Preview Sylvester: Wickholm, Pasquasy or Tambasov

Tomorrow the sylvester 5-days in Belgium will take place, starting with a world ranking event. The winners of this competition will be physically strong athletes for sure. In this flat area it's possible to run very fast (even 5min/km in men's elite class). But this edition you'll also need some technical orienteering skills to gain the victory. Specially day 1 (WRE in Koersel), day 2 (in Holland) and day 5 (Sahara) will be technical demanding.

During the 5-days, this website will focus on the elite classes. It's possible to read reports, check results and view the maps every day. Today we'll write about the likely candidates to win the world ranking event (day 1). Not all runners will fight for the overall victory, because they don't participate at enough races. The overall result will be made using the Scottish system with the 4 best results. In order to be included in the overall result, the competitor must be pre-registered for at least 4 days.

In mens H21E class 74 runners have registered: most Belgian toprunners are present together with a lot of strong foreign runners. In womens class, we have 24 registrations and probably the best Belgian women will fight for the victory.

Men stars:

3 stars - ***
- Jörgen Wickholm: Finnish national teamrunner, best result at WOC: 10th spot at long distance in 2005 (Japan).
- Fabien Pasquasy: strongest Belgian runner. He won all Belgian individual champs in 2009 and reached A-finals at WOC in 2009 (long distance).
- Yury Tambasov: ran JWOC (12th at long distance) and WOC (27th in sprint distance) in 2009. Also 7th position at springcup relay with Sävedalens (result).

2 stars - **
- Alexander Lubina: has been sick and just started training again, but nobody can handle his running speed (twitter).
- Pieter Hendrickx: running strong in cross country competitions at the moment. The 2nd best runner at the Belgian ranking is ready for a strong sylvester race.
- Benjamin Lepoutre: member of the French national team. If he's in good shape, he's able to fight for the victory (proved here).
- Nick Barrable: won the sylvester competition in 2007 and 2008. The Ok Ravinen runner still ran at the world cup races in Norway this season (result).

1 star - *
A lot of outsiders: Jeroen Hoekx (number 5 at Bel-ranking), Ken Peeters (nr 6 at Bel-rank), Wouter Leeuws (nr 7 at Bel-rank), Bart Delobel (won the WRE at sylvester 2 years ago), Francois Joly (performed strong at Belgian sprint champs), Andreas Herzig (top40 at swiss elite ranking), Otso Seppala (technical strong runner, dixit T. Melis and M. Vanbaelen), Daniel Zwiker (top30 at swiss elite ranking), Filip Brunell (strong young Finnish runner), Fredric Portin (represented Finland at jwoc 2009), Victor Mansner (also in Finnish national team at jwoc 2009) and probably some others.

Two other strong Belgian runners (Thomas and Dries van der Kleij) will be absent at the 1st day. Problems with the plane after a trainingscamp in Lanzarote, so they will arrive later at home.

Jorgen Wickholm - Worldcup 2009 in Norway (photo: worldofo.com)

Women stars:

3 stars - ***
- Greet Oeyen: Best runner at the Belgian elite ranking 2009. She's Belgians hope for an A-final at WOC 2009 in Trondheim.
- Miek Fabre: won the Belgian champs sprint distance in 2009 and she's number 3 at the ranking at the moment.

2 stars - **
- Saartje Sallaerts: she gained a bronze medal at the Belgian national champs middle distance in 2008, no podium in 2009. She's 6th at the Belgian ranking.
- Veerle Tulleneers: number 11 at Belgian ranking with only 4 competitions. She's specially a strong runner in Flanders.
- Sabrina Merihein: the Finnish girl won the Sylvester 5-days in D18 in 2007 and 2nd in D21E in 2008. She's running for the same club than Jeremy Genar and Jörgen Wickholm.
- Sofie Herremans: 3rd position at the sylvester WRE 2008 and 4th at the Belgian ranking.

1 star - *
Kim Steegen, Katja Stockli and Ewa Fiuk.

Startlist
Event website
Results previous editions