Simona Aebersold (SUI) and Kasper Fosser (NOR) won today’s Orienteering World Cup sprint in Genoa, Italy by large margins.
With an arena beautifully located on the waterfront in Genoa’s western end and a both varied and challenging sprint course, Round 2 of the World Cup got off to a great start.
Both the women’s and the men’s courses began in a hilly forest area, which offered difficult route choice challenges on the slopes.
Later on the course, it was a more classic urban sprint shorter legs in the narrow streets.
Big margin for Aebersold
Simona Aebersold solved the task almost flawlessly and ended up winning by a whopping 28 seconds to compatriot Natalia Gemperle. They both had roughly the same split times most of the way through the course, but Aebersold’s faster route choice to control 16 decided the day’s race.
Simona Aebersold on her way to another top performance in the World Cup. Photo: Kristina Lindgren
Norway’s Ane Dyrkorn achieved her best ever individual result on the international scene with a third place after she confidently made the fastest route choices early on.
Tove Alexandersson (SWE), who finished fourth today, struggled a bit more towards the difficult control 5 and tried in vain to make up time on the last part of the course.
Victoria Hæstad Bjørnstad (NOR) and Venla Harju (FIN) grabbed the last places in the top 6.
The return of Fosser
In the men’s class, Kasper Fosser’s victory ended up being 21 seconds ahead of Sweden’s Martin Regborn in second place.
Fosser took his time to read the map carefully in the beginning of the course and had a comfortable lead of 18 seconds halfway.
Regborn took a slower route to control 5 and was 37 seconds behind Fosser there.
On the long leg to control 9 Regborn took the fastest way and gained around 15 seconds on Fosser and the later number three, Tomáš Křivda (CZE).
Kasper Fosser on the last meters of today’s sprint on the sea front in Genoa. Photo: Kristina Lindgren
The victory was a great recovery for Fosser, who struggled with performing at full speed at last weekend’s World Cup in Switzerland.
Behind him, Regborn decided the battle for second place with a quick route choice to control 18 and kept Křivda 5 seconds behind.
The two Swiss Florian Attinger and Tino Polsini impressed with a fourth and fifth place, respectively, ahead of Miika Kirmula, who finished sixth – 40 seconds behind Fosser.
Full results, GPS-tracking and maps at IOF LIVE
The World Cup Round 2 continues tomorrow with a Sprint Relay in the eastern end of Genoa.
TV broadcast begins at 15.30 CEST (UTC+2) and the race starts 10 minutes later.
Follow the sprint relay on IOF TV
Drottninggatan 47 31/2 tr
SE-65225 Karlstad
SWEDEN
iof@orienteering.sport
Contact us
RSS
