Relay race Belgium + pics + map

Today there were 2 orienteering races in Belgium. One race in Diest - Flanders, where they tried a new concept: the "Triple-sprint": 3 sprintraces of 1,5km linked to eachother with longer legs which were neutralised. The other race was a relay in the southern part of the country.

Although the race in Diest would have been interesting we decided to go to Marche because we don't have many relay races in Belgium. The relay had the following rule: A team contains 3 runners and should be of a value less than 49 points. Points were given as follows: H21 : 20 points H-20 and H35 : 18 points, H-18 and H40 : 17 points, H45 : 16 points, H-16 : 14 points, D-18, D-20, D21, H-14 and H50 : 13 points, D-16 and H55 : 12 points, D35 and D40 : 11 points, D45 and H60+ : 10 points, D-10, D-12, D-14, D50+, H-10 and H-12 : 9 points.

We only had runners of H21, so we would not be ranked. Luckily we could enter without any problems. It was a very sunny day, and the forest map was a part of the WRE of last year, perfect conditions for a nice race.

We expected a normal relay race with some forking. this wasn't the case. There were 5 courses set of 3km each. First and last runners had to do 2 courses, 2nd runners had to do 1 course. The 5 courses were completely different, Even the distance after the spectators control was totally different.

We had 3 teams but only 8 runners,

TEAM 1: Thomas van der Kleij, Jeroen van der Kleij and Dries van der Kleij

TEAM 2: Joost Talloen (picture below), Jeroen Hoekx and Jeroen Hoekx again

TEAM 3: Ken Peeters, Winston Franssen, Desmond Franssen

There was one other team that could keep the speed of our teams, which was the PEGASE-team with Freddy Sillien (H60), Patrick Mossoux (H45) and Nicolas Sillien (H21). This team won the Relay. Without any doubt it was the strongest team... but could they also beat 3 H21 runners??

After 2 runners Jeroen van der Kleij finished about 1 minute before Jeroen Hoekx and 2-3 minutes before Patrick Mossoux. After the first part of 3 km the gap was already closed a little bit by Nicolas Sillien. And at the spectators control it seemed that he was in the winning position, 1 minute before Jeroen Hoekx and 2 minutes before Dries van der Kleij... Surprisingly it was Dries who was first at the finishline since his last part was about 400m shorter, closely followed by Nicolas and Jeroen.

We can also mention a comeback of Joel Drygalski, as a 22 year old youngster he was in WOC 1987 - Gerardmer, France. He was there together with Jean Noël Debehogne, Paul Timmermans, Stephane Vis and Benny Claus. Now his son Tom is 11 years old. This young boy is very enthousiastic. Joël has been doing some marathons in the past few years (2h45) and the result of the first big race this year showed that he is still in good shape...

1. DEIJGERS Dirk hamok 1:08:10

2. JACOBS Dirk KOL 1:09:59

3. TIMMERS Guido hamok 1:10:48

4. DRYGALSKI Joël HOC 1:11:57

With some extra orienteering training he will be one capable of winning very soon.