Petteri Hakala, 19 years old, is the 2018 World TempO Champion. He scored a very tight victory over joint silver medallists Jan Furucz, Slovakia and Lennart Wahlgren, Sweden.
Hakala only just got through to the Final from the morning qualification competition, held along with the Final in the grounds of an old fortress in Daugavpils, Latvia. This terrain provided a good variety of problems, some with fine detail, some in park-like terrain and some using the quite steep and detailed slopes of the ramparts. Hakala, who won TempO bronze at the European Championships just a few weeks ago, made some early mistakes and was slow in settling into the course; “I didn’t get stressed by this, just carried on to get the best score I could,” he said.
As a result he was the very first starter in the Final, open to the best 18 from each of two heats. At the end his time of 182.5 looked hard to beat, and so it proved, although the joint silver medallists were only 4.5 seconds slower.
The competition was followed by a colourful Opening Ceremony, during which came the only rain of the day, and the day ended with the TempO prize-giving. Tomorrow is Day 1 of the PreO competition.
Leading results
- Petteri Hakala FIN 182.5 secs
2= Jan Furucz SVK and Lennart Wahlgren SWE 187
- Marit Wiksell SWE 199.5
- Iva Lovrec CRO 200.5
- Ines Domingues POR 212