Home nation Czechia continued to impress, winning both gold medals as the more than 330 athletes ran the middle distance at the Junior World Orienteering Championships on Friday.
Compared to Wednesday’s long distance, the middle distance terrain was more moderately hilly and with several short, technical legs and many contour details to keep track of.
Lucie Dittrichova, who also won the long distance, won after an almost flawless race, where she led all the way around today’s 3.8 kilometers.
Sweden’s Alma Svennerud was close to Dittrichova’s split times along the way, but a time loss at control 8 – at a large re-entrant – meant that she had to settle for the bronze.
That made room for another Czech athlete, Viktorie Skachova, in the silver spot. It is Skachova’s second medal at the championships after she won bronze in the long distance.
Dittrichova’s time of 24:12 minutes was a full 1:20 faster than her compatriot’s, while Svennerud was a further four seconds behind.
The men’s class developed into a showdown between double gold medalist Matthieu Bührer from Switzerland and home favorite Jan Strycek.
The two had almost the same split times throughout the 4.8 kilometers, but Bührer hesitated a little through a green area towards control 17 and it cost the decisive seconds. Strycek avoided major time losses and had a lead of 32 seconds at the finish line after 25:42 minutes of racing.
Norway’s Alfred Bjørnerød was 25 seconds further behind and won a close fight for the bronze, where Svante Selin (SWE) was beaten by just one second.
Dive into GPS tracking and results here
Tomorrow is the final competition at the JWOC: the relays. The men begin at 9:00 and the women start at 11:00.
The broadcast on IOF TV begins at 08:50 CEST (UTC +2).
Photo: Jan Strycek on today’s Middle distance / JWOC2024