Thierrys hattrick
IdrettOpprettet av Jørn Sundby 31 mai, 2008 18:36:16On a very technical and "marshy" day in Latvia Thierry Gueorgiou took his third EOC gold medal on the middle distance. His margin only 26 seconds to Martins Sirmais. The latvian runner was for the second EOC in a row very close to beating Thierry. Two years ago in Estonia Sirmais was ahead of Gueorgiou until the very last controls.
The terrain with low visibility in the large marshes proved tricky and maybe also unusual for many runners. A lot of athletes had direction problems and lost a lot of time. Se the map at Baptiste Rolliers blog.
In the womens class Anne Margrethe Hausken was too careful and too slow in todays race, and ended seventh after being caught by Merja Rantanen who took a surprise silver medal. A great finnish day with a complete blue and hvite podium. Jukkola gold and Kauppi bronze- no surprise.
The swedes was a little disappointing and also the norwegians, exept 33 year old Hans Trøan, who in his first major international championship was the best norwegian man in 12th. A great race for Hans, who was one of my main competitors in the youth classes. Both in the 15 and 16-class he took the norwegian championship ahead of me with a few seconds...
And the swiss don't like green marshes, but my apologies to Daniel Hubmann, who proved my guess for no swiss in the podium to be wrong...
Relay
The relay should be really open now, but I'll try a guess:
Women:
1. Finland
2. Russia
3. Sweden
4. Norway
5. Czech Rep.
6. Lithuania
Men
1. Russia
2. France
3. Switzerland
4. Finland
5. Sweden
6. Latvia
I am aware that each country can have two teams in the relay, but I have just made my tip in the "nation order". It is hard to guess on second teams without having the lineups.
