Sweden and Switzerland are the top nations in terms of qualifying numbers for the KO-Sprint Quarter-finals tomorrow, both with 14 athletes through. Norway comes next with 11. The top 12 finishers in each of today’s 6 qualifying Sprint-race heats (3 women’s, 3 men’s) go through to the KO-Sprint competition.
The most impressive performance came from Sweden’s women, who had 6 top-three finishers (second and third place in each heat!) amongst their 9 qualifiers. Switzerland had three heat winners: Elena Roos, Simona Aebersold and Matthias Kyburz, and Norway two: Andrine Benjaminsen and Kasper Harlem Fosser, with Yannick Michiels, Belgium the other heat winner. Simona Aebersold won by the biggest margin, 17 seconds.
Closest race in terms of qualifying was the men’s heat won by Michiels, where analysis of the split-second timing was needed to separate three runners who were given 12th equal place in full seconds.
Most of the well-known athletes at this level qualified successfully, but ones that didn’t include the Russians Tatiana Ryabkina and Svetlana Miranova, Sweden’s Gustav Bergman and Frederic Tranchand, France.
Full results can be seen in IOF Eventor and in the LIVE section of the website. Tomorrow, the Quarter-finals start at 1320 CEST in the Place des Halles in Neuchâtel; there is LIVE coverage of the Semi-finals and Final starting at 1500 CEST.
Nation qualifying numbers
14 Sweden (9W, 5M) and Switzerland (6W, 8M)
11 Norway (4W, 7M)
8 Finland (6W, 2M) and France (3W, 5M)
4 Czech Republic (1W, 3M) and Denmark (2W, 2M)
2 Russia (2W)
1 Austria (1M), Belgium (1M), Germany (1W), Great Britain (1W), Lithuania (1M), New Zealand (1M) and Poland (1W).