Julian Dent's move to Sweden is paying off with some fantastic performances at this year's World Orienteering Championships in Lausanne. He qualified for the Sprint Final by coming 6th in his heat, a mere 12 seconds behind heat winner Adam Kovacs of Hungary. He finished in 32nd place in the final with fellow Australian David Brickhill-Jones in 39th. They were the only two Australians to make it to the Sprint Final, but there were some near misses with Simon Uppill narrowly missing out with an 18th place in his heat and Rachel Effeney even closer in 16th (the top 15 go through) and only 14 seconds behind the 15th place runner Esther Doetsch of Germany. Lizzie Ingham of NZ won her heat and followed it up with a terrific finish in 9th place in the final which was won by the seemingly unbeatable Simone Niggli-Luder of Switzerland.
Julian's form continued into the Long Distance Qualification race with a 7th place in his heat. Rachel Effeney and Vanessa Round had good runs in their heats but missed out on qualification so it will only be Aislinn Prendergast running for Australia in the Womens Long Distance Final after qualifying in 14th place in her heat. Vanessa Round does get a run in the Middle Distance Final qualifying in 12th in her heat.
The racing continues with the Middle Distance Final with full GPS tracking, live blog and internet TV at 8pm AEST 17th July. Julian races again in the Long Distance Final on Thursday 19th July at 9.17pm AEST with Aislinn Prendergast off at 7.43pm AEST. Follow all the action on the WOC site http://woc2012.ch/en/live-centre.html
