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)