Sylvester WRE: Kutkaite and Bloemen

Todays first stage at Sylvester 5-days took place in the Netherlands. It was a world ranking middle distance event at Brouwhuisseheide.

Podium D21E (Miek Fabre - Ausrine Kutkaite and missing: Claire Ward) 

In men's class junior Tristan Bloemen took the victory. He was only 8 seconds faster than Tomas Hendrickx. The 28th control was decisive in the race. Many runners made a mistake here and lost time (like Hendrickx). Tristan Bloemen saw Benjamin Anciaux (started 2min in front of him) coming out of the pit and lost no time here. This was enough to take the victory after a solid performance from Bloemen. Pieter Hendrickx finally took the 3rd spot.

Podium H21E (Pieter Hendrickx - Tristan Bloemen - Tomas Hendrickx)

In women's class Ausrine Kutkaite took the victory. She only made 3 small mistakes and was satisfied about her performance. She really enjoyed the terrain, course and map. Claire Ward finally became 2nd, almost 2 minutes behind. Miek Fabre was fighting for the victory most of the race. But a big mistake (lost 2min40) at the 15th control made her finish on the 3rd position.

Map D21E with routechoices from Ausrine Kutkaite

Remarkable is that some athletes got disqualified after the race because they arrived too late at the quarantaine zone. The jury was very strict and these runners can't fight for the overall victory anymore. Also remarkable was the use of this zone. This was not very clear to the runners. All women could enter the zone again after their race (while men were still waiting), the runners got maximum 15 minutes warming up (they were not allowed to leave the waiting room earlier) and on the way to the start you could meet all runners who had already finished their race.

Results
Splits
Map D21E (Ausrine Kutkaite)
Map H21E (Desmond Franssen)