Pasquasy and Fabré win Belgian long distance champs

Last weekend Chiny was the place to be for the Belgian orienteers. On saturday a model event took place on relevant terrain and on sunday it was finally the national long distance championships on the program.

The map and terrain were very promising. All participants expected the most technical long distance championships since several years. The organisors also did good work with promoting the event and finally many participants (more than 400) showed up in Chiny. 

Both H21E and D21E had a very technical first part of the race. Actually the courses of both elite classes were exactly the same in the beginning (untill the 5th control). It's interesting to analyse who succeeded to stay calm in the beginning and avoid mistakes in the area full of vegetation details. 

In class H21E Thomas van der Kleij was leading after 5 controls (13'42). He was more than 45 seconds ahead of Sergey Fedatsenka and Michael VanBaelen passed in 3rd spot (1 minute behind). 

In class D21E we even saw bigger mistakes in the same area (and same controls). Miek Fabré passed control 5 as best woman in 21'10, ahead of Aline Hermans (21'58) and Anna Serrallonga (23'49).

The podium in H21E and D21E

After this very demanding area, the courses got less technical and more physically challenging. Fabien Pasquasy made a 3 minutes mistake in the beginning. But despite his injury he moved towards the very top in the ranking during his race. In the end he was 16 seconds faster than Sergey Fedatsenka. Thomas van der Kleij finished in 3rd position and took the silver medal. Francois van der Ouderaa finally took the bronze medal in the Belgian long distance championships.

The top-4 in D21E comparing routechoices.

In class D21E Miek Fabré took another Belgian title. She won the race ahead of her friend (also in the forest) Liesbeth van de Velde and Federica Maggioni (3rd). Aline Hermans (one of the favourits) made 2 big mistakes and finished in 5th position in the end.

In junior class the Belgian long distance champs was the selection race for JEC 2014 (in the north of Belgium). 

Some quotes and opinions from the runners about the national long distance champs in Chiny:

Fabien Pasquasy (1st in H21E): Very emotional win today in Belgium long champs... had to focus on the map instead of my very painful and injured foot (mental effort) # 34 years ago my father almost won the title in the same finish area # very loooong rehab now in front of me.

Sergey Fedatsenka (2nd in H21E): Awesome terrain. Very good course. Despite very messy orienteering I became second just 16 seconds behind the leader. Lost quite a lot (I think about 5 - 6 minutes on the first part control 2,3,4,8,11,13), doesn't matter, I enjoyed the forest and the course very much. On the second part I did a good race with only a small mistake on 24th about 25 seconds.

Michael Van Baelen (6th in H21E): Started easy in the difficult first part and had lots of hesitations but managed to get to the 6th control in 3rd place and without major mistakes. When I wanted to speed up I started making lots of mistakes. After this it was mostly just running without real orienteering which was quite a shame which such a great map. I always had the feeling to have a great shape without being able to push. I guess I'm also still missing some power to the older runners. When Thomas passed me on the uphill to 14 I couldn't even follow for a few meters. In the end I managed to get a good result with a quite poor race but that's mostly because many others failed hard. Podium would have been possible with a completely clean race. Good experience to take with me to the future.

Michel Bastin (7th in H21E): In French: L'objectif principal de ma 2ème moitié de saison, malheureusement je ne peux être satisfait, surtout à cause de ma prestation technique... je paie sans doute le trop peu de CO effectué cette saison. La place de 6ème Belge n'est finalement pas trop mauvaise, mais tout de même à 6' du podium espéré. La stratégie était claire: réduire au minimum les pertes de temps techniques --> assurer un maximum. Je pensais que le podium était jouable avec une bonne course, et c'était bien le cas. Seulement voilà, j'ai commis trop de petites erreurs et une grosse de 5' qui ont définitivement ruiné mes espoirs, au total 11'50 de perdu. À l'analyse des temps intermédiaires, le physique était OK mais ce n'était pas non plus l'état de grâce.

Michael Van Baelen towards the finish after a decent race

Interesting for analysing is 3Drerun from worldofo. All elite runners can upload their routes (for example in gpx file) on this website. This tool makes it possible to compare every single leg between all the runners in mass start replay mode. At the moment Fabien Pasquasy, Francois van der Ouderaa, Desmond Franssen and Christian Bastin have uploaded their routechoices in H21E. In D21E only Anna Serrallonga has uploaded her routes.

Map H21E (Michel Bastin - Desmond Franssen)
Results
Splits
Photos