ASOM 2015 - 5 days left to register



Yannick Michiels, Galina Vinogradova, Tim Robertson, Antonio Martinez Perez, Ausrine Kutkaite, Alice Leak,.. are just some of the big names attending Antwerp Sprint Orienteering Meeting 2015. Only 5 days left to register for this high level sprint event in Belgium.

 

The Antwerp Sprint Orienteerting Meeting will take place on Saturday and Sunday 5th and 6th of September in Antwerpen (Belgium). The event will include 2 sprint races on Saturday (Luchtbal) and 1 middle (for elites) or long (for others) urban city race on Sunday (Antwerp City). The event is a part from the City Race Euro Tour.

 

Map sample Luchtbal (Saturday) 

In class H21E the star of ASOM 2015 will be the local athlete Yannick Michiels. Last week he finished 5th at the World Championships in Scotland and he's motivated to show Antwerpen that he's worldclass level. At the moment his strongest opponent will be Tim Robertson (NZL), he's the reigning junior world champion and finished 20th at WOC last week. Also Spain will be present with 2 of their best sprint athletes: Antonio Martinez Perez (Spanish sprint champion 2015 and Halden SK member) and Marc Serrallonga (Spanish champion in Sprint mixed relay 2015).
Also some talented Belgian athletes belong to the favourits, with for example Tristan Bloemen and Evert Leeuws. Hopefully some more national and foreign topathletes will confirm their participation this week.

Map sample Antwerp City (Sunday) 

In women's class the startfield looks even more impressive. Galina Vinogradova (RUS) won a bronze medal at the World championships last week and is the main favourit for the victory. But she will have to fight against Alice Leak (GBR and 22th at WOC), Laura Robertson (NZL and 40th at WOC) and Ausrine Kutkaite (represented Lithuania at the World champs). Also Kirti Rebane (EST - 22th in WOC sprint in 2004), Lone Brochmann (NOR - 3rd in Norwegian O-Festival sprint), Katie Reynolds (GBR - 30th JWOC middle 2014) and Kirstin Maxwell (GBR - almost made it in the Brittish WOC team) are strong athletes and ready to fight for top5 and the prize money.
Hopefully also the Belgian national team athletes will show up. At the moment the Belgian sprint champion 2015 Liesbeth Vandevelde has already confirmed to show up at the startline.

Yannick Michiels in action at WOC 2015

With prize money for the elite classes, the organisation tried and succeeded to attract some of the best orienteers in the world. But the ASOM project is not only focusing on elite orienteering. The organisation also tries to focus on recreational participation. Yannick Michiels explains why runners and orienteers should join sprint orienteering in Antwerpen: 'For runners it is a great opportunity to try something different than just running, the step to ‘orienteering’ is not so difficult because everybody has already had some (positive or negative) experience with a city map. For orienteers it is an ideal chance to visit the beautiful city of Antwerp and go back home with some brand new orienteering maps ;-)!' (the whole interview)

Jeremy Genar (coursesetter ASOM) in action at WOC 2015

 

The registration for ASOM 2015 will close the 15th of August (only 5 days left). If you don't want to miss this event, you can still register on orienteeringonline.net.

 

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