World Cup #1 in Turkey and mixed sprint relay

Right now Øystein is in the wellness centre on the hotel enjoying a Turkish bath and massage. He forgot to lock his computer, and as his room mate I decided to write an article on his blog, since it has been some time since last update. The first World Cup round in Turkey is over and Ida, Øystein and Bjørn will stay here until Thursday before we go to Slovenia and meet the rest of the National team for a six day long training camp. We have some days of easy training here in Turkey after the World Cup, enjoying the sun and swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.

We were supposed to be four runners from Norway, but Silje got sick and couldn’t run the competitions. We came to Antalya on Wednesday night and Thursday we used to prepare for the stony and low visible terrain by visiting the Model event and Antalya O-Days stage 1. With two good trainings we felt prepared for the first World Cup race of 2014. Here is a short summary of the competitions.

Middle qualification
It was a tight race in the short Middle distance and unfortunately Øystein didn’t manage to qualify because of too many small mistakes. Anyway, only the thirty best got to the A-final and there were still some World Cup points to fight for in the B-final. Ida and Bjørn qualified for the A-final with stable performances.

Middle final
The finals were dominated by the Swedes and the Swiss which seems to be in good shape. Ida was best of the Norwegians with an 8th place among very strong runners and Bjørn got a 21st place. Øystein ran through the B-final with following days sprint in his mind.

Mixed sprint relay
Since mixed sprint relay is in the WOC programme for the next years we want to use every opportunity to train for it. Even though people have different opinions about this relay format, it is taken seriously by all the athletes and we have ambitions to fight for medals at WOC. We had to replace Silje, and Anette Baklid fulfilled the team in the last minute. Everybody ran as expected and finally, after some disqualifications we placed 9th. Especially Øystein ran very fast and caught several teams and had second best time on the second leg.

Now we have some weeks of good training to prepare for EOC in Portugal. Danish Spring 21st - 23rd of March is selection races for EOC and WC in Spain. In other words, the next weeks will be important.

News on World of O from Middle Qual, Middle Final (route choice analyze) ans Sprint relay and Live centre with link to results and GPS tracking.