okansas.blogspot.com

okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering

Saturday, July 12, 2003

Old man

I had a topic in mind for today. But, I changed my mind when I saw that 41 year-old Hakan Eriksson won the Swedish sprint selection race. That's pretty good for an old man...and inspiring for other old men!

When I saw the result, I remembered reading an interview with Eriksson about his ambition to run the sprint at the WOC. Here is a bit of the article (published April 9, 2003):

Hakans theory is clear: ...for the WOC they select specialists at different distances, who have a chance to take a medal.

"I've talked with Goeran Andersson (national team leader) about my new goals. I'm aiming for one distance -- the sprint. I'll follow the same plan as last year, and that resulted in a gold at the Swedish sprint champs. It takes a while for my old body to get speed, but I feel like things are going in the right direction. There aren't many who are aiming for the sprint, so I think I have a chance to make it to the WOC."

"Obviously the selection races will decide. If I'm going to make it to Switzerland, I've got to do well at the selection races."

Here is the original newspaper story in Swedish.

It'll be interesting to see if Eriksson makes the Swedish team. Having focused on the sprint and then won the selection race, it might be hard to justify not selecting him. But, you never know.

Age and the TDF

I took another look at the ages of TDF riders. This time I looked at the average age of teams. There are some young teams and some old teams. (Keep in mind that I'm estimating age as 2003-year of birth and that I'm missing five riders).

The three oldest teams are: US Postal (31.1), Gerolsteiner (31.8) and Bianchi (32.6). Two of the riders favored to winArmstrongng and Ulrich, are on old teams.

The three youngest teams are: FJD (26.9), Brioche (26.6) and Ibanesto (26.1). I think two of the young teams, FJD and Brioche, are French teams. I think the TDF organizers give priority to French teams when they select teams. So, it probably isn't surprising that the younger teams will include some French teams.

posted by Michael | 3:51 PM

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