Swiss and French winners in JWOC Long

Lilly Graber, Switzerland and Basile Basset, France are the new JWOC Long Distance champions. Graber, silver medalist in the Middle race, won convincingly by 48 seconds whilst Basset’s victory was by just 7 seconds.

Graber was third through the early stages and moved up to second-fastest at control 7 of the 18-control course over 7.04 km with 370 m climb. She had a largely trouble-free run with good route choices on the long legs, 4-5 (quickest 9.26) and 8-9 (quickest 13.49) in the steep hilly terrain, and ran at 7.3 mins per km overall. The silver medal goes to the Czech athlete Lucie Semikova, who held 2nd place from control 12 onwards. Hungarian Viktoria Mag did extremely well from a very early start time to take the bronze, 1.26 down on the winner’s time.

Tilde Backlund, Sweden high in the hills            Photos: JWOC

Søren Thrane Ødum, Denmark made up for disappointments earlier in the week to take the silver medal in the men’s race today. He was fastest at control 4 and from 8 to 10, then second throughout on the 11.05 km course with 585 m climb and 24 controls. Basset lost half a minute on leg 4-5 but was particularly strong on the middle section of the course. Ferenc Jonas, Hungary has bronze medal position just as in the Middle race; he was down in 8th place at control 15 but pulled up strongly from there – aided by fourth-placed Italian Ilian Angeli making a 90-second mistake on leg 19-20. The winner ran at 6.14 mins per km overall – impressive in the very hilly terrain.

Aarni Ronkainen, Finland

The courses had a lot of short legs giving contour-based route choices plus two very long legs, the men’s being 10-11 and 14-15 (best times 14.10 and 12.14).

Martin Knor, Slovakia in the coaching zone at the arena passage

The final race in JWOC is tomorrow, the Relay starting at 10.00 local time (CEST + 1). Follow the action on IOF LIVE!

Cover photo: Amalie Ertmann, Denmark at the start

Podium places, Long Distance

Women

  1. Lilly Graber SUI 52:59
  2. Lucie Semikova CZE 53:47
  3. Viktoria Mag HUN 54:25
  4. Petrina Costermans SWE 54:30
  5. Pia Young Vik NOR 54:58
  6. Hanna Lundberg SWE 55:39

Men

  1. Basile Basset FRA 1:08:57
  2. Søren Thrane Ødum DEN 1:09:04
  3. Ference Jonas HUN 1:11:46
  4. Ilian Angeli ITA 1:12:23
  5. Antoine Becaert FRA 1:12:29
  6. Isak Jonsson NOR 1:12:53