The European Ski Orienteering Championships started in Finland in the city of Imatra. Russia is represented at these competitions by 12 athletes, three of them from the Khabarovsk Territory. On the very first day of the competition, the young Khabarovsk athlete Sergei Gorlanov won a bronze medal, leaving behind more titled orienteers.
For Sergei Gorlanov, the European Championship is his debut sports career. He recently moved into the adult category, but has already proven himself at the last national championship, where he won medals at all distances and was number one on the national team to participate in the current European Championship.
The first discipline was sprint. The race took place at a fairly low temperature - minus 23 degrees.
Judging by the reviews of athletes, sprint distance was technically very difficult to navigate, with a large number steep descents. There were many places where one could have made a mistake,” said the coach of the Khabarovsk athlete Alexey Mityakov.
Sergey Gorlanov started at the beginning of the group of the strongest athletes. From Russians to sprint race six people participated.
In general, it was a very high-speed distance, a lot of skating distances, almost everywhere there were only two choices, right or left. The outcome of the race was decided by one transfer from the third to the fourth checkpoint; between them there were a lot of “forbidden” points, and this created its own difficulty when choosing an option. If I had taken a chance and not spent a lot of time choosing options, I think I would have won 20 seconds back on myself. In terms of technical completion of the distance, I am pleased with myself, and physically I went well. I had two falls; there was not enough snow in the forest, and I stumbled a couple of times, and on this I also lost a total of ten seconds,” said bronze medalist of the European Championship Sergei Gorlanov.
As a result, the eminent Russian Andrei Lamov finished first, the Finn Jüri Uusitalo finished second and Sergei Gorlanov third, while fulfilling the standard of an international master of sports. The Khabarovsk resident lost 17 seconds to the winner, and only two seconds to the silver medalist. Another Russian orienteer Andrey Grigoriev took fourth place. Behind were such eminent athletes as Swede Eric Rost and ex-Khabarovsk resident Eduard Khrennikov - he is the most titled in the history of orienteering, a 14-time world champion. Edward now represents Perm region.
Also, two Komsomol members competed in the sprint race: Honored Master of Sports Alena Trapeznikova and International Master of Sports Anastasia Kravchenko. They finished in the top twenty. Alena with 11 results, Anastasia with 13.
Today there will be a mixed relay race. Sergey Gorlanov will fight together with Maria Kechkina, she shared fourth place in the sprint, showing the same seconds with Polina Frolova. In addition to the mixed relay, the competition program includes: long distance, middle distance, and men's and women's relays.
Let us recall that in August last year, Khabarovsk resident Natalya Naumova, for the first time in the history of the region, won two medals at the World Veterans Orienteering Championship, which was held in Estonia.
Ekaterina Gavrilenko, Khabarovsk news on DVhab.ru
Photo, video: Malin Fur, Elena and Alexey Mityakov
February 20th, 2017
The European Ski Orienteering Championships took place this year almost in Russia - in the Finnish city of Imatra, just 30 kilometers from the Russian border. The competition center was located in the Imatran Kylpylä SPA hotel, these are very familiar places to me. The championship ended last Sunday, February 12, and I finally got around to writing a short report about it.
Sprint
The sprint took place on Tuesday, February 7th. There is little snow in Imatra, as well as in the Leningrad region, but in recent days there has been some snowfall. But on the first day of the competition there was a serious frost. In the morning it was -22 degrees in bright sunshine.
Unfortunately, the GPS broadcast took place without a map; it was not very interesting to watch colored dots running across a white map. The map was only released on Thursday because the sprint relay was also taking place over the same terrain. Now you can view the map and normal GPS broadcast.
Both men and women had a long stretch in the sprint, where they had to choose the right option; the “correct” option gave an advantage of 30-40 seconds. This was the main difficulty of the distance.
U women the main favorite was Swede Tove Alexandersson. Our Maria Kechkina (Perm region) was in the lead until the 5th checkpoint, but on the way from the 5th to the 6th checkpoint, Maria made a mistake that cost her a medal:
And the same Tove Alexandersson rushed to the gold, her gap at the finish was as much as 58 seconds, this is a lot for such short distance. Finland's Mirka Suutari won silver, Sweden's Magdalena Ohlson took bronze.
photo Rade Gasparovic
Mirka Suutari is a new name in the world of ski orienteering, this was her first career podium. The girl is 22 years old, she has been running for the adult Finnish national team for the second year, lives in:
photo http://online.vasabladet.fi
4th and 5th place was shared by our Maria Kechkina and Polina Frolova from Krasnoyarsk
U men Many favorites ran unsuccessfully, Eduard Khrennikov made a mistake, Stanimir Belomazhev had problems with his equipment. The Swedes and Norwegians looked pale. For a long time, the best time remained the result of the little-known Estonian Mattis Jaam (in the end he stayed in 5th place and got into the flower ceremony). But to our delight, one of the favorites still ended up on the top step of the podium - Andrey Lamov (Vologda region)
photo orienteering.org
Andrey chose the right options and drove quickly. On Facebook, he commented that the “pruning” in Imatra did not work well, because although there was a little snow on the ground, there were a lot of blueberries in the forest. Skis don't go well on blueberries.
The men's competition was tighter: the top three finished in 19 seconds. Finn Jüri Uusitalo won silver, Sergei Gorlanov from Khabarovsk won bronze.
photo Rade Gasparovic
Juri Uusitalo is an athlete born in 1994 from the city of Pori, who stood on the podium for the first time in Imatra.
This is also the first medal for Sergei Gorlanov in adults international starts. Last year he raced in juniors
Photo https://vk.com/orient13
Andrey Grigoriev from Krasnoyarsk took 4th place.
The next day - Wednesday, it took place sprint relay. Each nation had the right to field up to 3 teams at the start (one team is a pair of men and women). But only one best couple from the country is included in the official protocol of the European Championship. The same card was used as the day before. The sprint relay race has 6 stages, women run it in this order, stages 1-3-5, and men 2-4-6. Russia entered three pairs: Polina Frolova - Andrey Lamov (Russia-1), Maria Kechkina - Sergey Gorlanov (Russia-2) and Alena Trapeznikova - Andrey Grigoriev (Russia-3). The composition of the teams was distributed strictly according to the results of the sprint that took place the day before, and of course, all three of our teams claimed a medal. Ski orienteering sprint relays at the European Championships are always a much more fun and unpredictable event than at the World Championships, where all nations field only one team. And here there were three teams from all the strongest countries.
After almost every stage, the composition of the top three changed. But after each pass, one of our teams was the leader. And after the 3rd stage, our girls even took all three first places.
Technically the distances were simple, even easier than the day before.
All Swedish and Finnish teams were also in the lead. TO final stage the situation was this: Russia-1 passed the baton first, after 8 seconds Russia-2, and then 7 more teams (our third team, three Swedish and three Finnish teams) completed it in 1 minute and 9 seconds. As a result, the fate of the medals was decided at the finish line; a “locomotive” of 3 Russians and 3 Swedes rolled to the finish line. At the same time, only two medals were awarded for six people. As a result, our Andrei Lamov won. Andrey Lamov (Vologda region) and Polina Frolova (Krasnoyarsk region) became European champions in the sprint relay. Second at the finish was Ulrik Nordberg (Sweden-3), along with Frida Sandberg who received silver. The best of the Finnish teams was also formally the third team: Marjut Turunen - Ville-Petteri Saarela. This Finnish couple got bronze medals, but formally Finland-3 was only seventh at the finish line.
The photo shows the finish of the sprint relay, Andrey Lamov on the left, Ulrik Nordberg on the right:
4th place for the Bulgarian team, 5th for the Estonians, 6th for the Norwegians.
And one more photo, our winners Polina and Andrey:
photo https://vk.com/onewsinfo
GPS broadcast of women's stages: http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/2017esocWsrelay
GPS broadcast of men's stages: http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/2017esocMsrelay
Long distance This year it took place from a general start. The scattering was organized in this way: the first part was the same distance for everyone, then 3 laps (A, B and C), which the participants rode in different orders, and the ending was again the same for everyone. Due to the fact that one of these circles was longer than the others, during the race it was difficult to adequately assess who the real leader was. First about men. Swede Ulrik Nordberg was in the lead for a long time; his lead over his closest pursuer reached a minute after the second scattering circle. However, it turned out that he was simply driving shorter laps at first. By 23 CP, when the sifting was over, the true leader was Andrei Lamov. He was pursued by the young Swede Marcus Lunholm, who chose a very correct strategy for this race: his seeding option coincided with Lamov’s, and the Swede stuck to Andrey and did not lag behind him until the very finish. Judging by the splits, he almost didn’t get ahead at all, but at the finish he tried to fight, however, he lost the gold to Andrey. Kirill Veselov (Krasnoyarsk Territory) and Eduard Khrennikov (Perm Territory) competed for bronze. Super veteran (born in 1973!) Khrennikov remained 4th, bronze went to Kirill Veselov.
photo https://vk.com/onewsinfo
U women The sifting was organized in the same way, but instead of 3 circles there were only 2 (A and B). The main favorite, as always, was Tove Alexandersson. After the first round of screening, our Maria Kechkina (who had a shorter lap B) was in the lead with a gap of 2 minutes 21 seconds. But after the end of the sifting, Tove came forward (with a gap of 35 seconds), and it seemed that the fate of the gold was determined. But the Swede made two micro-mistakes, and Alena Trapeznikova (Khabarovsk Territory) got to her. As a result, the fate of gold was decided at the stadium in the finishing spurt, where our athlete was faster. Alena Trapeznikova won gold, Tove Alexandersson won silver, Maria Kechkina won bronze. Polina Frolova was 5th, Tatyana Oborina (Perm region) was 6th.
photo https://vk.com/onewsinfo
Average distance took place on Saturday, after a day of rest. At the middle stage there was a time trial start. Unfortunately, this start was marked by a scandal. Not exactly a scandal, but unpleasant situation. On the stretch from 7 to 8 checkpoints (below is a map with the men's distance, but the women also had a similar stage), some of the participants (15 people men) decided to drive not on the grid, but on the ice of the lake.
If you look closely at the map, you will see that the blue color of the lake is outlined with a black line - and this means that the symbol of an insurmountable water barrier was used, and it was impossible to drive along the lake.
Participants who drove along the lake were immediately disqualified and immediately excluded from the protocol. As a result, the top three winners were announced at the finish: Norwegian Lars Moholdt, Kirill Veselov (Krasnoyarsk Territory) and Andrey Grigoriev (Krasnoyarsk Territory). At the same time best time Bulgarian Stanimir Belomazhev, who cut across the lake, showed at the distance. The removed participants filed a protest, and the jury, after consideration, made the following decision: to reinstate the removed participants, subtract the time for passing the stage kp7-8 from overall result. As a result, the top three winners began to look like this: Moholdt - Veselov - Belomazhev. You can imagine the disappointment of Andrei Grigoriev, whom everyone had already congratulated for bronze, but he never received it. To be honest, this is a very strange decision by the jury - the rules are the rules.
Andrei Lamov broke his pole on the way to the 1st point, but returned to the start for a new one and walked the entire distance. In the end, fourth place went to Andrei Grigoriev, fifth place to Sergei Gorlanov (who, taking into account the 7-8 stage, would have been on the podium).
U women the intrigue was whether any of the Russians could overtake Tove. We couldn't do it last Saturday. The only one of our girls who could walk the distance at a speed of approximately equal speed Alexandersson was Maria Kechkina, but, unfortunately, Maria made a small mistake at the very beginning of the race.
The rest of us were slower than the jet Swede. In addition to Maria Kechkina, Polina Frolova, Alena Trapeznikova and Anastasia Kravchenko competed for medals. Alena Trapeznikova, after a small mistake by the Swede, even took first position, but she did not have enough speed. But Polina and Anastasia made mistakes at the end of the race. In the end, Alexandersson won the gold.
Maria Kechkina won silver, Alena Trapeznikova won bronze. Kravchenko is 4th, Frolova shared 5th-6th places with Finnish Salla Koskela.
It is curious that the results of the athletes riding on the lake were not restored, the reason being that no one filed a protest against the results of the women's race. But only two of the girls decided to ride along the lake.
The last number of the program was relay, which took place on Sunday. At the European Championships, each nation can field two teams of three. But the system here is the same as in mixed relays- only one team from a country makes it into the final protocol.
Men. Andrei Grigoriev - Kirill Veselov - Andrei Lamov ran for Russia-1, Vladimir Barchukov - Eduard Khrennikov - Sergei Gorlanov for the second team. From the first stage, 5 teams took the lead: 2 of our teams, the first Swedish team, the first Finnish team of Bulgarians, who could not qualify for medals, since they had others besides Stanimir Belomazhev strong athletes No. It was clear that these were the top three winners and there was an extra one from the Russian teams. At the second stage, Swede Ulrik Nordberg was able to take the lead; he finished with a gap of 1’25”. Our teams were second and third, and the Latvian team unexpectedly entered the fight for bronze with the Finns - Andris Kivlinieks was able to finish right behind Kirill Veselov in fourth position. Sergei Gorlanov from the second team was able to catch up with the Swede Eric Rost by the middle of the third stage, and Andrei Lamov was a little behind. The GPS broadcast shows that Sergei Gorlanov makes an incomprehensible mistake on the way to 17 (penultimate checkpoint)
It’s not clear why, but Sergei drove in the wrong direction in a simple situation,
and the gold goes to the Swedes (Martin Hammarberg - Ulrik Nordberg - Eric Rost). Russia - 2 is in second place, our first team was actually third at the finish line, the Finland-1 team was fourth, but it was the Finns who received bronze medals.
On the fourth day of the European Orienteering Championships, which takes place in Finland, participants competed in the middle distance. Among them were three representatives of the Khabarovsk Territory. During the race, 17 out of nine athletes were disqualified in the men's elite group different countries, as well as a participant from the Far Eastern center Sergei Gorlanov, who claimed a silver medal.
One of the distance runs was along the lake. Even with little snow, 17 athletes from nine different countries decided to move along the pond, choosing this orienteering option as the winning one. The championship participants assess the risks themselves, and this is not prohibited by the championship rules. All athletes who moved along this path were disqualified by the organizers along the course, including Sergei Gorlanov, who occupied the leading position for more than half of the race.
On the map the lake was outlined in black. This means that it is irresistible. But it is clear that this is meant for summer, but not for winter. Some insurmountable obstacle is drawn with a thick black line, for example, a paraped or a certain territory. Was here average distance, why the participants were removed is unclear. I called our leading cartographer, who once drew maps for the World Championships in Italy, and he said that this could not happen. It just might be additional information from the organizers. Whether it reached the athletes or not, no one knows. But the championship participants from nine countries were withdrawn. This is a third of the participants, this is nonsense, the obvious fault of the organizers, said orienteering coach Alexey Mityakov.
The Bulgarians were the first to file a protest, the Russians did it at the last moment. The organizers backed down. All participants who were disqualified under this point of the rules were reinstated, but part of the distance that ran between those controversial control points was removed from their results, and this was done manually. Accordingly, Sergey Gorlanov ended up fifth in the standings, ultimately losing 21 seconds to the winner. If all the results had been taken into account as expected, Gorlanov would have become silver medalist, losing only one second to the winner.
The award ceremony was postponed, there were a lot of proceedings. About disqualification: everyone has their own point of view, and it’s impossible to say that I’m one hundred percent right or wrong. I and an even larger group of athletes drove across a lake on which it is prohibited to move, but the organizers made a number of minor mistakes (scratch marks that are not even visible to the viewer), which justified us in this situation. As a result, disqualification infringes on our rights, and restoration infringes on the rights of another part of the protocol, and the rules of orientation in general. The organizers, after much deliberation and decision, made a compromise. One stage was removed from the results. This is also not fair to some athletes, and in general this should not be done. Unfortunately, there are not many countries in orienteering that can hold competitions at high level. Because of this, moments like this come up. Of course, I want a medal, but I will be content with what I have. Even though they didn’t film it, it’s good,” said Sergei Gorlanov.
In the world practice of orienteering, there are often cases when athletes passed risky sections of the route at their own peril and risk and their results were recognized as valid. Such an example can be given with the famous athlete of the Khabarovsk Territory. 14-time world champion Eduard Khrennikov, who now represents the Perm region and is also competing at the current European Championship, won the World Cup for the first time in his early days.
He took off skis and mountain rivers that flowed over rocks six times, crossed them on foot and thus beat the participant who took second place by six minutes. Nobody believed that so much could be won. When Eduard drew his path of movement, some athletes twirled their fingers at their temples, saying that he was some kind of madman, he risked a lot, both his health and his skis, but he did not break the rules and became a champion. I think there will still be discussions about the consequences of the current incident, because everyone was in shock and did not understand why the results were annulled. The participants reached the distance, already knowing that they were disqualified, and ran the last segments dullly. The reinstatement of the protocol is also not fair; no one was happy with it, except for those who were the first. The competitive spirit and impressions of the European Championship were spoiled, summed up Alexey Mityakov.
The girls in the elite group had the same race as the men, but none of the participants dared to run across the lake. All results were accepted. As a result, Komsomol member Alena Trapeznikova took third place, behind her teammate Maria Kechkina and the Swedish orienteer, who became the winner.
I liked the distance; there were many high-speed sections where we had to quickly find our bearings. Unfortunately, I was wrong on one thing. Of course, I would be more pleased if I won the race, said Honored Master of Sports Alena Trapeznikova.
Another Komsomol member, Anastasia Kravchenko, finished with fourth result, 39 seconds behind Alena.
There were a lot of forbidden road crossings, which meant you had to choose your options carefully to get to these crossings. There were two dangerous descents, at the end of one they even tied mats to the trees. The race was difficult, dangerous, but interesting, said international master of sports Anastasia Kravchenko.
There is only one discipline left at the European Championships - the team relay. Sergey Gorlanov will perform in the second Russian team together with famous champions Eduard Khrennikov and Vladimir Barchukov. Anastasia Kravchenko will also run in the second women’s team, and Alena Trapeznikova is included in the first team.
Ekaterina Gavrilenko, Khabarovsk news on DVhab.ru
Photo, video: Elena Mityakova
