The defending world champions from Switzerland regained the World Championship title in the Sprint Relay when the World Championships in Genoa ended on Saturday afternoon.
But it was not until the fourth and final leg that the relay race was decided.
32 nations raced for the title
32 teams were ready at the starting line in Piazza Matteotti, which together with the many fans once again today created an intense atmosphere around the competition.
Intense mass start on Piazza Matteotti. Photo: Kristina Lindgren
And they could experience an exciting relay that set off at high speed.
The heavily forked and quite hilly relay courses created lots of different route choices among the athletes on the first leg, which was dominated by Hanna Lundberg (SWE) and Hedvig Gydesen (DEN), who also came in for the exchange in that order.
Other favorites such as Norway (Victoria Hæstad Bjørnstad) and Switzerland (Natalia Gemperle) followed shortly after, while the defending silver medalists from Finland lost over a minute and never came close to the leading teams since.
The Norwegian way
On the second leg, Norway started a dominance that seemed to be decisive for the relay, when Eirik Langedal Breivik broke away from the rest of the leaders and created a gap.
During the course, the lead exetended to 20 seconds, but towards the end Tino Polsini (SUI) caught up a little, so that there was a 10-second Norwegian lead. After Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Sweden followed.
Eirik Langedal Breivik gave Kasper Fosser a gap of 10 seconds after leg 2. Photo Kristina Lindgren
It was almost similar to the pattern that Norway has followed earlier in the season, where Kasper Fosser on the third leg increased the lead. The Norwegian sprint world champion practically flew away on third leg, so that no one could follow him.
And the Norwegian lead grew to a full 28 seconds. Switzerland (Fabian Aebersold) was still in second position, while France’s Matthias Barros-Vallet ran his team close to the medals with Sweden (Isac von Krusenstierna) right on his heels.
Untouchable Aebersold
But where Pia Young Vik has held on to leads earlier in the season and steered Norway towards World Cup wins, things were different today.
Simona Aebersold hammered away from the start and closed the Norwegian lead already halfway down the course. And it was clear that there was a difference in physical strength today, because Aebersold continued right past Vik and kept the high pace to secure a convincing Swiss title defense victory.
Team Switzerland had time to celebrate their World Championships title. Photo: Kristina Lindgren
Behind her, Sweden’s Karolin Ohlsson also managed to overtake Norway at the very end, so it was Swedish silver and Norwegian bronze.
France, Hungary and Czechia took up the rest of the podium places.
The relay concludes an intense World Championships week, where orienteering once again reached the middle of a big city and the athletes were met with challenging courses in fabulous sprint terrain.
After almost a year of focusing on sprint orienteering in international competitions, it’s time to find some other shoes when the world elite resume the World Cup in the Czech forests in early August.
Full results, GPS-tracking, maps and photos in IOF LIVE
Top 6 results
1 Switzerland (Gemperle, Polsini, F. Aebersold, S. Aebersold) 1:03:14.7
2 Sweden (Lundberg, Runefors, v. Krusenstierna, Ohlsson) + 0:20
3 Norway (Bjørnstad, Langedal Breivik, Fosser, Young Vik) +0:38
4 France (Beauvir, Delenne, Barros-Vallet, Calandry) + 0:52
5 Hungary (Czako, Jonas, Buldoso, Maramarosi) + 1:16
6 Czechia (Rauturier, Glonek, Křivda, Dittrichova) + 1:47