Junior World Orienteering Championships - Long Distance

New Zealand orienteers stepped up to a higher level at the Junior World Orienteering Championships, producing excellent results on the technically and physically challenging Long Distance course.

New Zealand orienteer Greta Knarston shook off the challenge of the altitude and poor weather to reach another career highlight with a top 20 finish at the 2009 Junior World Championships.

Knarston's 19th place, 8 minutes behind winner Ida Bobach (DEN) is her third top 20 finish at Junior World level, after her 16th and 19th in Australia in 2007.

Greta's tactics included a "lot of hesitation and caution, which no doubt helped avoid a big error" she said.

The Long distance Championships were held at Passo Rolle at 1500-2000m altitude in the Dolomites, Italy and featured a lot of 'slope orienteering', angling across the steep and detailed mountain slopes.

Teammate Kate Morrison ran the race of her life, at one stage coming through the radio control in 6th place, and eventually finishing in 22nd place, only 22 seconds behind Knarston.

She was pleased with her run, although there was room for some improvement - " I lost out a little to some mistakes near the end" she said.

Best of the New Zealand men, was Tom Reynolds, with an outstanding run to claim 31st place of the 150 runners, behind winning Swede Gustave Bergman.

Reynolds lost "two minutes at control 1" but was mostly error-free through the rest of the 9.5km course in the challenging conditions - " the rain made the slopes really slippery to traverse and bare rock really slick."

The Middle distance race qualifications are to be held at San Martino on Thursday July 9, and the Finals on Friday, July 10, followed by Relays on Saturday.

Results

Women

Men