Gold for Switzerland and Great Britain at WUOC relay ...

... but the Slovakian home team winning silver medals seemed to be happiest men in todays WUOC relay at Soroska in Slovakia. Both relays were very tight and exciting all the way until the finish - and nothing was certain about the gold medals until Matthias Merz crossed the finish line first for the swiss men and Helen Bridle secured the gold medals for the british women only a few meters in front of swiss anchor Seline Stadler.

Tight fight on the last leg
Switzerland started the relay best, with young Fabian Hertner - silver medalist from the sprint yesterday - coming into the changeover 15 seconds in front of defending champion Czech Republics Jan Sedivy. The swiss men continued to run good races - and at the last changeover, Baptiste Rollier coould send out anchor Matthias Merz with a small lead to four teams chasing him within a minute - Finland, Slovakia, Norway and Czech Republic. At the spectator control, Merz had increased his lead somewhat, and the following pack had been reduced to three teams - Slovakia, Czech Republic and Norway. Now the teams entered the part with tricky orienteering, where several runners had big problems during the previous legs.

Merz however, kept his head cool, and never let the other get contact. Behind Merz, there was a hard fight for the two remaining medals. Of the three teams fighting, one would have to return home without a medal. - Lucas Bartak, the Slovakian runner, had different gaffling than me and the Czech runner - and we saw him crossing in front of us several times during the last part of the last leg, norwegian anchor Øystein Kvaal Østerbø said after the exciting finish. - Towards the end of the course, it seemed that he was too far in front of us, and I concentrated on not letting the Czech runner beat me and be out of the medals, instead of trying to get Bartak, Østerbø continued. - However, at one of the last controls, Bartak made a small mistake, and I nearly got up to him. The norwegian did all he could to close the gap towards the finish, but although he got closer for every meter, a happy Bartak could rise his arm in triumph as he crossed the finish line (see pictures below - you can also see Østerbø and the Czech anchor - winner at the long distance Michal Smola - behind Bartak).

Gold medal: Switzerland

Silver medal: Slovakia

Bronze medal: Norway

Bad luck for Czech Republic
The Czech Republic where defending champions in both the men and women class, but did not manage to repeat their victories from Plzen two years ago. At the first leg, czech Macuchova - who was 4th at the sprint yesterday - got really unlucky in the second part of the course, and made a 9 minute error at a single control (a pit hundred meters south of control 11 on the map below). Thus Czech Republic were out of the fight for the gold medals. Instead, Hungarys Bernadette Kelemen was the first runner to return from the forest, with a minute down to Great Britain in 4th position, 2.30 down to Switzerland and Norway in the 7th and 8th position, more than 6 minutes down to Finland in 12th position and more than 10 minutes down to Czech Republic in 15th spot.

Gold medals in their pockets
The swiss second leg runner Naomi Cerny did a very good run on the second leg, and brought Switzerland into a clear lead, which had increased even more when Seline Stadler started on the last leg for Switzerland. When passing the spectator control after 2/3rd of the race, the swiss silver medalist from the sprint yesterday had a lead of 3 minutes to Finland, and nearly another two minutes down to Norway and Great Britain. The speaker had already named Switzerland as certain winners in the women category when the sensational message arrived from the prewarning: Great Britains Helen Bridle had passed the prewarning alone. But only 13 seconds later, the swiss runner punched the control only - and the crowd prepared themselves for another exciting duel. However, Bridle managed to secure the victory in the forest, and came out from the forest more than 20 meters before Stadler. Just before the finish line, she was met by three very happy british women - Mackenzie, Palmer and Elder.

Only 16 seconds behind Stadler, Maria Rantala secured the bronze medals for Finland. A minute later, Elise Egseth came into the finish to the 4th place for Norway.

Gold medal: Great Britain

Silver medal: Switzerland

Bronze medal: Finland

Map from todays relay
Below you see the map from one of the women courses from todays relay. The terrain was again karstic, and especially the last loop after the spectator control proved to be tricky for many of the runners. Proper use of compass was very important, and the green areas made it sometimes difficult to get the same good overview as at the long distance. This karstic terrain in the eastern part of Slovakia is definately worth visiting for those of you who enjoy interesting and tricky orienteering. There was an accompanying competition to the WUOC here - "Grand Prix Slovakia/Slovak Karst Cup". This competition is held annually in this region, and I have really enjoyed running here.