Guilhem säväytti EM-kisoissa!

Suunnistuksen EM-kisat kilpailtiin viime viikolla Koillis-Italiassa. Kuten ennakkojutussa jo pohjustettiin, EM-kisoissa mukana oli 3 ankkurilaista. Erityisen hienoa oli seurata Guilhem Veroven kansainvälistä läpimurtoa. Ensin henkilökohtaisessa sprintissä sijoitus 20 joukkoon ja kisarupeaman päätteeksi Knock Out-sprintin huikea 7. sija, missä hän siis oli ensimmäinen karsiutuja finaalistartista! Tämä kaikki vasta 19-vuotiaana lupaa hänelle mielenkiintoisia vuosia tulevissa kansainvälisissä kisoissa. Vaikka Salon seudulla leireillessään hän onkin keskittynyt lähinnä pohjoismaisten metsämaastojen haltuunottoon, on Salon ja Halikon keskustoihin aina saatu aikaan myös hyviä sprinttitreenejä, joten pieni palanen hyvästä suorittamisesta voidaan laskea myös seuran ansioksi! :-)

Tässä kaikkien kolmen kommentteja EM-kisojen jälkimainingeissa (in English).

Kisojen TV-lähetykset ovat nähtävissä YLE Areenassa!
Kuvat IOF / Kristina Lindgren

GUILHEM VEROVE

Results: Sprintti 20. (results), KO-sprintti 7. (results)

Short analysis of your performance?
- Really really happy of my results. I didn"t expect the half of those results. Like I said I tried to be qualified at at least 1 final, and I"ve been for both. And after that I was so happy about my races despite the stress.

What went well?
- I think I managed to don"t think about the result, only be focus about my race and see only at the end the result. I had also very good legs this week and mentally ready to fight !

Was there something you should have done better?
- I"m very happy of races I did. I"ve almost not done any mistakes during this week, just 6" of error in each qualification. In sprint final I"ve never even hesitated. I did some wrong routechoices but it"s the goal of sprint ahah 😅 And in KO I think I did my best. I"ve no regrets, physically Emil and Isaac were still too strong.

Was there any surprises in EOC?
- I think all EOC was a one big surprise for me ahah! 😅 But there were others like Gustav Bergman and Tim Robertson who didn"t pass qualification for individual sprint, or Kasper and Joey who collided in KO sprint.

Future plans?
- Now I"m focused for French sprint championship. The last goal of the season (and ironically the only French individual medal I don"t have 😅). After that I will be focus into forest, because even if sprint goes well, I don"t see orienteering without forest.

COLIN KOLBE

Results: Sprintti-karsinnan 25. (15 A-finaaliin) (results), Sprinttiviesti 11. (results), KO-sprint karsinnan 24. (13 jatkoon) (results)

Short analysis of your performance?
- I felt prepared but somehow my performances didn´t match my expectations.

What went well?
- Generally, nothing went bad, at the same time I am not sure what went particularly well either.

Was there something you should have done better?
- In the long run I need to get faster, to be really competitive I need to run around 14:30 on a 5k and currently I am running around 15:30. Orienteering wise was I doing no big mistakes but small ones (3-5") which quickly add up to 10-15" per race which nowadays is too much to make it into sprint-finals. The competition has never been that close and the level on the top and just below so high. It´s crazy but in a lot of ways also a good thing for the sport as it´s shows the high level needed to be good in the sport.

Was there any surprises in EOC?
- Surprises not really, maybe in some ways the courses (besides KO-Sprint-Finals) had a couple of easy legs and the individual sprint final was considered quite easy but this was partly because of the old town and tourists so they had to create courses for that situation.

Future plans?
- Sadly, 25manna was on the same weekend as EOC this year so right now the season ended for me so a bit of easy training and resting before the winter training starts.
Next year the first half of the season is quite sprint focused so that will also be my goal, and as said I need to get faster (next to other things). At the same time I also want to do well for the club at 10Mila and Jukola, especially for the latter do I have some bad memories from my race there this year so I wanna work on my big relay performances as well.

ANNEBELLE DELENNE

Results: Sprintti 36. (results), KO-sprint karsinnan 15. (13 jatkoon) (results)

Short analysis of your performance?
- I think I was pretty much at my current level during this competition. Everything wasn’t amazing but I can be proud of my races, it proved me I was able to fight against the top elite women!

What went well?
- Obviously the best day was the individual sprint day! I went into final and so I achieved my goal of the week: succeed to pass the qualification 😃 It was tight and the final was a little bit too fast for me, but the result is very encouraging!

Was there something you should have done better?
- My average speed during sprint orienteering went really up last months and I’m not fully able to provide a perfect clean race in this situation. In qualification races where everything is a matter of seconds, I need to be almost perfect to pass…I still miss a little bit of practice to reach this point in a regular way ! (Only 4s separates me from 1/4 during KO qualification 🥲)

Was there any surprises in EOC?
- I really didn’t have any clue of my level against the top elite women before the event and so the good surprise is to have shown me how close I can be! There’s still a lot of work to do but results will come with practice for sure.👌

Future plans?
- My next season is going to be my last junior one so I want to give it all to reach the best position at JWOC! This year was a little bit frustrating concerning this event, I want to give it a proper ending for my fourth and last participation. I guess my main expectation will be on sprint races but I want to try as hard for the forest ones… For now on, I’ve got to finish my season, there’s still the junior French sprint championship coming at the end of the month and I’m running for a second title in a row ! We’re gonna see how it goes :)

To conclude, EOC 2023 was a blast! I’m proud of what I showed myself and it give me motivation for more ! There’s also the experience of an international event and the people met which bring a lot to me. That’s also what high level sport is :)

Ja Annabellen viimeiseen kommenttiin onkin hyvä lopettaa tämä artikkeli. Toivomme kaikille ja muillekin ankkurilaisille hyvää talvea harjoittelun suhteen, jotta tulevinakin vuosina saamme nauttia seurakaverien suorituksista arvokisoissa.