The Norwegian athletes dominated on home turf on the second day of the IOF Ski Orienteering World Cup 2024-2025 and the World U23 Ski Orienteering Championships 2025 in Sjusjøen.
Jørgen Baklid and Anna Ulvensøen (both NOR) rose to the top in the senior World Cup-races, while Teodor Mo Hjelseth (NOR) grabbed the U23 gold in the men’s World Championships race. Finland’s Amanda Yli Futka repeated the feat from yesterday’s sprint and won the women’s U23 gold.
Once again today, the athletes were greeted by the sun in the Norwegian mountains, and once again they had to navigate in a dense network of paths and tracks that made orienteering a great challenge.
In the women’s 6.5 kilometers, Anna Ulvensøen, who is also the reigning world champion in the middle distance, steered clear of mistakes and steadily increased her lead to a clear victory of more than a minute.
Anna Ulvensøen during Friday’s sprint. Photo: Terje W. Pettersen
Yesterday’s third place Amanda Yli Futka was 1:03 minutes behind in second, while sprint winner Daisy Kudre-Schnyder (EST) again made it into the top 3 with a time that was a further 29 seconds behind.
The U23 athletes again mixed high up on the senior results list today, as Maria Hoskari (FIN) and Ella Turesson (SWE) came in 4th and 5th in the World Cup race, respectively, and took U23 silver and bronze after Futka.
Baklid fastest again
The men’s race was another duel between Jørgen Baklid and Jonatan Ståhl (SWE), who shared the victory between them yesterday.
The two had almost identical split times all the way around, but at the finish Baklid was 17 seconds ahead of the Swede, who lost time on the last three controls. Andrei Lamov was 28 seconds behind the winning time and took his first podium finish in the Swedish national team jersey.
Finn Niklas Ekström looked set to take the win for a long time, but he missed a control towards the end of the course and was therefore disqualified.
This paved the way for Teodor Mo Hjelseth to secure a Norwegian U23 gold medal, while Swedes Isak Lundholm and Mattias Larsson took U23 silver and bronze respectively.
Results and GPS tracking from the middle distance
The World Cup round in Norway ends on Sunday with a pursuit start, where the start list is based on Friday’s sprint results.
The men’s race starts at 10:00, while the women’s pursuit race begins at 10:50 (UTC +1)