EOC Relay

It was a tight competition as we expected between the 6-8 best teams. The Russians and Swiss were also as expected the strongest teams. For our team, it is not good enough to make us happy. We did each one of us 1 min mistake. It is not much on this technical terrain but enough to be out of the podium. Our goal was clearly the gold. In order to make it, we need the 2 first legs to be the best possible. We can't expect Thierry to win with more than 2 minutes gap to the leading teams before he starts. The good point is that we manage to fight for the victory the all way. It is a long time ago now, we haven't been so close. Actually, our last good relay was EOC 2 years ago (2nd). The last 2 relays at WOC 2006-2007 were not very good. It seems we are back in business. It is good for WOC relay.

I was running first leg which is not usual for us. We had 17 relays (at WOC, EOC, WC) with the same team and the same order, last few years. We changed today because we wanted more flexibility in our team. Also, young guys (Philippe and Vincent) were running good on 2nd team. It is promising for future of our team. We need more than 3 guys able to run the relay.

It went well for me. I started as planed, very carefully on the sand dunes area. I was well focus all the way and try not to overspeed. It was not easy to do it, because I had quite long forking. So, I decided not to focus on this and make my own race. Afterwords, it seams I should have speed up a little to close the gap to the Swiss (Baptiste) and the Russian before spectator's control. The last loop was challenging orienteering. I manage it well until the pre-warning. Then, I lost focusing and map contact. I was very narrow minded when coming to the 18th control area. I didn't expect the area to look like this and I had to relocate which cost me about 1 min. It was a pity making a mistake here because I was 1 min from the front group at finish.

I expected more mistakes from the other teams because I though it was quite challenging specially at full speed. But the teams were very close from each other like in Ukraine last year (5 teams in 2min23sec).

EOC relay results

Coming next WE is organizing French club championship in Saint-Etienne and then Jukola/O-festival. It will be pretty important now to train well the next weeks and to get some competition trainings with full speed in France in order to get good feeling with WOC terrain. We are lucky to have WOC similar terrains in Saint-Etienne. I won't travel to Tchec republic before WOC.