Defending champion Kasper Fosser, Norway retained his title in the JWOC Long race in Denmark today in emphatic fashion. Despite a mistake one-third of the way through the course, he won by more than three minutes.
The race was dominated by a near master-class performance from Fosser, whose closest challengers in the end proved to be Elias Jonsson, Norway and the Sprint champion Aston Key, Australia, who took the silver and bronze medals respectively.
The women’s race has been the subject of a protest; as the Jury needed some time to come to a decision, the final results will not be published until tomorrow afternoon.
The courses started out over relatively fast terrain, but then they met the steep slopes of Velling-Snabegård with its many big spurs and reentrants, which was the scene for the biggest part of the course. It was easy to get onto the wrong spur, a fate which met quite a few runners, agonising for their coaches and country-mates when displayed in GPS on the big screen in the arena. Strength was important today as well as good navigation. The arena and forest were the same as was used for the Long in JWOC in 1995, with a bit of new terrain added near the start.
Tomorrow is a rest day, and competition resumes on Wednesday with the Middle Qualification.
Leading results
Men
- Kasper Fosser NOR 1:02:19
- Elias Jonsson NOR 1:05:28
- Aston Key AUS 1:07:49
- Reto Egger SUI 1:08:00
- Fabian Aebersold SUI 1:08:33
- Einar Melsom NOR 1:08:39