1st WRE victories of the year for Niggli and Gueorgiou
February 14, 2010 by Lucie Babel
With 243 men elites and 106 women, including five current world champions, the World Ranking Event of the POM 2010 held this Sunday in Portugal had all attributes to be described as the real season opening. The particularly tough winter attracted full national teams and many Scandinavian clubs to the surroundings of Quiaios, a little costal Portuguese town situated half way between Porto and Lisboa.
Today’s race consisted of a middle distance of 7.1km respectively 6.2km for men and women, with a high number of controls (30 resp. 26). The whole was held in a natural scene of pine forest with sandy underground forming detailled microreliefs, requiring thus precise navigation skills.
If many of last year’s competitions turned out into a hard confrontration between Simone Niggli and Helena Jansson, 2010 seems to be of the same vintage. The latter and current sprint champion imposed a three minutes’ gap to her Swiss concurrent in yesterday’s (non-WRE) long distance. The roles were inversed today, when Niggli won with a 50 seconds lead over Jansson. Yulia Novikova, whose best result at last year’s WOC was only a 13th place, completed the podium. The surprise comes however just two places behind her: the still 18 years old Ida Bobach, four times medalist at Junior World Championships 2009 and Tiomila winner of last year, managed to insert her name on 5th position, just four minutes behind Niggli. Anne-Margrethe Hausken, World Cup winner of 2008, finished with a five minutes delay on place 8.
Women’s results
1. Simone Niggli 31:58
2. Helena Jansson 32:44
3. Yulia Novikova 34:52
4. Céline Dodin 35:16
5. Ida Bobach 35:50
6. Lina Persson 36:08
7. Lüscher Sara 36:32
8. Anne-Margrethe Hausken 36:51
9. Angela Wild 36:53
10. Eva Jurenikova 37:01
It is not surprisingly World’s best middle distance runner Thierry Guergiou who turned the first WRE event for his advantage. The Frenchman won with a lead of 38 seconds on Swede Emil Wingstedt, while the Swiss Fabian Hertner, 2nd in sprint at last year’s World Championships, obtained place 3, three seconds behind him. Some young names also come out in the very top of the result list. The 5th place was once more occupied by a junior world champion in the person of Olle Boström, who finished less than one and a half minute behind Gueorgiou. Another gold medalist of last year’s JWOC, the Swiss Matthias Kyburz, finished some 30 seconds later on 14th position. Gueorgiou’s big rival Daniel Hubmann, who obtained a full set of medals at WOC 2010 and won yesterday, was indicated in the result list as having mispunched a control.
Men’s results
1. Thierry Gueorgiou 31:00
2. Emil Wingstedt 31:38
3. Hertner Fabian 31:41
4. Carl Waaler Kaas 32:07
5. Olle Boström 32:27
6. Leonid Novikov 32:30
6. Tero Föhr 32:30
8. François Gonon 32:36
9. Philippe Adamski 32:37
9. Mikhail Mamleev 32:37
