The P-class was won today by Finland and the O class by Germany in an event held in unusual ‘negative’ terrain for TrailO – all tasks had to be solved looking downwards.
The format is a PreO course of 10 controls followed by one TempO station for each of the three athletes in each team. Here, each athlete had the same 10 PreO controls. The athlete on third leg has an additional TempO station with spectator viewing, in this case a spectacular setting with the kites spread around the higher crags of a deep ravine.
Finland prevailed in the P (Physically Challenged) class, Eero Hakanen on second leg being their best scorer. The silver medals went to Sweden, where first-leg Inga Gunnarsson mysteriously failed to record a punch at one control in the PreO section. Czechia took bronze, thanks particularly to a fine last-leg performance from Jana Kostová.
There were some very close times in the Open class: Sweden ended fifth, half a second in front of Finland and Great Britain who tied for sixth place! This in results times of several minutes. But in the medals it was a clear sequence of Gold – Germany, Silver – Italy and Bronze – Czechia. The best third-leg competitiors impressed with some quick times and no mistakes at the spectator control.
The final events, the TempO Qualification and Final, take place tomorrow.
Leading results, Relay
P class
- Finland (Tuomo Niskanen, Eero Hakanen, Pekka Seppä)
- Sweden (Inga Gunarsson, Ola Jansson, Michael Johansson)
- Czechia (Hana Doležalová, Pavel Dudík, Jana Kostová)
- Ukraine, 5. Spain, 6. Great Britain.
O class
- Germany (Ralph Körner, Nina Döllgast, Bjarne Friedrichs)
- Italy (Alessio Tenani, Marcello Lambertini, Aaron Gaio)
- Czechia (Daniel Locker, Ondřej Macek, Pavel Ptáček)
- Slovakia, 5. Sweden, 6= Finland & Great Britain.
Photo: WTOC 2023 Media