EOC 2024 Round Up

Middle qualification and Final

The competition kicked off on Friday with the Middle-Distance Qualification where over 300 athletes competed for a top 20 position, that would result in them making it through to the Middle Final the following day.   

The courses were challenging, with approximately 3.9 kilometres for the women and 4.5 for the men and 145-185m of climbing and temperatures of 35 degrees. 

Images: Jo Shepherd and Jonathan Crickmore during the EOC Middle Qualification race. Credit: IOF/ Eszter Kocsik.

Grace Molloy and Fiona Bunn were the two athletes who progressed out of qualification into the final, where they were met with a course of steep slopes requiring precise navigation leaving athletes with no chance to relax their focus at any point. Grace finished 28th and Fiona, 54th respectively. 

In a stacked field, these are both solid results after both athletes have focused their year on sprint, and with WOC 2024 being only a month ago. 

Grace said “It was great to run such a challenging course today, and my orienteering was ok. I lost some time on the difficult slope controls but avoided any disasters like many of my competitors. I think I can improve on this result and I am looking forward to racing again tomorrow.” 

Images: Fiona Bunn and Grace Molloy power through the heat in the Middle Final of EOC 2024. Credit: IOF/Eszter Kocsik. 

Long Distance

Sunday then moved into the Long-Distance event where athletes faced 650 and 850m of climb. They again faced the heat and complex crag features.  

Images: Lucy Walker and Luke Fisher for Team GB at EOC 2024 in the Long Distance Race. Credit: Rob Lines.

Both Grace and Peter Molloy held the top spot for a long time throughout the competition, which in the end Grace just finished outside the top 20, bettering her result in the Middle to finish in 22nd place with Tove Alexandersson once again taking top spot.

In the Men's competition Jonathon Crickmore finished the highest placed British athlete, with Kasper Fosser taking the win. 

Images: Alastair Thomas, Grace Molloy and Peter Taylor-Bray during the Long Distance race at EOC. Credit: Rob Lines.

Relay

Following the rest day on Monday, the athletes were back in action for the relays on another warm day with a lot of slope orienteering. There were not as many rock details compared to the weekend races, but many forkings with relatively short distance between the forked controls.  

With this being European Championships, there is only one team to count in the overall standings, and the team of Peter Molloy, Peter Taylor- Bray and Jonny Crickmore finished 14th, just crossing the line ahead of the second Great Britain team of Nathan Lawson, Luke Fisher and Alastair Thomas, with Norway taking the victory.  

In the Womens race the team of Jo Shepherd, Chloe Potter and Grace Molloy had a strong race to finish 9th, with Lucy Walker taking part in a mix relay. It was a close first leg between several teams, which developed into a race with reduced visibility on the last leg due to heavy rain although providing some light relief to the heat. However, Simona Aebersold was able to see the fastest route choice to control 10 which created a decisive gap, and she went on to lead the Swiss team to victory. 

Image credits: Peter Molloy hands over to Peter Taylor-Bray, Lucy Ward, and Grace Molloy. Credit: Rob Lines. 

Well done to all our athletes for their efforts at this year's European Orienteering Championships. 

The next international competition will be World Cup Round 4 in Kuopio, Finland from 26-29 September. Team selections will be announced in the coming weeks.