Monday, July 13, 2009

Relay

The South African Juniors produced outstanding results in the final race in Italy.

The first leg runners set off in the pouring rain. Brad was in a team with Christoph and Matthias of Germany. Their team got off to a flier, with the first leg runner coming in, in ahead of Germany's 1st team. Matthias ran a decent second leg to set Brad off ahead of Germany's 1st team and with some other fast teams. Brad kept his cool and ran a great time. He was only past by Germany 1 with a km to go. The team came home in 30th place.

Salome and Zoe set off in the rain ten minutes after the men. Salome had a solid run to bring her team in, in just over an hour. Zoe also ran well coming back in a time of 1:07:15. Both the Jessica's were off next. Jess L took over from Salome and was chased down by Jess H, who was having a great run. Jess Lund managed to pull it together towards the end though and set Sarah off ahead of Steph. Sarah had a solid run and was pleased with her time of 58:54. Steph had a great run to bring her team home in 33rd place. Unfortunately Salome, Jess L and Sarah's team was disqualified.

The course was interesting with a very technical first section, two coaching zones / spectator controls and a map swap over. Below is the map with Sarah's course on it:

Once the relay was over there was a Team Leaders Race. Nicholas ran against some tough competition and some sneaky Germans. Not sure exactly how he did, but he looked hardcore running down the finish straight and wasn't too far behind some world champs so we assume it went well.

After some insane swapping of clothes (our O' suits were popular) which left Bradley with nothing South African to wear we headed back to the hotel to have supper and get ready for the closing ceremony and the party.

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