Team Switzerland had time to celebrate their World Championships title. (Photo bt Kristina Lindgren/IOF)
Defending world champions Switzerland regained their Sprint Relay title at the World Championships in Genoa. But it was not until the fourth and final leg that the relay race was decided.
The heavily forked and quite hilly relay courses created lots of different route choices among the athletes on the first leg, which was dominated by Hanna Lundberg of Sweden and Hedvig Gydesen of Denmark, who also came in for the exchange in that order.
Other favorites such as Norway (Victoria Hæstad Bjørnstad) and Switzerland (Natalia Gemperle) followed shortly after, while the defending silver medalists from Finland lost over a minute and never came close to the leading teams since.
On the second leg, Norway started a dominance that seemed to be decisive for the relay, when Eirik Langedal Breivik broke away from the rest of the leaders and created a gap.
During the course, the lead extended to 20 seconds, but towards the end Tino Polsini of Switzerland caught up a little, so that there was a 10-second Norwegian lead. Austria, Hungary and Sweden followed behind the leaders.
It was almost similar to the pattern that Norway has followed earlier in the season, where Kasper Fosser on the third leg increased the lead. The Norwegian sprint world champion practically flew away on third leg, so that no one could follow him.
And the Norwegian lead grew to a full 28 seconds. Switzerland (Fabian Aebersold) was still in second position, while France’s Matthias Barros-Vallet ran his team close to the medals with Sweden (Isac von Krusenstierna) right on his heels.
But where Pia Young Vik has held on to leads earlier in the season and steered Norway towards World Cup wins, things were different today.
Simona Aebersold hammered away from the start and closed the Norwegian lead already halfway down the course. And it was clear that there was a difference in physical strength today, because Aebersold continued right past Vik and kept the high pace to secure a convincing Swiss title defense victory.
Behind her, Sweden’s Karolin Ohlsson also managed to overtake Norway at the very end, so it was Swedish silver and Norwegian bronze.
France, Hungary and Czechia took up the rest of the podium places.
After almost a year of focusing on sprint orienteering in international competitions, it’s time to find some other shoes when the world elite resume the World Cup in the Czech forests in early August.
Top 6 results
1 Switzerland (Gemperle, Polsini, F. Aebersold, S. Aebersold) 1:03:14.7
2 Sweden (Lundberg, Runefors, v. Krusenstierna, Ohlsson) + 0:20
3 Norway (Bjørnstad, Langedal Breivik, Fosser, Young Vik) +0:38
4 France (Beauvir, Delenne, Barros-Vallet, Calandry) + 0:52
5 Hungary (Czako, Jonas, Buldoso, Maramarosi) + 1:16
6 Czechia (Rauturier, Glonek, Křivda, Dittrichova) + 1:47
