and 1995 for the women! The men were off first with the goal to run well and if possible, beat the reasonably strong peer nation teams USA and Canada. Dave Healy ran a solid race on the shorter first leg, coming in 10 minutes down from the leaders but 7 minutes down on the flying Americans [well done Ross Smith, pictured leaving the
spectator control!]. Happily, we were only a
minute behind the Canadian star Patrick Goeres, and 3 minutes ahead of German speed-demon Lubina.
Nicholas Simonin went out second, was overtaken
by the strong German and New Zealand runners but brought us to within striking distance (4-6 minutes) of the teams ahead, Canada, USA and Portugal.
I (Neil) went out on the final leg with energy in the legs and a good feeling about this race. Already by the fourth control CAN was caught and passed. At the tricky 5th, I saw USA and a couple of other teams. I took a contour through green route to the 6th as the others went up the hill and then down the ridge, equivalent, except I guess my route took less energy. Three controls later I established a small lead on the nearby runners which I extended until the 13th, where a one minute mistake let USA and POR back into the game. A different forking allowed me get away again and I had a small lead going through the spectator control.
By this stage the race had taken a surreal twist. Martin Johansson (SWE), in the lead with NOR, CZE, and FRA, impaled himself with a stick into his leg, going 12cm deep. Nordberg, Smola and Gueorgiou gave up their medal chances by coming to his aid, with Gueorgiou using is O-top as a bandage to lessen the bleeding. As they said, if someone as tough as Johansson is screaming in pain, he must be badly hurt (apparently he told the to continue their race!). This is one of the finest examples of sportsmanship and the three men earned a lot of respect today!
Oblivious to the drama, I carried on through to the short spectator loop. I tried to make all the controls simple with safe attack points and good flow. This worked fine until the third last
where, within 20m of the control, nothing made sense. It was a rough open area with scattered knolls on the map and vegetation hiding the broken terrain. Trying to control the adrenaline, I went from bump to bump when the Portugese junior and top runner (he qualified for the sprint final the day before) Tiago Romao appeared on the scene. I spotted the control just before him. The last two controls were straightforward and I outran Tiago to the finish and 22nd place (would have been 26th without the stick incident).
Eddie (USA) arrived a couple of minutes later, followed by FRA, NOR and CZE who had returned to finish their race after seeing Johansson to safety. The three runners received prolonged and well-deserved applause from the spectating crowd.
In the women's race, Ciara Largey got the girls off to a steady start, leaving Aislinn Austin, back in an Irish jersey after several years of absence, in position to
run strongly to overtake the Croatian and Japanese teams. Ros Hussey, pictured, held the position, finishing ten minutes ahead of the challenging teams Croatia, Japan and Turkey. 21st is a good result and the team is confident they can do even better in the future!!
A World of O report on the relay with (currently broken) links to the maps.
past performances at WOC sorted by country:
More photos.
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