Sylvester: Day 1 and 2

The last days of the year are always some of the nicest. 5 days in a row of orienteering and a nice chat with the other competitors after the race. This year's Sylvester five-days is different, though. While the forest is usually pretty white in the orienteering meaning of the word, these days it's white in the literal meaning with Belgium experiencing the largest amount of snow in 30 years. Yesterday's WRE was canceled due to the snow, but the overall ranking of the event will be calculated, even though the first starters are at a disadvantage to the later one. There is still a lot of joy to be had in the forests and open areas.

The first day, a middle distance planned as a WRE, was run in the forests of Houterenberg. The Belgian champs long distance were run there a few years ago, but the terrain is perhaps better suited for this kind of race.

In the women's class, it was once again Miek Fabré who was on top of the results list. She had a 40 second gap to Kim Geypen and some two minutes to Aline Hermans. Fabré and Hermans are only participating in this first event, so this was a good start for Geypen in the overall ranking.

Swiss runner Daniel Zwiker impressed in the H21 category, beating the number two, Yannick Michiels by more than one minute. Michiels, still a junior, was just 15 seconds faster than Thomas van der Kleij. The german arrow, Alexander Lubina had to settle for fourth place, only two seconds behind. Belorussian Sergey Fedatsenka was also close to van der Kleij, at 4 seconds.

results
splits
map (Yannick Michiels)

Day two was run in the typical sand dune terrains of Keiheuvel. Recent deforestation transformed some previously green areas into large open spaces in the surrounding white forests.

As neither Fabré not Hermans competed today, the road for Geypen's first victory of these five days was wide open. The Bulgarian Iliana Shandurkova made her first appearance in the Belgian forests today. Would she manage to surprise? She ended up in second position, two minutes down on Geypen, but comfortably in front of number three Julia Blomquist.

In the men's class, results were close together, starting from place two. Once again someone managed to win by a large margin to the runner up. This time it was Tomas Hendrickx, starting rather early on even. He is moving into a good position in the overall ranking, since he wasn't that far behind on Sunday. Second place Desmond Franssen is running comfortably in the upper ranks of the results list these days. He had a 40 second gap to the number three, local Gert Claes.

Yesterday's winner Zwiker had quite an off-day today, finishing in 15th position, more than 10 minutes behind the leader. This means it's most likely Franssen is in the lead by now, having a narrow margin to van der Kleij and Hendrickx. Since only four days out of five count towards the final ranking, nothing has been decided yet and De Laatste Post will keep you posted on the exciting days ahead.

results
splits
map (Yannick Michiels)