Finland had a fantastic day in the Swedish forests around Säter, winning both the women’s and the men’s class with superior margins, when the WMTBOC athletes raced their relays on Saturday.
The Finnish women had a great start to their relay, as Henna Saarinen led the first leg from the beginning to the exchange, where she was two minutes ahead of the teams from Denmark, Czechia and Sweden.
Saarinen’s teammates Ruska Saarela and Marika Hara kept on extending the lead on their legs, and Hara crossed the finish line with an impressive margin of 7.32 minutes.
Behind the Finn’s, Denmark claimed the silver medals after stable performances by Cæcilie Christoffersen, Nikoline Splittorff and Camilla Søgaard, the latter winning gold and silver respectively on yesterday’s Middle distance.
On the third leg, Czechia’s Martina Tichovska overtook Sweden 2 to win the bronze medals.
Sweden 1 was in contention for a medal during the competition but was disqualified.
The men’s relay ended up as a fight between the two Finnish teams and with Finland 2 (Andre Haga, Jussi Laurila and Juha Lilja) as winners and new world champions.
After a close first leg, Finland 1 and 2 went ahead by a minute on the second leg, before Juha Lilja secured the gold medals with 2.36 minutes at the finish.
Switzerland’s Simon Braendli almost caught up with Finland 1 at the finish and took silver medals, while yesterday’s Middle distance world champion Krystof Bogar had a great race, picking up two places for Czechia to win bronze medals.
The Finnish success even extended to the junior M20 class, where Finland won ahead of Sweden and Czechia. In W20 Finland “only” claimed silver medals behind Sweden with the Czech junior women in third position.
Watch the tv stream, results and GPS from today’s competitions at IOF LIVE.
On Sunday, the WTMBOC athletes move to Falun for the Long Distance.
Follow on IOF LIVE from 11.00 CEST (UTC +2). First start is at 9.00.
Top results:
Women
1. Finland 1, 119.32 (Saarinen, Saarela, Hara)
2. Denmark 1, 127.04 (Christoffersen, Splittorff, Søgaard)
3. Czechia 1, 129,27 (Paulickova, Kamarytova, Tichovska)
Men
1. Finland 2, 122.07 (Haga, Laurila, Lilja)
(2. Finland 1, 124.43 (Nurmi, Kaksonen, Pokala))
3. Switzerland 1, 125.00 (Jaeggi, Hotz, Braendli)
4. Czechia 1, 126.02 (Hasek, Ludvik, Bogar)
Photos: WMTBOC 2022 / Lars Gustafsson