Norway’s men defended their relay title and Switzerland took the women’s gold when the European Orienteering Championships came to an end on Tuesday afternoon.
It was another warm day in central Hungary with 33 degrees and another day with a lot of slope orienteering. Not as many rock details compared to the weekend races, but many forkings with relatively short distance between the forked controls.
The men were first to start and 57 teams lined up early in the afternoon and kicked off the relay day with a close first leg.
Ukraine’s Ruslan Glibov were first into the exchange, leading a group of eight teams within 16 seconds – among them the first teams from favorite nations Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway.
Norwegian gap on second leg
After a first leg, where the teams were close together, things changed on the second leg, where Eirik Langedal Breivik (NOR1) set a high pace on the first half of the course and were only followed by Fabian Aebersold of Switzerland 1.
On the last loop Aebersold made a mistake, meaning Saturday’s Middle distance champion could send out teammate Kasper Fosser with a lead of 51 seconds.
Finland 1 was in second position, with Sweden 1 and Switzerland 1 only a few seconds behind.
Fosser in league of his own
On the last leg, Sunday’s long distance champion Fosser kept on extending his lead to the opponents and despite a small mistake on the last loop, he had more than two minutes to celebrate the title defence with teammates Eskil Kinneberg and Eirik Langedal Breivik towards the finish line.
Eirik Langedal Breivik, Kasper Fosser and Eskil Kinneberg defended Norway’s EOC Relay-title.
Sweden’s Emil Svensk and Switzerland’s Joey Hadorn fought an intense battle for the silver, with Svensk pulling away on the last kilometers to secure the silver for Sweden, 40 seconds ahead of Hadorn in third.
Miika Kirmula (FIN 1) lost out on the fight for medals after a mistake on the second forking, but managed to hold on to fourth place ahead of Czechia1 and France1, with two other Swedish teams in between.
Close start to women’s race
The 40 teams in the women’s relay also saw a close first leg later in the afternoon.
Switzerland’s young first leg runner Ines Berger and Swedish junior Alma Svennerud running for a mixed team had a lead of 30 seconds during first leg, but after a time loss on the last loop 13 teams were within 30 seconds at the first exchange.
Natalia Gemperle (SUI 1) spend most of the second leg in front, where Viktoria Mag also took the lead on some controls to the delight of the Hungarian home crowd. Marie Olaussen (NOR 1) was never far behind.
Hanna Lundberg (SWE 1) lost around 1:30 minutes on the third forking and spend the rest of the leg trying to minimize the loss of time.
Mag made a mistake on the last loop, and Gemperle was first to finish – 15 seconds ahead of Olaussen and with Finland 1:33 behind and Sweden 1 eight seconds further down in fourth.
Swiss-Norwegian fight for gold
This opened for a close fight between Simona Aebersold (SUI 1) and Andrine Benjaminsen (NOR 1) for the gold and as Tove Alexandersson lost a minute early on, Sweden never came close to gold or silver.
A thunderstorm with heavy rain reduced the visibilty in forest on the last leg, but Simona Aebersold was able to see the fastest route choice to control 10 and created a decisive gap to Benjaminsen there.
Switzerland won the women’s EOC relay title by 20 seconds to Norway and Tove Alexandersson was 2:45 minute behind in bronze position for Sweden.
Ines Berger, Simona Aebersold and Natalia Gemperle put Switzerland’s women back on the forest relay throne. By William Hollowell.
That’s the first forest relay win for the Swiss women at an international championship since 2018.
Cecile Calandry’s fast sprint brought France to fourth position just ahead of Finland, with home nation Hungary securing a long-sought final place on the podium a few seconds behind.
Find results and GPS-tracking from today’s relays at IOF LIVE.
The championships in Hungary were also part of the 2024 Orienteering World Cup, which will be decided in Finland in end-September, where Kuopio hosts the World Cup final with three forest races.