15 to Nordic Match - TrailO

Fifteen Brits travelled to Landvetter, near Gothenburg at the weekend to compete in the annual Nordic Match, an open TrailO event incorporating a match between the four Nordic countries. This year it consisted of a PreO competition on Saturday followed by a night competition – 50 controls in all that day! – and PreO again on Sunday.

In glorious sunny weather, but with temperatures hovering at or below freezing much of the time, the courses proved very challenging for everyone. Unusually, no competitor achieved a full score in any of the three competitions. Many times, it was necessary to try to identify just which crags and boulders were on the map and which weren’t, in typical rocky Swedish terrain, part wooded and part open. In the open part of the course on the Sunday, there were some sites that had to be viewed from up to 500 m away! By contrast, the timed controls were relatively easy and on Day 2, the winner Antti Rusanen (Finland) answered three tasks in four seconds.

Best Brits on Day 1 were Nick Barrable and Peter Huzan, whilst in the night event it was Tom Dobra who scored best with a very creditable seventh place. Day 2 saw Charles Bromley Gardener take 15th place in the strong international field of 119 competitors in all, and Tom Dobra was next, 35th.

Team scores (teams of 5) were calculated from all the day results plus the best 3 results in the night event. Finland won, ahead of Norway and then three Swedish teams. GBR1 was 11th and GBR2 17th.

Full results can be found on www.preoresultat.se.

Next weekend around a dozen Brits travel to Poland for the Bukowa Cup, the last WRE event in this years international TrailO season.