The athletes at the Junior World Orienteering Championships said goodbye to the sprint disciplines and started the forest distances on Monday morning.
Here the tough long distance awaited – 8.0 kilometers with 410 meters of climb and 10.0 kilometers (500 meters climb) for the women and men respectively.
It was perhaps a few degrees colder than the previous days, as the long distance was run at higher altitudes in Fornace, but it was another warm day in the mountains.
The women’s course was a close contest between Sweden’s Freja Hjerne and Switzerland’s Henriette Radzikowski. Despite different route choices, the two had almost identical split times on the last half of the course and at the finish there were just six seconds between Hjerne’s gold and Radzikowski’s silver after 96 minutes of running.
Freja Hjerne passed the finish line after 96:17 minutes in the hilly forests. Photo: JWOC 2025
Rita Maramarosi made a few mistakes early on and was three minutes behind Hjerne after 48 minutes of running. But after a strong finish, she took home a bronze medal for Hungary, 1:37 behind the winning time.
Third medal for Bolehovsky
In the men’s class, it was another gold medal for Daniel Bolehovsky, who won both gold in the sprint relay with the Czech team and silver in Sunday’s sprint.
Daniel Bolehovsky did another impressive race in Italy and won the Long distance. Photo: JWOC 2025
Today he showed his class again and won by 1:03 minutes ahead of Wilmer Selin (SWE), while Alejandro Garrido Diaz (ESP) claimed the bronze 16 seconds further behind.
Both Selin and Diaz were strong on the last half of the course and secured their medals towards the end.
Switzerland’s Loïc Berger had the fastest split time after 25 minutes of running, but lost the lead on the first long leg and had to settle for fourth place.
Find all results, GPS tracking and links to the TV broadcast in the JWOC Live Center.
Tuesday is a well-deserved rest day before the middle distance awaits on Wednesday morning.
Here again the first start is at 9:00 CEST (UTC +2), while almost six hours of quality TV broadcast begins at 10:00 on IOF TV.