Nordic tour - round 2 report

The second stage of the Nordic Orienteering Tour is in progress. The idea of a 'knock-out sprint' is a novel one for orienteering and is aimed at creating head-to-head racing to make for spectator friendly viewing. It takes the format of a 'traditional' sprint qualification race, with one-minute start intervals, where the best 30 athletes go through to a quarter-final. The quarter-finals have 6 athletes starting together in a non-forked, non-butterfly course with the top 2 from each of 5 quarter-finals progressing to the semi-final. 6 athletes from the semi-final go through to the final, both of which are also head-to-head races.

The sprint qualifications were held this morning in Stockholm University. The terrain was a mixture of forest and building complexes, offering fast running and route choices. The standard of qualification was very high and none of the Irish team managed to get into the quarter finals. In the men's race, Nick was the best of the Irish in 58th position, 1 min and 3 sec away from qualifying. In general, the Irish boys had clean races and were happy with their performances. Niamh has been ill since the Venla relay on Saturday and made a last minute decision to run, after a breakfast of paracetamol! She had a steady race and finished in 44th position, 45 seconds down on the qualifying time.

The quarterfinals are in progress at the moment, also at Stockholm University. Unfortunately, there is no GPS tracking, but there will be a live TV broadcast from the semi-finals and finals, to be held in Gamla Stan (the Old Town of Stockholm) this evening (semi-final starts at 5:30pm Irish time, final at 6:30pm Irish time). See the Nordic Tour 'Live' website: (qualification results are here too). The next Irish involvement in the Nordic tour will be in stage 3 in Norway on Saturday.

Thanks to Niamh for the report and hope your feeling better soon