okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Ouch
Emma Engstrand was in 3rd among the women at the world cup sprint final on her was to the last control. But she missed it. Her split to the last control was 4:41. To put that split in context, the two U.S. runners ran the leg in 1:15 and 1:19 (the 22nd and 25th best splits). Engstrand dropped from 3rd to 20th.
Anne Margrethe Hausken had a very similar problem on the control. She went from 6th to 16th. Hausken's split on that leg was 3:01.
Hausken wrote a little about her mistake. She apparently got distracted by seeing two other runners, then came to a place where she couldn't pass a big wall. "I'm still not exactly sure where I was, but I'm never going back to Cervara to find out."
There must be some lessons in this for sprint orienteers. You can boom a huge portion of the race with one loss of concentration. Engstrand lost about 3:30 in a race that was won in under 16. A 3:30 boom is like a ten minute boom on an hour long course. I suppose another lesson would be that the race isn't over until you're standing on the other side of the finish line.
posted by Michael |
8:14 PM