The Junior World Orienteering Championships 2024 ended with two exciting relays on Saturday morning in Czechia, where Switzerland and Finland claimed the gold medals.
The terrain was similar to yesterday’s middle distance – moderately hilly with many contour details and plenty of forkings for the relay courses.
The men were first out in the forest and here it seemed for a long time that Sweden would take the JWOC relay title.
Edvin Nilsson (SWE1) was the first man into the exchange with the Czech team 1 right on his heels and France’s first team 21 seconds behind.
On the second leg, Axel Bratt increased the Swedish lead to a full 1:09 minutes to France and with the Swiss team barely 2 minutes behind. An unfortunate mispunch put an otherwise strong running Czech first team out of the game.
Svante Selin put in a good performance for the Swedes on the last leg, but the Swiss double junior world champion Matthieu Bührer was again running strongly and approaching from behind. Just before the arena passage, Bührer took advantage of a short forking to catch up with Selin and the disqualified Czech team.
On the last loop, Bührer was the strongest and grabbed the gold for Switzerland’s first team that also included David Baumberger and Loïc Berger.
Sweden took the silver and a little more than two minutes later the French first team came in for the bronze.
Strong Finnish performance in W20
In the women’s relay, it first seemed that the Swiss women would imitate the men.
Henriette Radzikowski broke a gap on the first leg of 0:22 minutes for a mixed team and more than 1:20 for Finland and Norway.
Then Virna Pellikka ran a largely flawless second leg for Finland and quickly took over the lead from Switzerland. At the exchange, she was 58 seconds ahead of Czechia and barely three minutes ahead of Switzerland in third position.
An early Czech time loss on the third leg meant that Eeva Liina Ojanaho (FIN) could run the Finnish victory safely to the finish line without being pressured from behind and celebrate with teammates Elli Punto and Virna Pellikka.
Behind her, Norway won the battle for silver with a 15-second lead over the chasing home ground favorites from Czechia.
Go to GPS-tracking and results in IOF LIVE
An exciting week of JWOC-races in Pilsen has come to an end and the Czech organisers can be proud of themselves after a well organised championship week.
Photo: JIŘÍ MRKVIČKA / JWOC 2024