Tomas Hendrickx and Miek Fabré take Sylvester 5-days

Two Belgian athletes took the victory in the overall ranking at the sylvester 5-days. Tomas Hendrickx was the clear champion in H21, ahead of Thomas van der Kleij (2nd) and Pieter Hendrickx (3rd). Both runners were in a close fight for the second position. Miek Fabré ran to 4 victories and won the overall ranking ahead of Sophie Tritschler (SUI) and Anna Serrallonga (ESP).

Pieter Hendrickx took the victory at the 5th stage in the Netherlands (Photo: Kimmo Hirvonen)

The last stage took place in the Netherlands, close to Eindhoven. The sandy area was more technical than expected. Focus and concentration were needed to pass the detailed areas without any mistakes. In the H21 course the first controls were rather easy and fast. Pieter Hendrickx showed that he is the master of the 'running legs' and overclassed all the opponents during the first 15 minutes. Next he experienced some problems between controls 7 and 11, but finally he succeeded to stay calm and to take todays stage victory. The Finnish junior runner, Aleksi Anttolainen, already felt during the warming up that he had powerfull legs today and proved this with a 2nd spot today. It was his best race in all ways, he commented on attackpoint. In the afternoon, the Finnish team went for an extra training in Luxemburg (map). Tomas Hendrickx (3rd) and Timo Ahvenainen (4th) were the next runners in the last stage ranking. For the 5th place we saw a thrilling finish between 3 trainingsfriends. Jeroen Hoekx lost 2 positions between the last control and the finish line. Finally he was 2 seconds slower than Desmond Franssen (5th) and only 1 second slower than Thomas van der Kleij (6th). This will be an exciting review at 2Drerun.

1.		Pieter HENDRICKX		BEL	K.O.L.	42:16	5'01"
2.		Aleksi ANTTOLAINEN		FIN	Lahden Suunnistajat -37	44:08	5'15"	+1:52
3.		Tomas HENDRICKX		BEL	K.O.L.	44:45	5'19"	+2:29
4.		Timo AHVENAINEN		FIN	Lahden Suunnistajat -37	44:53	5'20"	+2:37
5.		Desmond FRANSSEN		BEL	TROL	45:48	5'27"	+3:32

Sophie Tritschler on her way to the finish at day 4 (Photo: Kimmo Hirvonen)

In womens class Anna Serrallonga (2nd) was leading the competition during the first half of the race. But she couldn't keep up the pace untill the end of the race and Sophie Tritschler (1st) had still some energy left. Together with the Belgian junior runner Ian Geldof she ran a good last part of the race and succeeded to win the stage in the Netherlands. She commented after the race that she had liked the competitions every day more and more. During her favourit and last stage she felt strong, but her race wasn't totally perfect. Miek Fabré was already sure about the total victory after 4 days and ran today at a good trainingspeed. At the 18th control she made a 1 minute mistake and finished in 3rd position. The whole top-4 in D21 commented after the race that they had really fun today.

1.		Sophie TRITSCHLER		SUI	OLG Zürich	43:42	6'43"
2.		Anna SERRALLONGA		ESP	TROL	44:35	6'51"	+0:53
3.		Miek FABRÉ		BEL	Omega	46:05	7'05"	+2:23
4.		Greet OEYEN		BEL	hamok	48:20	7'26"	+4:38
5.		Victoria STEVENS		GBR	Individuals/No club	50:58	7'50"	+7:16

Results stage 5
Splits
Overall ranking
Map H21 (Thomas van der Kleij)
Map H21 (Desmond Franssen)
Map D21 (Anna Serrallonga)
Photos (Kimmo Hirvonen)

Sylvester WRE: Airila shows how it's done

Hannu Airila won the last WRE of the year today in Helchteren. With fast and secure orienteering he was simply too good for the rest of the field. A visibly happy Airila commented: "I had a good race. No mistakes. I hesitated to control 7 because I didn't see the green. Then I spotted a control in the distance and it was mine. I ran sub 5'00 splits on all legs except one (19 - red)."

The current leader in the five-day ranking Tomas Hendrickx was the best of the rest. He had a gap of 2 minutes in front of him. This performance widens the gap in the overall ranking and things are looking good for the youngest of the Hendrickx brothers. Thomas van der Kleij was quite pleased with race in third  position. No big mistakes, some time loss at the end. He decided to keep his speed relatively low in the difficult area starting at control 6. A choice that payed off, that's for sure, as a lot of other runners lost minutes in the white area.

In the women's class Miek Fabré won her fourth stage and is sure of the overall victory. She was also happy with her performance today and said she had a good feeling as she caught up the ladies starting before her. Some two minutes behind was Mélanie D'Harreville. The French will have WOC selection races in Sweden on a WRE. It's important for them to gather World Ranking points in order to have a good starting position there. Sophie Tritschler, first out in the forest today, was third a further 20 seconds behind. She will take the second place overall, that's for sure.

Results
Splits
Overall
Map H21 (Desmond Franssen)
Map D21 (Anna Serrallonga)

H21 Technical zone (click for full map)

The fifth stage, tomorrow in The Netherlands will bring yet another terrain type. Large sandy areas and the occasional white/green patch of forest will bring another day of fast orienteering to decide this five day event.

Sylvester day 3: again T. Hendrickx and Fabré

A short and late review about todays competition, because the focus is on the important WRE race tomorrow.  The map and coursesetting were interesting and demanding today. The butterfly control was placed in the middle of the detailed area. The forest was slippery and tough because of all the rain the previous days. The winners were exactly the same names as during the first stage.

In class H21 Tomas Hendrickx won his 2nd race. He is also the current leader in the overall ranking. He lost some time at the 4th and 5th control, but from then on he ran a good race. In the end he had some profit from Jeroen Hoekx (5th) who started 2 minutes ahead of him. In 2nd position we find back Pieter Hendrickx. He was the fastest runner in the race but made one big mistake, which made him lose the race. The 3rd spot was taken by the hamok runner Thomas van der Kleij (one of the favourits for the overall ranking). He was 20 seconds faster than Ondrej Pijak (the Slovakian athlete started really fast but couldn't keep his pace untill the end of the race).

1.		Tomas HENDRICKX		BEL	K.O.L.	39:08	5'04"
2.		Pieter HENDRICKX		BEL	K.O.L.	39:32	5'07"	+0:24
3.		Thomas VAN DER KLEIJ		BEL	hamok	40:06	5'11"	+0:58
4.		Pijak ONDREJ		SVK	Kobra Bratislava	40:27	5'14"	+1:19
5.		Jeroen HOEKX		BEL	hamok	41:26	5'22"	+2:18

Aleksi Anttolainen (9th posistion H21) during todays race

In womens class Miek Fabré was outstanding today. She explained that her legs felt better than yesterday and made only a few smaller mistakes. She won the race 3min30 ahead of Sophie Tritschler and she was even 7 minutes faster than Victoria Stevens.

1.		Miek FABRÉ		BEL	Omega	40:49	6'46"
2.		Sophie TRITSCHLER		SUI	OLG Zürich	44:19	7'20"	+3:30
3.		Victoria STEVENS		GBR	Individuals/No club	47:52	7'56"	+7:03
4.		Mira SCHEIR		BEL	K.O.L.	48:20	8'00"	+7:31
5.		Anna SERRALLONGA		ESP	TROL	49:00	8'07"	+8:11

Tomorrow is the world ranking event on Sonnisheide and then we'll see the Finnish toprunner Hannu Airila at the startline. The other favourit Fabien Pasquasy won't show up because he's sick since 3 weeks and he's also suffering an injury. We are curious how the fresh runners (Hannu Airila, Christoph Brandt (?), Ken Peeters, Frank Buytaert, Benjamin Lepoutre, Bart Delobel, Michael Van Baelen, ...) will perform compared to the runners who run the whole sylvester 5-days.

Results
Splits
Photos (Kimmo Hirvonen)
Map (Desmond Franssen - H21)
Map (Thomas van der Kleij - H21)
Map (Anna Serrallonga - D21)

Sylvester Day 2: Michiels ready for New Zealand

Yannick Michiels was a league on his own today at stage 2 of the Sylvester 5 days. "I really wanted to win my last race in Belgium for a while", Michiels commented afterwards. Tomorrow he's travelling to New Zealand for the World Cup races and Sprint The Bay. He's hoping for top-10 spots in the middle distance and sprint races. It's great to see a Belgian runner being that ambitious.

By winning today, Michiels did not do his teammates Pieter and Tomas Hendrickx a favor. In spots two and three the brothers held off the rest of the starting field, but lost precious points in the overall ranking, even though Tomas is still comfortably in the lead. Yesterday's number two, Thomas van der Kleij took a gamble. With Michiels unbeatable these days he decided to only search for a few controls before returning to the event center with fresh legs.

The other contenders for the podium did quite solid performances, with your reporter finishing 4th, 2 seconds down on Tomas Hendrickx. Ondrej Pijak finished 5th, losing some time on the way. 6th place Alexander Lubina was quite happy today. He said he's improving day by day and is clearly in a better shape than the last years.

Miek Fabré managed to win the second stage in a row, but things were much closer together today. Swiss youngster Sophie Tritschler was only 11 seconds behind. Next up was Anna Serrallonga of Spain, 1:44 down. She had fresh legs having only arrived yesterday evening. She's challenging Greet Oeyen, 4th today, 3:16 behind, for the third place on the winners rostrum.

Todays race was not run in the most exciting terrain. The race itself was quite interesting however with a lot of time loss on route choices. Let's take a look at them.

H21 Leg 9-10

This was the longest leg of the course and responsible for a lot of time loss. Both Pieter (1:30) and Tomas Hendrickx (2:00) lost time, not only to Michiels, but also to your reporter who was definitely not running faster than them today. Instead of trying to find a way through the fields as many runners did, the fastest option was to avoid them altogether (also done by Michiels).

Red: Michiels 8:23 (1), Hoekx 8:44 (2)
Blue: Franssen 9:32 (4)
Green: T. Hendrickx 10:23 (13)
Purple: Melis 13:18 (34)

Of course, a bit of preparation for this race would have made this leg easy as the same course setter used a similar leg 2 years ago during a regional event. It was current Flemish elite team coach Dirk Goossens who started the discussion back then.

H21 Leg 12-13

This leg was shorter, but it's one with many different options and also one that Michiels didn't win. Tomas Hendrickx had the fastest choice by running as close as possible to the line . He did not even avoid the green, which was quite runnable, he said.

Red: T. Hendrickx 3:50 (1)
Blue: Michiels 4:01 (4), Hoekx 4:06 (5)
Green: Franssen 4:15 (7)
Orange: Talloen 4:29 (11)

Results
Splits
Map with routechoices Desmond Franssen, Kimmo Hirvonen,

Tomorrow the competition will shift from the flanks of the Meuse river to central Belgium. It means sticking to the line and take the climbing as it comes.

Sylvester day 1: T. Hendrickx and Fabré

The first day of the Sylvester 5 days took place today on the map Solterheide in Opitter. The DLP website was rather sceptical about this map on forehand, but has to admit that the coursesetter did a great job. Nobody had the impression that we were running on 'Folterheide' (folteren = to torture) because of the thorns. The coursesetter used the technical parts of the map as much as possible and only the longest courses had some 'just running parts'. But still we look forward to the nice maps on days 3, 4 and 5.

Looking at the results, it's quite clear that Tomas Hendrickx was the fastest runner today. He participated in almost no orienteering races this winter, but succeeded in making almost no mistakes (only at control 9 he lost 1 minute) and running at a high speed. Thomas van der Kleij (2nd) explained on his doma that he didn't find the good flow but made almost no mistakes (only a bad routechoice towards control 8). He was only 50 seconds slower than the winner. Jeroen Hoekx (3rd) could match the same speed as Thomas vdk, but made some smaller mistakes. After the race he was complaining about problems with his ankle. On 4th position we see the German runner Alex Lubina, 3min30 behind the leader. Desmond Franssen and Timo Avhehainen finished in 5th position with exactly the same time.

Results H21:

1.		Tomas HENDRICKX		BEL	K.O.L.	49:56	5'40"
2.		Thomas VAN DER KLEIJ		BEL	hamok	50:47	5'46"	+0:51
3.		Jeroen HOEKX		BEL	hamok	51:36	5'51"	+1:40
4.		Alexander LUBINA		GER	DJK Adler 07 Bottrop	53:26	6'04"	+3:30
5.		Timo AHVENAINEN		FIN	Lahden Suunnistajat -37	54:26	6'11"	+4:30
		Desmond FRANSSEN		BEL	TROL	54:26	6'11"	+4:30

Some remarks:
- the forbidden parts (the yellow fields) were a bit confusing. Is it allowed to run on the sides or not? Many runners didn't know what to do in this situation (control 21 to 22 for example).
- Aleksi Anttolainen made a big mistake towards control 4. He was surprised to see such a leg and mentioned that it's depending on luck to find this control. Also other runners complained about this control and thought that it wasn't totally at the correct position.
- Also control 19 was placed a bit too much to the south, according to several runners.
- The most tricky control was probably control 17 (with controlnumber 47). In the gully (under the red circle) was an other control with number 74. Three runners were trapped and got disqualified here (Wannes Hendrickx, Toon Melis and Frode Konst).
- Tomorrow we expect some new and strong runners at the startline like Yannick Michiels, Pieter Hendrickx, Ondrej Pijak, Benjamin Anciaux, Christoph Brandt (?) and Joost Talloen (?).

In the women's class, we saw a clear victory by Miek Fabré. She was almost 3 minutes faster than Swiss runner Sophie Tritschler (2nd). Even we saw Tritschler running at high speed and pushing hard in the forest. Greet Oeyen (3rd) completed the winners rostrum, 5 minutes behind Fabré. It's for sure that these 3 women (together with Anna Serrallonga who starts tomorrow) will fight for the overall victory.

Results D21:

1.		Miek FABRÉ		BEL	Omega	49:24	7'22"
2.		Sophie TRITSCHLER		SUI	OLG Zürich	52:09	7'47"	+2:45
3.		Greet OEYEN		BEL	hamok	54:07	8'04"	+4:43
4.		Hannah CULBERG		USA	Orienteering USA	1:03:26	9'28"	+14:02
5.		Anna MOILANEN		FIN	Kajaanin Suunnistjat	1:06:15	9'53"	+16:51

Results
Splits
Map (H21 - Desmond Franssen)
Map (H21 - Thomas van der Kleij)

Preview Sylvester 5-days in Belgium

Hannu Airila, Fabien Pasquasy, Christoph Brandt, Ondrej Pijak, Benjamin Lepoutre,... who of these athletes will win the last WRE in 2012? On wednesday 26/12, the sylvester 5-days in Belgium will begin with a world ranking event at the 4th stage. In mens H21E class 65 runners have registered for the world ranking event at Sonnisheide. In 2011 we had 52 runners at the startline of the wre. Most of the Belgian toprunners are present together with some strong foreign athletes from Finland, Germany, Slovakia, France, Russia, Great Britain and the Netherlands. In womens class, we have 25 registrations (1 more than last year) and probably the best Belgian women will fight for the victory with some French, Spanish and Swiss athletes.

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 4). 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.


Nederlands:
Het is niet evident om in te schatten wie er deze wedstrijd (meetellend voor de world ranking) gaat winnen. Bepaalde atleten kiezen ervoor om voor de eindoverwinning mee te strijden, terwijl andere lopers fris aan de start zullen verschijnen tijdens dag 4. Ook zijn er de voorbije maanden weinig belangrijke wedstrijden gelopen en is het gissen naar het huidige vormpeil van de deelnemers.
De sylvester 5-daagse slaagt er de laatste jaren steeds in om enkele grote namen naar België te lokken. Hopelijk zet deze trend zich voort, stellen de clubs mooie kaarten ter beschikking en kan dit evenement nog verder uitgroeien. Deze WRE-wedstrijd is met voorsprong het event met de grootste kwaliteit aan de start in het jaar 2012. Op Yannick Michiels na (al naar Nieuw-zeeland voor de worldcup), staan alle Vlaamse mannelijke toppers aan de startlijn. Vanuit het zuiden is de interesse nog steeds aan de lage kant. Bij de vrouwen kiest Kim Geypen deze periode voor het veldlopen en missen we verder ook vooral de Waalse dames.
De best gerankschikte lopers zullen als laatste vertrekken met een interval van 2 minuten. We verwachten dat Jan Oeyen en Sophie Tritschler voor de eerste richttijden zullen zorgen. De twee topfavorieten Hannu Airila en Miek Fabré schieten als laatste het bos en de heide in.

Hannu Airila in action for Kalevan Rasti and now passing Belgium during his roadtrip

Favorieten H21E:

3 stars - ***
- Hannu Airila: Deze topper maakt deel uit van de Finse nationale ploeg en veroverde op de woc2012 een knappe 11e plaats op de middle distance. Met Kalevan Rasti won hij dit jaar ook de jukola en liet hier de beste tijd noteren op leg 4.
- Fabien Pasquasy: Nog steeds de leider van de Bel-ranking en wist in 2012 de Belgische nachttitel te veroveren. Ook op de wre van de 3-daagse van België kon hij de overwinning wegkapen.

2 stars - **
- Pieter Hendrickx: werd in 2012 Belgisch kampioen lange afstand, sprint afstand en aflossing. Hij staat op dit moment op de 2e plaats op de Bel-ranking.
- Christoph Brandt: behoort tot de Duitse nationale ploeg (gekwalificeerd voor eoc en woc), werd in 2012 Duits kampioen aflossing en behaalde de zilveren medaille op de middle distance.
- Ondrej Pijak: deel van de Slovaakse nationale ploeg. In 2012 liep hij enkel wre's tijdens de pwt in China.
- Thomas van der Kleij: behaalde in 2012 medailles op het BK lang (2e), aflossing (2e), sprint (3e) en nacht (3e). Staat momenteel op de 4e plaats op de Bel-ranking.

1 star - *
Tomas Hendrickx, Benjamin Lepoutre, Alexander Lubina, Ken Peeters, Aleksi Anttolainen, Jeroen Hoekx, Joost Talloen, Desmond Franssen, Benjamin Anciaux, Frank Buytaert, Michael Vanbaelen, Bart Delobel, Toon Melis en Jan Oeyen.

Sophie Tritschler is one of the favourits for the WRE and also the overall 5-days victory

Favorieten D21E:

3 stars - ***
- Miek Fabré: Zij won in 2012 het BK sprint en aflossing en voert ook de Bel-ranking aan. In Zwitserland (woc2012) behaalde ze 32e plaats op de lange afstand.

2 stars - **
- Anna Serrallonga: Spaans kampioene lang, middle en aflossing. Tijdens de woc2012 behaalde ze een 33e en 39e plaats op respectievelijk de middle en de long distance.
- Mélanie Dharreville: maakt deel uit van de Franse nationale ploeg en liep in 2009 (Hongarije) voor de laatste keer mee op de woc.
- Sophie Tritschler: Deze Zwitserse veroverde in 2009 goud op de jwoc aflossing. Ook individueel liet ze in 2009 en 2010 hoge klasseringen noteren.
- Greet Oeyen: behoorde tot dit jaar tot de nationale ploeg en nam nog deel aan de woc in Lausanne. Vorig jaar eindigde ze als 2e op de wre tijdens de sylvester.

1 star - *
Marika Airila, Saartje Sallaerts, Elisabeth Henkes, Liesbeth van de Velde, Sofie Heuninckx en Mira Scheir.

Website Sylvester 5-days

Startlist for sylvester 5-days 2012 in Belgium

Today the startlist for the sylvester 5-days in the north of Belgium has been published. This event will be again one of the highest level competitions in Belgium (specially the world ranking event).

Startlist sylvester 2012

Voor de sprintkoningen onder ons
stand
5 Goossens
2 Michiels
1 De Kerf
1 Heuninkx

Wie raadt de kaart (8)

Klassieke wedstrijden mogen ook aan bod komen
Stand
4 Goossens
2 Michiels
1 De Kerf
1 Heunnickx

Participants list for sylvester 5-days Belgium

The Sylvester 5-days will start in 2 weeks and today the participants list has been published. Day 4 (WRE) will be the most crowded one of the sylvester 5-days in Belgium this year. In total 405 athletes will compete on Sonnisheide (with 60 runners in H21E and 23 runners in D21E).

Partcipants list sylvester 2012

Wie raadt de kaart? (7)

Vandaag een uit de recentere archieven!

stand

4 Goossens

2 Michiels

1 De Kerf

wie raadt de kaart (6)

Ene voor kenners vandaag (dubbele punten)

stand
2 Goossens
2 Michiels
1 De Kerf