real challenge

Since the middle distance in Kiev I’ve been waiting for the middle in Stara Ves. It took my all energy for preparation. Everything was because the middle WOC will be…
…and I did a lot of good work, but it was hard to see the results of that. 
On the qualification race, I ran very safe. I missed only 1’ on 9th point (I took wrong direction and there was one, big root stock more!). From 13th I ran with Anders Nordberg, he started 2’ behind me. All the race my legs were stiff, I breathed very hard, was tired (I don’t know after what?), and ran slow, but the aim of this race was done. I qualified from 11th place. 
4,5 hour later final race has started. I took a look on the map and my smile grew up: this was real challenge. In the first part of the course (the challenge) I tried to run less and think twice. I lost only 1’ on the 9th point (in my opinion the point was in strange place, but I’m going to check it this year). To the second radio control (12th point) I did a great race and lost almost 3’40” to Thierry. Second part of the course was much easier (but still not easy). On 14th point I did 1’ mistake and some smaller on 18th 20” (from 17 I started to run like on 18-19). On all afternoon race I felt not so good physically, the same as in the morning. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t my day. I hope this day will come this century.

You have to watch it!

WOC has started. On sprint qualification the course was very easy and because of that running speed was crucial. I finished 11th in the heat A( 11” and would be out of the final). It looks tight, but in sprint distance everywhere is tight. 
Final race was much more interesting. There were couple of legs with different road choices ( points 1,5,8,10,11,14,15 ). I started like a lazy snail. I lost 22” to the first point and I did no mistake. I didn’t plan to win this leg, but 22” was definitely too much. Next legs from 1-14 snail went with a decent speed. From 14th I’ve turned on my rocket engine. All the course I’ve taken good road choices, except 14th, where I took right, but I should run from the left side. I finished on 26th place, 1’26 behind the extremely strong winner Andrey Khramov. I’m 50% satisfied, as always it could be better.
On Česká Televize 4 you can see transmission (67’) from the final race. You have to see it! If you can’t watch it in Opera web browser, try with Explorer or Firefox.

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