EOC Sprint in Falun: The Great Swedish Joy

Gold, silver and bronze for Sweden! And the 10th European Champion title for Simone Niggli! That was the EOC Sprint in Falun today.

Thousands of people cheered Jonas Leandersson on the way to his first EOC gold medal in Lugnet arena. „It feels perfect! Unbelievable day for me,“ the 22-years old Swede smiled after getting known he got gold, 5 seconds ahead of Kiril Nikolov from Bulgaria. The two men who were regarded as the biggest favorites before the race – the reigning World Champion Daniel Hubmann from Switzerland and the home athlete Jerker Lysell – finished in the same time and shared the third place and bronze medal. More about men’s race here.

The third final race in the 2012 EOC in Dalarna, the third gold medal for the orienteering queen Simone Niggli from Switzerland. „Fantastic feeling! It was physically tough, but technically rather easy course but if you run fast, it becomes technically difficult too,“ the 17-times World Champion described the today’s race. As usually she won by a large margin. Lena Eliasson from Sweden finished 32 seconds behind this Swiss superstar. Bronze was grabbed by Maja Møller Alm from Denmark, after disqualification of Anne Margrethe Hausken Nordberg from Norway who crossed a fence which was forbidden to cross. More about women’s race here.

The defending European Champion among women Helena Jansson from Sweden did not compete today because of athigh injury from the Middle distance on Thursday. More in Helena’s video-diary on SVT.

ETOC

ETOC Day 1 in Hälsinberg (Falun).

Complete programme of the EOC week here.