in Baia Mare

After the exciting sprint block, the third day of the JWOC 2023 moved to Valea Alba to contest the middle distance race, this year with a direct final. The course setters did a great job, designing challenging courses, where the runners had to be very precise and efficiently use their orienteering techniques to progress at high speed through the magnificent Romanian forest.

In the women’s class, the victory went to the Swiss runner Henriette Radzikowski, who managed to run a consistent and clean race, beating the Czech Lucie Dittrichova by just 4 s. The Norwegian Pia Young Vik closed the podium with her third medal in this JWOC. Two-time champion Rita Máramarosi led the race in the first half, but two mistakes at controls 7 and 13 left her out of the fight for the positions of honour, finishing in the 12th position. Special mention of Inés Berger who finished in a worthy fourth place, just 5 s off bronze.

The leg 4–5 was one of the most challenging on the course, and where we could see big mistakes. It is a diagonal downhill in a dense area to end on a ‘small’ cliff in the slope. Going straight is very risky, and only Pia Young Vik took the fastest left option among the favourites.

unless indicated otherwise

The last part of the course, which seemed quite easy and fast, was, however, really decisive. In this fragment, we can see the mistake of the Norwegian Pia Young Vik in the 12th control, who commits a steering inaccuracy losing about 30 s. Let’s remember that she was only 14 s away from gold at the end!

In the men’s class, Swedish runner Hannes Mogensen won the gold with a margin of just under 1 min, running at an absolutely impressive pace: 5:01 min/km! The podium was completed with the Czech Jakub Chaloupsky in second place, and the Danish runner Oscar David Brom Jensen in bronze position.

The leg 9–10 was the same as the leg 5–6 for the girls, and it brought a lot of headaches for the runners. However, according to the GPS data, the boys took better advantage of the option on the right (using the path) to get the best split.

[Czechia won both gold medals in the long distance, with Jakub Chaloupsky ahead of Noel Braun (SWE) and Pascal Schaerer (SUI), and Lucie Dittrichova 1 s faster than Henriette Radzikowski (SUI), followed by Pia Young Vik (NOR).

In forest relay, it was gold to Czechia, silver to Switzerland, bronze to Finland in men’s race, and gold by 1 s to Hungary, silver to Czechia, and bronze to Norway in women’s race.]

Orienteering Australia posts

The Australian JWOC team got off to a great start in the sprint distance in the city of Baia Mare, Romania, with two top 30 results. Congratulations Nea and Milla and to all the team for their effort. JWOC continued on Tuesday night in Baia Mare with the sprint relay, and what a result it was for Australia!

The number one team finished in 12th place overall to be the eighth nation across the line. We believe this is the best ever JWOC relay result for Australia. Congratulations Milla, Cooper, Callum and Nea. Our second team of Mikaela, Leith, Toby and Justine finished in 28th place in a field of 54 teams.

Our JWOC team continued to perform with great credit when the week's racing entered the forest formats. In the middle distance, Nea had a great race to finish in 20th place, just 2:07 down on the winning time for the challenging course. Meanwhile in the men's race, David was the top performer with an impressive 41st place, 5:55 behind the best time. [In] a tough long distance race (…) Leith [was] our best performer, result wise, finishing in an impressive 48th place in the men's race. We want to give a special shout out to Zefa from Orienteering NZ for his outstanding podium fifth place.

JWOC 2023 concluded with the holding of the relay. It was tough racing with a tense finish in the women's race after Sweden crossed the line first in a four-way sprint only to be disqualified, leaving Hungary to take the gold. Our women's team [Nea, Erika and Justine] were the 16th nation, and our men's team [Toby, Sam and David] were the 19th nation in the official results.

Orienteering Australia thanks all the team members for their efforts in representing their country in a demanding week of racing. We also extend special thanks and gratitude to our coaching and management team of Tash, Serena, Warren and Brett for looking after the team.