Josefine Engström was well geared up for today’s race in the absence of Tove Alexandersson, who was competing instead in the Junior World Championships race in the same competition area. But she had strong opposition, not least from the Russian team which finished with an impressive 5 placements in the top 7. Josefine enjoyed an excellent race, however, taking the gold medal ahead of Russia’s Polina Malchikova. Sonja Mörsky, Finland, had a fine race to take the bronze medal.

The very experienced Staffan Tunis was most closely challenged by the up-and-coming Bulgarian Stanimir Belomazhev, who won a bronze medal in yesterday’s mixed sprint relay. The veteran multi-gold medallist Eduard Khrennikov, Russia took the bronze medal today.

Sweden took both gold medals in the Junior World Championships sprint race: Tove Alexandersson won the women’s race from Anna Ulvensen, Norway, both having times of under 10 minutes with a very clear lead over the rest of the field, and Andreas Holmberg won the men’s.

The middle distance championships will be held tomorrow; the event website, accessible by clicking on the ‘round 2’ icon on this home page, carries an on-line webcam and live results service.

Sprint race leading results (provisional)

 European Championships, women

1. Josefine Engström SWE 12:58
2. Polina Malchikova RUS 13:06
3. Sonja Morsky FIN 13:08
4. Tatyana Kozlova RUS 13:11
5. Natalya Tomilova RUS 13:15
6. Yulia Tarasenko RUS 13:20

European Championships, men

1. Staffan Tunis FIN 11:56
2. Stanimir Belomazhev BUL 12:01
3. Eduard Khrennikov RUS 12:05
4. Andrey Lamov RUS 12:17
5. Andrey Grigoriev RUS 12:19
6. Martin Hammarberg SWE 12:24

Junior World Championships, women

1. Tove Alexandersson SWE 9:40
2. Anna Ulvensen NOR 9:53
3. Salla Koskela FIN 10:35

Junior World Championships, men

1. Andreas Holmberg SWE 11:36
2. Misa Tuomala FIN 12:01
3. Linus Rapp SWE & Tuomas Kotro FIN 12:02

Russia had three teams in the top six in today’s mixed sprint relay, the first event of the World Cup round 2 and European Ski Orienteering Championships being held around Sumy in eastern Ukraine. In European Championships, Russia took gold, Sweden silver and Bulgaria bronze.

Fifty-five teams started in the race, which was a frenetic all-action affair on relatively easy terrain with fastest times of only 7-8 minutes for each leg. Positions changed constantly, the result of small mistakes by most athletes along with the ‘gaffling’ which splits competitors up by having them visit groups of controls in different orders. At the final changeover it was Sweden in the lead, but when the teams were sighted coming towards the last control of the race, Russia held a lead of a few metres, and Polina Malchikova was able to hold off Tove Alexandersson in the final sprint for the line.

Sweden 2 was the third team to finish, so Bulgaria, fourth-placed team but third nation, took the bronze medals. Fifth and sixth were two further Russian teams; we can expect a very strong challenge for medals from the Russian team this week.

Teams in a mixed sprint relay are 1 man + 1 woman (or 2 women), doing six legs in all with the man going out first. Each nation can enter up to 6 teams, but only the first three to finish count for points towards the Sprint World Cup standings.

This was Tove Alexandersson’s only race in the European Championships; tomorrow and on the other race days she will be competing in the Junior World Championships. Tomorrow there are individual sprint races; the women race over 2.8 km and the men 3.1 km, giving an estimated winning time in each race of about 14 minutes.

Leading results – Mixed Sprint Relay / European Championships

1) Russia – Andrey Grigoriev & Polina Malchikova
2) Sweden – Peter Arnesson & Tove Alexandersson
3) Bulgaria – Stanimir Belomazhev & Antoniya Grigorova-Burgova

Leading results – Mixed Sprint Relay / World Cup

1) Russia 2 – Andrey Grigoriev & Polina Malchikova
2) Sweden 1 – Peter Arnesson & Tove Alexandersson
3) Sweden 2 – Erik Rost & Josefine Engström
4) Bulgaria 1 – Stanimir Belomazhev & Antoniya Grigorova-Burgova
5) Russia 1 – Kirill Veselov & Natalya Tomilova
6) Russia 3 – Eduard Khrennikov & Anastasia Kravchenko

Inside Orienteering 1-2012

• Ski Orienteering World Cup rescued by a snowstorm
• Hey, Look at us! – Orienteering in the USA
• North South East West: Moldova
• World Masters 2012
• Behind the Scenes: Edmond Széchényi
• Council Elections coming up
• A busy year for trail orienteers
• News in brief

(Pdf version of Inside Orienteering 1-2012)

IOF World Rankings leader

Tove has already proved that she is up with the competition in all types of terrain; she currently leads the IOF World Rankings, albeit by almost the tightest possible margin – 2 points – from her compatriot Josefine Engström. She is without doubt the most promising all-rounder on the way up from the junior ranks; she is close to being in the top bracket in foot orienteering too. In foot orienteering she is world-ranked 7^th, with a bronze Relay medal from last year’s World Championships and 3 Junior World Championship golds (2 individual, 1 relay) to her credit.

The strongest challenge so far in the senior women’s class to Tove has come from Josefine Engström, but it can be expected that the strength in depth in the Russian team will be much more in evidence in Ukraine.

Grigoriev looking for more success

Russia’s Andrey Grigoriev leads the men’s standings after the first round after a victory and a second place in the USA round. Here he will again be challenged by the very experienced Erik Rost and Peter Arnesson (both Sweden) and the two young Norwegians Hans Jørgen Kvale and Lars Hol Moholdt. Finland’s Steffan Tunis has also shown that he can be amongst the best. But Grigoriev will be supported by a very strong Russian team competing not far from their home ground, and will be looking for further success this week.

Big gathering in Sumy

The venue for this second round is Sumy, a city in eastern Ukraine quite close to the border with Russia. The events double as the European Championships, and the Junior World Championships (W/M 20), European Youth Championships (W/M 17) and World Masters Championships (W/M 35 – 85) will also be taking place there. So this will be by far the biggest gathering of ski orienteers this season. In recognition of this, the IOF is holding a clinic for Ski Orienteering Event Advisers and Organisers on three days in the week.

There will be five World Cup races: Mixed Sprint Relay on Tuesday, Sprint on Wednesday, Middle distance on Thursday, a standard Relay (women’s and men’s teams) on Saturday and individual Long distance on Sunday. There are entries from 22 nations, with 52 women and 72 men entered. There are good numbers for the other events too, in the World Masters including 1 entry in M85 and 2 in W80.

The terrain is 150-200 metres above sea level, and there is currently 15-20 cm snow at the venue with more forecast during the week. The courses will be set in mixed forest with a good network of tracks and paths, with some steep slopes.

More information can be found on http://skio2012.sumy.org/, and reports and leading results will appear on this home page after each race.

The eligibility application form has been updated for 2012. Please only use this new form when applying:

Paralympic class eligibility application form 2012

If you have any questions concerning the application, please contact the IOF Secretariat before starting the application process.

In the two-day seminar, presentations were made by former and future organisers, event advisers and IOF officials on subjects such as “Building a WOC organisation”, “Experiences from inside a WOC”, and “Arenas and TV”. Besides lectures, there was time set-off for networking and experience sharing, as well as meetings between organisers and advisers.

“I was particularly pleased to see so many appointed organisers represented here this weekend”, said IOF Sports Director Björn Persson, who chaired the seminar. “I believe that with all WOC’s from 2012 to 2016 represented, as well as several WTOC’s, JWOC’s and WMOC’s, it was the strongest start field ever at a HLES”.

The seminar was organised in partnership with the Italian Orienteering Federation FISO, and it fulfilled an important role in communicating standards and experiences between IOF and its organising partners. “The HLES has certainly come to stay, and to me this year’s seminar was the most successful so far”, concluded Ruedi Gloor, Event Director of WOC 2012, who also gave a presentation on the planning status of the main orienteering event of this year, the World Orienteering Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the closing, Björn Persson thanked FISO for its support and announced the intentions that next year’s HLES will be organised in Great Britain.

As previous years, the six best nations – separately for men and women – may enter eight athletes in the World Cup events (with the exception of the European Championships and World Championships). All other IOF members may enter six athletes. All 2011 individual World Champions, provided they are selected by their Federation, shall be offered a wild card place in competition 4 (and may participate in competition 5, if they qualify based on the World Cup standing after 4 races). All 2012 individual World Champions, provided they are selected by their Federation, shall be offered a wild card place in competitions 9 to 13. These wild card places shall be additional to the national quotas.

Six best nations on the World Ranking at 1 January 2012

Women: Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Czech Republic, Great Britain
Men: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Denmark

The Ski Orienteering World Cup 2012 in Lake Tahoe, California, ended with Mixed Sprint Relay in Tahoe City. 22 teams were fighting for the World Cup points. The course setter Greg Walker provided a true surprise to the competitors by designing a relay course that got almost all the competitors out of balance and making big mistakes.

Sweden, which had dominated the whole week of races, was also the quickest to accommodate to the challenging courses in the mixed sprint relay. The Swedes took a double win: team one with Peter Arnesson and Tove Alexandersson was fastest, and team two, with Erik Rost and Josefine Engström took the silver. Finland’s team one, Staffan Tunis and Milka Leppäsalmi, took the third place 2.30 minutes behind the winners.

“Our coach Håkan Holmberg had told us to take it easy in the beginning and make sure that we got fluent with our orienteering before increasing pace. It seemed to be the right tactics for today’s race”, stated Peter Arnesson after the race.

Many of the favourites, among them Russia and Norway, fell flat already on their way to the first control and lost more than five minutes in single mistake. Greg Walker had planned a dense track network into a fairly open forest with many controls close to each other. This truly surprised all the competitors. Many of them took short cuts towards their controls, but lost their position on the map, and then could not get back on the map losing a lot of time. “I got the message from Peter at the exchange that I should stay on tracks instead of going for short cuts, and that worked for our team today”, accompanied Tove Alexandersson her team mate Arnesson. “We did not expect this difficult orienteering today. I was a very good rehearsal for the European Championships in Ukraine in couple of week’s time”, said Arnesson.

Håkan Holmberg was extremely satisfied after the first Ski Orienteering World Cup round in 2012.
Photo: Markku Vauhkonen

Sweden had a fabulously successful week in California. “My goal was that we could take a couple of victories on this tour to the United States. Now we managed to get six victories. This is a fantastic result, which gives our team a terrific inspiration for this winter’s races and for our main goal European Championships in Ukraine”, said the leader of the Swedish team, Håkan Holmberg after the concluding relay race.

Although the World Cup ended, the Sierra Ski Orienteering Week continues with two additional World Ranking Events in the warm and sunny California on Saturday and Sunday. The World Cup continues with the European Championships on February 20-26, in Sumy, Ukraine.

Ski Orienteering World Cup Round 1 concluded with Mixed Relay in California, USA, on Friday. After the three individual events it was no surprise that Sweden dominated even the relay. Sweden’s first team, Peter Arnesson and Tove Alexandersson, won the relay before Sweden’s second team, Erik Rost and Josefine Engström. Finland’s Staffan Tunis and Milka Leppäsalmi finished third.

For full results, please visit the World Cup portal.

Ski Orienteering World Cup continues with Round 2 in conjunction with the European Ski Orienteering Championships in Ukraine at the end of February.