Big Foot's Alastair George is learning just how fierce the competition is at the junior world champs in Hungary.
Alastair (pictured) is arguably NSW's top junior orienteer, posting impressive km rates across all three formats, but Europe's elites are taking it to a whole new level.
In the JWOC Sprint last night, the men's winner Colin Kolbe from Germany covered the 4.1km course in 15:48. That's less than 4 minutes per kilometre! Victorian Aston Key was equal ninth, a terrific performance following his recent win in the European under-18 titles.
The race was in the middle of Kecskemét, a very flat area with parks and narrow alleyways.
Alastair finished 100th and 3:13 off the pace. Now, let's just think about that for a tick... 3:13 is 193 seconds - so on average there are two seconds separating each of the first 100 placegetters. Wow. Just looking at your map can cost time!
In the women's Sprint, our new scholar Grace Molloy from Scotland tied for 17th.
The champs opened on Monday with the Long Distance in relatively flat terrain. Alastair was 103rd in 96:43 for the 15km course. Special mention goes to Tara Melhuish for her 27th position which is the best result for an Australian woman in the long distance at JWOC since Laurina Neumann’s 25th in 2008.
Wednesday is a well earned rest day. Thursday sees the Middle Qualifying and Friday the finals, with the Relays on Saturday.
You can catch all the action, results, splits and routegadget via the champs website.
