Belgian sprint champs: maps and results

Yannick Michiels and Miek Fabre were victorious at the Belgian sprint championships in Durbuy (the smallest city in the south of Belgium). Todays race was one of the most tricky sprintraces ever in Belgium. It started with a technical downhill forestpart in a rocky area, followed by a city with narrow streets and a technical labyrinth. Specially the forest and labyrinth was challenging for the runners.

Yannick Michiels was ofcourse the big favourit in class H21E and had the best splits almost whole race. Only a big mistake at control 3 made the race exciting (twitter comment). But he ran very well during the rest of his course and succeeded to become the Belgian sprint champion 2014. Below you can have a look at the H21E maps, including the routechoices from Michiels.

Maps and routechoices from Yannick Michiels

The Italian (living in Luxembourg at the moment) Andrea Seppi and Tomas Hendrickx could almost match Michiels' speed during some parts of the race. Seppi lost too much time in the forest and labyrinth (control 15) and finished with the 6th best time. Tomas Hendrickx succeeded to take the silver medal ahead of the Estonian Olle Karner. Despite his silver medal Tomas Hendrickx wasn't satisfied about his race. The beginning was good, but starting from control 6 he made several mistakes according to his comment.

Yannick Michiels on his way to the victory

This race was also the last selection race for the WOC sprint in Italy (3 spots). Yannick Michiels got his spot in the team because of his good results in 2013 and Tomas Hendrickx was already selected after the first selection races (sprint race in the Netherlands and 3000m track test). Jeremy Genar showed his good shape today with a 4th place and almost succeeded in taking the 3rd spot for WOC. But the gap with Koen Wilssens (who was clearly the best in the 3000m tracktest) was too big. So finally Yannick Michiels, Tomas Hendrickx and Koen Wilssens will represent Belgium during the WOC sprint races.

Jeremy Genar (4th) passing the spectatorscontrol

In womens class Miek Fabré had an 'easy victory'. Eventhough she had a weddingparty last night, she could focus during the race and avoid mistakes. Anna Serrallonga was 1min20 slower than Fabre and had the disadvantage to start as first one. Specially in the high grass she lost a lot of time compared to the late starters. Since Serrallonga isn't counting for the official results (by the rules), Greet Oeyen took the silver medal (2min30 behind) and Fanny Tilkin the bronze (3min30 behind).

Miek Fabre winning the gold medal

Liesbeth Van de Velde didn't perform at her best today and finally finished in 9th position. It will be up to the commission to decide if Belgium will be present at the WOC sprint mixed relay by selecting her as 2nd woman (Frabre is already selected for WOC).

Results
Splits
Map H21E part1 - Map part2 (routechoices Y. Michiels)
Map H21E part1 - Map part2 (routechoices D. Franssen)