World TrailO Championships: PreO golds to Slovakia and Sweden

The second day of the PreO competition finished with wins for Ola Jansson, Sweden in the Paralympic class and Jan Furucz, Slovakia in the Open.

This was Ola Jansson’s fifth World Championship gold medal, and he is overall the most successful Trail Orienteer ever, with this being his fourteenth medal in World or European championships. In fact he has won a medal at every European Championships held so far! Today he took the overall title by 1 point from Michael Johansson, Sweden, with Svein Jakobsen, Norway in bronze medal position 1 point further down.

For Jan Furucz this was a first-ever medal in World or European PreO, but his win was impressive with a full score on both days and a total time of just 30.5 seconds on the timed controls. He was pushed quite close by the experienced Geir Myhr Øien, Norway and Antti Rusanen, Finland, who both also had full scores across the whole competition but were slower at the timed controls. In fact 5 competitors in all in the Open class had full scores.

The competition today was held in hot sunshine in an old gravel quarry and its surroundings, with masses of rough tracks and contour detail.

The Championships finish tomorrow with the Relay.

Leading results

Paralympic class

  1. Ola Jansson SWE 58 points + 114 seconds
  2. Michael Johansson SWE 57 + 100
  3. Svein Jakobsen NOR 56 + 196
  4. Jana Kostova CZE 55 + 252
  5. Inga Gunnarsson SWE 54 + 318
  6. Bohuslav Hulka CZE 53 + 311

Open class

  1. Jan Furucz SVK 61 + 30.5
  2. Geir Myhr Øien NOR 61 + 43
  3. Antti Rusanen FIN 61 + 45.5
  4. Stig Gerdtman SWE 61 + 115
  5. Joao Pedro Valente POR 61 + 171
  6. Pinja Mäkinen FIN 60 + 43