BJ WINS PARK WORLD TOUR RACE

Park World Tour

AUSTRALIAN David Brickhill-Jones has burst onto the Sprint scene this year with wins in both the Mediterranean Orienteering Sprint Championship and Round 2 of the Park World Tour. For good measure he took out 3rd place in Round 1. All events were held in southern Italy last March.

In Round 2 at Brindisi, Lithuanian Ieva Sargautyte and BrickhillJones (or “BJ”) celebrated their first ever Park World Tour victories at an historical point in Brindisi. Via Appia, the first road built by the Romans, was centre-stage for the PWT race.

BJ’s big bang at Brindisi

Among the men, 24-year old BJ scored his first main international victory, outscoring the 23 combatants including the PWT 2004 toptrio Østerbø - Näsman - Haldin. ”Things have really changed during the winter. Earlier, I could do a top race one day and screw everything up the next day. Now we’re talking confidence and results”, said BJ, who had a margin of over 16 seconds to Round 1 winner Østerbø.

The Norwegian silver medallist holds on to the lead on the Tour, but Brickhill-Jones is only two points behind. Sargautyte and Brickhill-Jones received a welcome reward in their bank accounts, being crowned Mediterranean Sprint Champions after the three races in Italy.

Absolutely perfect for BJ

Earlier, BJ had taken out the prologue race in Gallipoli, Italy. Last year Brickhill-Jones focused almost entirely on the WOC Sprint race in Sweden, but failed to get things right and ended up down in the ranks. In the Mediterranean Orienteering Sprint Championships prologue, he showed that he needs to Look at me! Look at me! BJ tops the results board. Photo: Lucie Navarová.

be counted among the absolute top elite when it comes to Sprint Orienteering.

He entered the race with his typical strategy: ”I started at my maximum speed, and hoped I would still have some energy at the end of the race. Apart from that Orienteering worked perfectly for me. But I really didn’t expect that the margin separating me from the runner-up would be as much as 16 seconds”, he exclaimed. On the podium he was joined by the Norwegian Øystein Kvaal Østerbo in 2nd and Denmark’s Claus Bloch in 3rd.

PWT 05 Brindisi map

Gallipoli, Italy 1.3.2005: The winner of the Mediterranean Open Sprint Championships Prologue David Brickhill-Jones (AUS) cheered by young and beautiful Italian fans. Photo: Lucie Navarová.

Premiere PWT Victory for Østerbø

In Round 1 at Otranto, Italy, the men’s race offered an exciting spectacle with the first three runners finishing within five seconds. Fastest of all was the 23-year old Norwegian Øystein Kvaal Østerbø who stormed through the eighteen controls of the challenging 2.5 kilometre course in an amazing 12:19.6, and took his first ever Park World Tour race victory. ”I think I was really lucky today and I can also thank BJ for the many mistakes he made. I ran to the first control with high caution in order to get onto the map and get an overview of what was coming later on the course”, were Østerbø’s telling comments after the race.

Above: Claus Bloch (DEN). Above right: Allan Bogle (GBR). Right: German Roman SchulteZurhausen. Photos: Lucie Navarová

The PWT 2004 Champion, Sweden’s Johan Näsman, claimed silver, four seconds behind the young Norwegian. David-Brickhill Jones grabbed the bronze, only half a second behind Näsman. Østerbø’s club mate, Stig Alvestad, finished 4th, ahead of the best Italian, Carlo Rigoni. Østerbø and Alvestad had travelled all the way from Trondheim in northern Norway for the PWT races in Italy.

BJ reflects

Orienteering Today asked BJ what had changed after his ‘debacle’ at WOC’04 in Sweden.

“Yes, I felt I had such a great chance there. But during the qualification I just lost my head and made two huge mistakes. All the other controls were perfect. I thought I’d missed the Final for sure. In the end I just scraped in and had to start first. That threw me a bit. I’d thought about that race for so long and that option had never crossed my mind. I just went flat out as I usually do, but made some bad errors during the race. I guess, when I look back on it, I just wasn’t as good as I thought I was.”

BJ lives in Norway and competes for the Haldin SK club. During the European autumn and winter he has regrouped, focusing on developing Orienteering skills. “I think I can run as fast, or faster, than every other orienteer. But Orienteering isn’t a running race. So I have focused a lot more on the Orienteering and mental side of it and now my confidence is 50 times higher. I think maybe I just believe in it more. Now I think I’m a great runner and also a pretty good orienteer.”

BJ is now looking towards WOC’05 in Japan. “The winter training was good to me. I trained in Japan then enjoyed myself in China (at the PWT races). Then I started training hard when I got back to Australia. Maybe I trained a bit too hard because I had to have two weeks off when I got back to Norway. So I started doing spinning and water running. I used to think that was such a waste of time but now it takes up maybe 40% of my training. I certainly haven’t peaked yet. I can go a lot faster. I think it was the Orienteering confidence that got me the PWT results in Italy.”

David Brickhill-Jones made several mistakes on the course which probably cost him victory. Yet his speed and technique were good enough for third place. Photo: Lucie Navarová.

Results – Round 1, Otranto, Italy

Men: 2.5 km, 18 controls 1 Øystein Kvaal Østerbo NOR 12:19.6 2 Johan Näsman SWE 12:24.0

3 David Brickhill-Jones AUS 12:24.5

4 Stig Alvestad NOR 12:27.2 5 Carlo Rigoni ITA 12:32.2 6 Claus Bloch DEN 12:44.0 7 Ingo Horst GER 12:44.5 8 Michele Tavernaro ITA 12:48.9 9 Allan Bogle GBR 12:53.4 10 Matthias Gilgien SUI 12:56.7

Results – Round 2, Brindisi, Italy

Men: 2,8 km, 11 controls

1 David Brickhill-Jones AUS 11:58.5

2 Øystein Kvaal Østerbo NOR 12:14.9 3 Claus Bloch DEN 12:15.5 4 Carlo Rigoni ITA 12:23.5 5 Ingo Horst GER 12:44.7 6 Johan Näsman SWE 12:48.6 7 Matthias Gilgien SUI 12:52.4 8 Michele Tavernaro ITA 12:55.0 9 Allan Bogle GBR 12:56.4 10 Mats Haldin FIN 12:56.6

Women’s winners routes – Gallipoli (Italy)

David Brickhill-Jones (AUS) and Øystein Kvaal Østerbø (NOR), in Brindisi. BrickhillJones dominated the race and won with a 16-second margin ahead of Østerbø. Photo: Lucie Navarová.

Results – Prologue, Gallipoli, Italy

Men: 2.6 km, 14 controls, 25 m climb

1 David Brickhill-Jones AUS 12:25.5

2 Øystein Kvaal Østerbo NOR 12:42.9 3 Claus Hallingdahl Bloch DEN 12:43.6 4 Ingo Horst GER 12:51.2 5 Stig Alvestad NOR 13:03.8 6 Matthias Gilgien SUI 13:05.8 7 Michele Tavernaro ITA 13:12.0 8 Carlo Rigoni ITA 13:12.5 9 Johan Näsman SWE 13:17.7 10 Marc Lauenstein SUI 13:24.0

Placegetters at Otranto: From left, Johan Näsman (SWE) 2nd, TOS_Ins_148mm_eng_RZ 29.4.2005 10:58 Uhr Seite 1Øystein Kvaal Østerbø (NOR) 1st and David Brickhill-Jones (AUS) 3rd. Photo: Lucie Navarová.

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