Delobel and Fabré in last WRE of the year

British national team runner, Nick Barrable(photo - WCup, Switzerland) won the Sylvester 5 days in Belgium. A steady race today was just good enough to keep of his closest opponents. The French Benjamin Lepoutre and Simon Leroy became second and third.

In the womens class Masha Semak from the Ukraine won the 5 days in front of Veerle Tulleneers and Greet Oeyen.


W21E - 5 days
1. Masha Semak 3931 pnt.
2. Veerle Tulleneers 3857
3. Greet Oeyen 3774

M21E - 5 days
1. Nick Barrable 3945 pnt.
2. Benjamin Lepoutre 3854
3. Simon Leroy 3753

The last stage however was a world ranking event, and we saw some different names on top of the lists. The women's class was won by junior star Miek Fabré. A quite easy training week resulted in good legs. She was more then 2 minutes faster than the overall winner Masha Semak.

A tight finish concluded the men's last stage through the Hills of Hechtel. The 28 year-old Belgian, Bart Delobel showed great shape once again. Jan Gilot and Geert Simkens finished within a minute on place 2 and 3.

Fabré & Delobel - Celebrating their WRE victory

W21E - 6,5km
1. Miek Fabré 41.27
2. Masha Semak 43.29
3. Greet Oeyen 45.17
4. Elisabeth Henkes 45.26
5. Vincane Mulpas 47.09
6. Séverine Vandermeulen 47.53

M21E - 6,9km
1. Bart Delobel 36.17
2. Jan Gilot 36.56
3. Geert Simkens 37.00
4. Benjamin Lepoutre 37.10
5. Thomas van der Kleij 37.23
6. Nick Barrable 37.36

Results
Splits
Results total
Map (M21E)

French Double - Second win for Semak

Sylvester 5 days that started 1/2 weeks ago with more than 300 runners competing has boiled down to a battle between two runners - Veerle Tulleneers of Belgium and Masha Semak (photo-worldofo) from the Ukraine. Semak took the overal lead (best 3 of 4) with another stage win in the tricky forest of Gerhees. But it's only 20 points down to Tulleneers, so the excitement can continue in tomorrow's world ranking event. Also Greet Oeyen and kim Geypen are not far behind an can possibly take the overall victory with a marvelous run.

France’s Benjamin Lepoutre wrapped up his first stage win, while compatriot Simon Leroy made it a double French celebration by taking the second place today. The French youngsters catched up with eachother early in the race and made it an outstanding run. A good performance was done by the KOL-team with Linten, Heuninckx, Hendrickx, Mariën and briers, but it didn't pay of. Only Linten finished on the podium on third spot. Nick Barrable, stage 2 and 3 winner, did not start today. Barrable catched a cold and wanted to rest for tomorrow's world ranking event.

Results
Splits
Map (D21E- by ja)

Sylvester day3: results and map

On the map 'Horensberg' in Genk the 3th stage of the Sylvester 5-days took place. In the H21E class the victory went to Nick Barrable, 2 minutes faster than Leroy Simon and Wannes Hendrickx. In the D21E we had once again a different winner, this time Kim Geypen took the victory. She run faster than Greet Oeyen and Veerle Tulleneers.

Today a lot of runners made some mistakes in the beginning of the race. Winner Nick Barrable lost 1 minute spread on control 1 and 2. Also Wannes Hendrickx and Yves Briers lost some important time on those same controls. The biggest mistake was made by the Frenchman Benjamin Lepoutre on the 3th control, he lost more than 4minutes on this leg.

In the womens class we can tell the same story about Masha Semak, she lost 7minutes on her way to the 2nd control. Here Greet Oeyens took the best start, but at the end it was Kim Geypen who took the victory with a close margin.

Results

Splits

Map (Vladi)

Overall-ranking (after 3-days)

(On the picture: Kim Geypen, made by Jaques Grauls)

Barrable and Semak take victory - Sylvester day 2

The brittish national team member Nick Barrable took the victory on the second day of the Sylvester 5 days. The Frenchman Lepoutre and the Belgian Linten took a fast start. But after the second control Barrable was in the lead during the rest of the race. He made a good performance and lost less than 1 minute on the fastest possible time. But that is quite logical because Barrable won 18 of the 28 stracktimes.
Lepoutre took the second spot. He needed 3 minutes more for his 8840m.
Jan Oeyen, the winner of the first stage, took the 3th place before another French runner, Leroy Simon.

Results and splits day 2

Barrable took also the lead in the classification after 2 days
1 BARRABLE Nick SLOW 1981 981 1000
2 OEYEN Jan Borasca 1928 1000 928
3 LEPOUTRE Benjamin CREF 1878 941 937
4 LEROY Simon CREF 1848 922 926
5 HENDRICKX Wannes K.O.L. 1768 902 866

In the womens class, the victory was for the ukrainian Semak Masha. Veerle Tulleneers and Greet Oeyen took the second and thirth position of the day classification.

Results and Splits day 2

In the general classification after 2 days Tulleneers is still in the lead. But it is going to be a close competition between these women.
1 TULLENEERS Veerle Omega 1974 1000 974
2 SEMAK Masha Esk Valley Orienteering Club 1968 968 1000
3 OEYEN Greet hamok 1881 926 955
4 GEYPEN Kim Omega 1813 876 937
5 VAN OPSTAL Lieke K.O.L. 1717 843 874

Map by RouteGadget
Picture: Park world Tour

Oeyen wins Sylvester - Day 1

At today's first day of the five-day sylvester orienteering event, no-one was able to match the pace of Jan Oeyen (Borasca). He is continuing his winning streak, which started at the widely reported WC event in Heidehuizen and included the underreported non-WC event in Reusel (NL).

A quick look at the splittimes reveals that, after Britain's Nick Barrable had a blitzstart, Oeyen took the lead at control 3, and managed to keep up with the pace for the rest of the race, loosing only a little time on the way to control 8.

Barrable, however, could not keep his speed, but was passed around mid-course by IF Brahe's Bart Delobel, who was quite satisfied with his race initially, but was eventually forced to admit that he had lost more time than he expected.

Nonetheless, it's Barrable who scores the big points today for the final standings in the event, since neither Oeyen nor Delobel will run enough days to be ranked. With some other Flemish top-10-of-today-runners like Hoekx and Franssen only competing two days, this leaves the Flemish hopes in the hands of Jeremy Genar and Wannes Hendrickx.

In the women's class, it was Veerle Tulleneers who ran away with the flowers today, with a one-minute gap to Ukrainian talent Masha Semak and some 2,5 minutes in front of hamok's Greet Oeyen, sister of. We were only able to catch Oeyen for a quick reaction after the race and she told us that she made no big mistakes during the race, but was still lacking the speed needed for the fast race in Herentals today.

Tomorrow's BELRanking race in Solterheide will bring a different type of terrain to the competitors, at the steep edges of the Maas-valley. As the nickname Folterheide tries to explain, competitors will start to like any other map with brambles after their race and never complain again. We are looking forward to the results.

• Results
• Splits
• Map (Vladi)
• Map H21E
• Pictures

Preview Sylvester 5days with last WRE 2007

The Sylvester is a 5-days event (26-30/12/2007), organised in the north part of Belgium. Five clubs will organize one race each. The races are held on 5 different places. This year, this international competition celebrates the 20th edition and will include the last world ranking event in 2007.

The competition takes place on the map 'Hechtelse Duinen' with the scale: 1/7500. So you will be able to read the detailed altitude lines more easily. But in general we can expect some fast times on this flat area. To prove this we can check to the Belgian 3-days 2005 results on the same map with a winning time from Troels Nielsen: 5'16min/km.

If we take a look at the startlist, 32 women will start in the elite class during the WRE on day 5. In the mens class we found back 48 participators.

Nick Barrable of Great-Brittain is the most famous athlete in the mens class . He became 21th during the WOC sprintrace in Switserland in 2003 and he participated in PWT-races several times. This year he made a good performance during the WC in Sweden middle and long distance (Oringen). Other runners who will have a chance to win, are some members of the Belgian national team like Jan Gilot, Bart Delobel, Geert Simkens and Jeroen Hoekx.

In the womens class we expect the Belgian athletes to fight for the victory (the whole top-10 from the Bel-ranking will be present). Probably Aline Hermans, Greet Oeyen and Veerle Tulleneers will get very close. But maybe one of the juniors or a foreign runner can surprise (like Masha Semak).

Remarkable that a lot of participators prefer to run only one or two days and not the total 5-days event. The last day we count 333 participators and on the 3th day only 266 runners. Probably one of the reasons for this difference is that the Belgian students have to prepare their exams during this period. And that some runners in the south of Belgium prefer their mega-stage in Rendeux.

Last year the lowest amount of participators was 298 on the 4th day and the highest 343 on the 4th day. But we have to take in account that some participators will still enter during the event, so we can expect a slight increasing in the number of participators.

Results 2006

More information about sylvester 5days and orienteering in Belgium

Startlist 2007 sorted by club

Startlist day5 by class

Wintercriterium: Jan Oeyen wint op Heidehuizen

Het was een enorme zucht die Jan Oeyen in Mol de koude lucht instuurde. Twee maanden is het wintercriterium ver en de eerste kennismaking met het hoogste podiumtrapje liet nog altijd op zich wachten voor de nationale nachtkampioen van 2004. Dat zette hij op de kaart van Heidehuizen recht. Geholpen door een ongelukkige Jeroen Hoekx, opgejaagd door zijn gewezen ploegmaat bij Ham OK, Thomas van der Kleij.

Jan Oeyen(rechts), samen met zijn mental coach

Jeroen Hoekx was al meteen uitgeschakeld voor de zege. De winnaar van de voorbije 2 wintercriteriums kende van bij de start problemen, volgens zijn entourage door een slechte startpositie. Vanuit vijftiende positie zette hij een sterke remonte in, maar Jan Oeyen liep voorin iets te monter om hem van zijn eerste WC-zege van het seizoen af te houden. ”Sommige posten zaten iets te diep weggestoken. Als je dan niemand ziet is het huilen met de pet op.”, jammerde Hoekx. ”Maar mijn inspanning leverde mij toch nog de derde plaats op. Goed voor mijn vertrouwen. Na de zware trainingen in Leuven deze week had ik nog veel kracht in de benen. Dat ziet er goed uit voor de Sylvester, komende week.”

Jan Oeyen kwam al enkele weken met Hoekx in aanvaaring. Maar steeds trok hij aan het kortste eind. Deze week was het echter raak. "Ik ben heel content met deze overwinning. Voor de start had ik het mijn 'mental coach' nog gezegd: Niet winnen begint te wegen. Dat zorgt na een tijd voor twijfel.” Die schuilt ook in het hoofd van Thomas van der Kleij. ”Meer dan een tweede plaats zat er hier niet in. Na de tweedaagse van brabant- dag 2 had ik graag nog eens gewonnen, maar ik moet eerlijk blijven: Oeyen was beter vandaag. Ik vloog er direct in, maar aan post 14 zakte ik letterlijk door het ijs, in een beek. De koude raasde door me heen en mijn spieren verkrampten. Met de streep in zicht had ik maar één doel meer: Hoekx afhouden. Dat lukte.”

Op een sterke vierde plaats zagen we Wim Peers. Het was een tijdje geleden dat we het talent uit Nijlen nog zagen meedraaien in het wintercriterium. "Ik kwam wedstrijdritme opdoen voor het world Ranking event in Hechtel over twee weken. Ik ben goed getraind en oriënteren verleer je niet. Ik zal er zeker staan in hechtel. Ik had wat tijd nodig om er in te komen, maar na enkele posten was het tak-tak-tak gevoel van weleer er terug."

Resultaten

Splits

Kaart

Regionale Tielenkamp

Is een nieuw verslag typen eigenlijk nog nodig?
Wie zou merken dat we met de redactie simpelweg het verslagje van vorige week hebben gekopieerd?
Week na week weet de nieuwe "koning der regionale omlopen" Jeroen Hoekx zijn palmares aan te vullen met een nieuwe wintercriteriumwedstrijd. Dit klassement is nog maar halverwege maar lijkt nu al in een defenitieve plooi te zijn gevallen. Hoekx heerst zoals enkel Noel Nijsten het hem eind jaren '90 heeft voorgedaan.

Wegens het niet mogen passeren van de spoorweg moesten baanleggers Fons Bosch en Frans 'Wiet' Laenen al hun ervaring benutten om een aantrekkelijke omloop te leggen.
Hierin slaagden de ervaren rakkers met onderscheiding.

Jeroen Hoekx bleek de sterkste. De omloop was voor een groot deel recht door het bos en Hoekx toonde zich hierin de meest krachtige.
Al gedurende enkele weken is Jan Oeyen de enige die Hoekx kan bedreigen. Maar enkele missers aan het einde van Oeyens omloop gaven Jeroen uiteindelijk een bonus van 2 minuten.
De terug in competitie kerende Ken Peeters (na een sleutelbeenbreuk eind augustus) wist de laatste felbegeerde podiumstek te bemachtigen. Hij ging de derde van de Sint-Niklaascross vorige week, Guy Tirez, vooraf.

Bij de dames toonde Elien Melis nog eens haar grote klasse. Nadat ze vorige week nog ziek verstek moest geven, wist ze vandaag als enige dame in omloop 2 onder het uur te eindigen. Een sterke prestatie van Melis die zo toont dat haar JWOC-voorbereiding perfect om schema zit.
De omega- atlete Leen Wouters en KOL-loopster Kim Steegen mochten naast Melis schitteren op het podium.

In omloop 3 wist eliteloopster Greet Oeyen de bloemen te veroveren voor Anna Runnesson.
Deze Runnesson blijkt niet de eerste de beste. Zo wist deze Runnesson enkele jaren geleden nog top-10 te eindigen in de elite-reeksen op O-ringen en was ze ook al eens eindlaureate op de Sylvester 5-daagse.

Ook Yannick Michiels verdient een vermelding. Zo was hij met 5min 41sec per kilometer de snelste van de dag. We kijken nu al uit naar de heroische duels tussen hem en Hoekx over enkele jaren.

RESULTATEN
Split-times

Omloop met routes Winston of omloop Vladi (met dank aan zijn blog)

POM 2008 preview

The new O-season will start off again in Portugal. POM 2008 (Portugal O-meeting) will take place from the 2nd till 5th of February in the Algarve (Faro. Last year the organisation had some bad luck with the weather but the level of the competition was very high with an outstanding Thierry Gueorgiou.

This year promisses to be again a nice competition. The complete Norwegian team with Anders Nordberg, Audun Bjerkreim Nilsen, Audun Weltzien, Holger Hott, Jonn Are Myhren (yes he is in the team as well) Olav Lundanes, Magne Daehli, Oystein kvaal Osterbo and of course the best girls of Norway as well: Anne Margerethe Hausken, Ingunn Weltzien, Marianne Andersen and others.



"Who will be able to beat these guys?" France or Sweden maybe.

Some Belgian names as well: Tom Herremans, Veronique Bastin, Fabien Pasquasy, Johan Goubau, Christophe Bernard, …

It can’t be much closer to a Ryanair airport. So it’s very easy to go there. The temperature now in Faro is about 20°C (not fahrenheit).







The best way to organise your training camp in Portugal or Spain is by Sun-O. Switzerland, Norway, Finland and Austria will travel already by this organisation. These guys organise everything for you: car rental, lodging, cultural activities, entries to O-competitions, and most important O-trainings on a fine selection of maps with quality courses and controls in the forest. A complete training camp or just the POM they organise it for you and not only for POM but also for ori-estareja, spanish champs, portugal champs you can contact this organisation.

What is more fun than orienteering in the sun?

Results physical testrun Belgian national team

On saturday (1/12) the first meeting of the Belgian national team took place. Most of the athletes were present during the physical test run. Masstart and 5 times 2km on little paths in Brussels forest surroundings was the target for the runners.

Men results: (10km)

1.  Etienne Van Gasse             34'42
    Nicolas Sillien               34'42
3.  Johan Goubau                  36'19
4.  Bart Delobel                  37'32
5.  Jan Gilot                     38'07
    Jeroen Hoekx                  38'07
7.  Michel Bastin                 38'35
8.  Kim Wallaert                  38'46
9.  Julien Goubau                 38'57
10. Wannes Hendrickx              39'00
11. Thomas van der Kleij          39'19
12. Christophe Bernard            41'19
    Jean-François Krier           41'19
 -  Vincent Sillien               ab.

Women results: (8km)

1.  Veerle Tulleneers             34'16
2.  Aline Hermans                 35'28
3.  Kim Geypen                    35'36
4.  Anne Françoise Hennen         36'17
5.  Severine Vandermeulen         36'29
6.  Greet Oeyen                   36'53
7.  Saartje Sallaerts             37'56
8.  Vinciane Mulpas               38'37
9.  Véronique Bastin              40'08

The next physical testrace will take place in february (16th) on the same track in Auderghem.

related article (Fabien Pasquasy)




Kamp van Beverlo:
Today (2/12) the regional event in Leopoldsburg took place. In the mens class Jeroen Hoekx took the victory. He took the second victory in row on this map and run an average speed from 4'56min/km. His time (46'10 on a 9.3km track) was 30 seconds faster than Jan Oeyen. Homerunner Guy Tirez became 3th with 48'19. In the womens class Veerle Tulleneers took the victory.
Below you can find the results and map.

Results
Splits
Map

Jeroen Hoekx sure of his victory on the way to control 15 (Source: http://www.orient-show.info/)