the last race, after a not-really-bad season but a season that didn’t satisfy me.” Evaluating the World Cup round in Lithuania, the Czech athlete talks enthusiastically about “the very beautiful terrain” and starts looking forward to the next World MTB Orienteering Championships, if … she gets the necessary motivation: “I’m not sure about being here next year. Life is complicated. But if so, the goal will be a medal. The Scandinavian girls and Emily [Benham] are all very strong, and I don’t think in gold medal terms” were her last words.

Complete results and further information at http://www.mtbo.lt/.

Joaquim Margarido

MTBO World Cup 2016: Moments (5)

© Joaquim Margarido