The fourth stage of O-Ringen Elitserien found its hero in a 19 years old Swede, who already finds his way through the elite world while still being a junior. That he is an exceptionnal athlete, Johan Runesson showed already two years ago by taking three gold medals of the 4 available at Junior World Orienteering Championships, at the age of only 17.
“It was a very hard race” were the first words of Runesson when one asked him to comment his run. Words that everybody could already read on his face when he layed down near the finish line, the body in the mud, trying to find some air to breath. “I didn’t expect at all this result during the race! I did some small mistakes, but I was running very fast. I knew that Daniel Hubmann was starting 2 minutes after me, so I expected to be caught up by him. I started realizing that it was a good race when I saw that he hadn’t yet done so. I heard then at the last control that I was in lead and the sprint up to the finish line was a really nice feeling…” The arrival of David Andersson was less spectacular, but the sprint still dramatic: Andersson won over Runesson with just two seconds of advance. Nevertheless, Runesson was the one all microphones tried to catch.
“The beginning was steep, with a lot of up- and downhill running”, Runesson explained further. “I saw that this part was the only one with that kind of slopes, so I thought that I should push as much as I could uphill. I tried to stay calm and to look very much at my compass. After 5-6 controls I felt very strong and all controls were exactly where I wanted them to be. Then we switched to a flatter part with open areas and marshes. I decided to stay as close to the line as possible and to check often the compass. I really tried to be always one step ahead“. “It doesn’t look that difficult on the map, but we had some quite tricky controls“, completed 3rd Oleksandr Kratov, who finished just 15 seconds behind Andersson and Runesson on the 8km long race, followed by Daniel Hubmann 10 seconds later. “It was a really interesting terrain. My race was nice, I didn’t do so many mistakes except a 30 seconds lost quite close to the finish“. Those three men are actually sharing the podium of the current general ranking of O-Ringen Elitserien: David Andersson leads with 2’20″ over Oleksandr Kratov and 3’30″ over youngster Johan Runesson. Leader until today, Peter Öberg didn’t take the start of this competition. The final result will be decided tomorrow through a chasing start stage.
“Congratulations, you are the winner of this stage“, the speaker announced to Simone Niggli-Luder some minutes earlier. “Oh no, I don’t believe that“, Niggli answered straight. “I hadn’t a good race, I really believe one can do better…” She however had to admit she mistaked on that guess. Maybe missing the concurrence of absent Helena Jansson, Simone Niggli took the victory over Eva Jurenikova with exactly one minute lead. Lina Persson followed 30″ behind Jurenikova. The results of the overall ranking seem quite fixed in that category, exception made of any big time loss tomorrow. Niggli’s lead over Jurenikova reaches impressive 10’30″, while Signe Söes has a delay of 5’07″ to the 2nd place.
The O-Ringen participants will compete tomorrow in a terrain almost touching the O-Ringen town, for the first time after 4 stages requesting around 40 minutes drive for each. Until then, one will try to get some clothes dry again. Today’s rain showers transformed the terrains, faces, bodies and maps in mud fields.
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