Preview Flanders 3 days

Next weekend (15, 16 and 17 august) the Flanders 3 days will take place in the north of Belgium. The first day will take place on the map "Geel Bel", where the national championship middle distance 2006 took place. During that championship, the winner in H21E Pieter Hendrickx run 4'55min/km. So the terrain will consist of a forrest with very good runnability and visibility and some techincal sandareas and detailed relief (see mapsample).

Geel Bel mapsample

The next 2 days will be organised on the maps Houterenberg and Rodenberg. These maps haven't been used for years, but are now uptodate because of Ukrainian mapmakers.

In the H21E class (28 participators), not all Belgian toprunners are present (top5 of Bel-ranking is absent). But we still can expect a close fight between Jeroen Hoekx, Thomas van der Kleij and Tomas Hendrickx. Jeroen hasn't run many competitions this summervacation, but probably he will be in good shape. His teammate Thomas van der Kleij had a more busy orienteering-summervacation. He participated at the O-ringen 5days in Sweden in H21long2 and afterwards he run in the strongest class at Nordvestgaloppen in Norway. Specially during that last competition he performed very strong. He became 6th in H21AL, only 3 minutes slower than Holger Hott and 6 minutes faster than Olav Lundanes (former JWOC winner).

The 3th favourit Tomas Hendrickx proved already in the past that he doesn't need many competitions to be in a good shape. Other outsiders for the victory are: Nicolas Sillien (44th at the 6days in Averyron), Serge Fedatsenka (participated at JWOC), Jan Oeyen (some good results in regional events), Yves Briers (won the regional event in Koersel and here he gained his new nickname: "De Cobra"), Jeroen van der Kleij (run Oringen) and some other runners.

Thomas van der Kleij prepared himself in Sweden and Norway

In the D21E class, we find back 21 participators. The big favourit in this class will be Greet Oeyen. She became 4th during the 6 jours de l'Aveyron in the D21E class. During the Flanders 3 days, her opponents are: Sofie Herremans (who performed strong at oringen), Severine Vandermeulen (also present in France: 15th) and maybe someone who will surprise us.

Program:
15/08: Geel Bel
H21E: 7650m D21E: 5550m
16/08: Rodenberg
H21E: 10900m D21E: 6800m
17/08: Houterenberg
H21E: 11350m D21E: 6720m

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