Belgian relay champs 2015: maps and results

If you have watched the cycling race Gent-Wevelgem last sunday, then you've got a good impression about the weather in Belgium. The 200 riders at the start line knew they were facing a long, tough and for some, a heroic battle in such terrible conditions. The rain and the strong wind turned the race into a battle of survival. In the same circumstances the national relay championships in orienteering took place in Kasterlee with 450 athletes at the startline.

In women's class we weren't expecting an exciting fight for the victory. Omega was the big favourit with Liesbeth van de Velde, Kim Geypen and Miek Fabré in the first team. CO Liege, Hamok and Trol were the teams who should fight for the silver and bronze medal. But finally the women's race became more exciting than the men's race. Hamok had a good start with its best runner, Greet Oeyen on the first leg. Again she had a very good race, the best legtime(*) from all female participants. Oeyen was almost 4 minutes faster than Aline Hermans (Co Liege - 2nd after 1 leg) and Liesbeth van de Velde (Omega - 3rd).

Greet Oeyen passing the spectatorscontrol in the lead

During the 2nd leg Hamok succeeded to keep the chasers behind when reaching the change-over area, thanks to a decent race of Amber Thys. Kim Geypen (Omega) looked almost as fast as 2 seasons ago and had the 3rd besttime overall. She could almost close the 4 minutes gap and arrived in 2nd position, only 30 seconds behind. Omega2 (Veerle Buytaert) came in as 3rd, followed by Co Liege (4th) and Kol (5th). Trol, one of the outsiders, was 7th and already far behind (more than 27 minutes).

Map women elite

During the 3rd and last leg everyone expected Miek Fabré (Omega) to pass the spectatorscontrol in the lead. But nothing had changed, Mira Scheir (Hamok) was still leading with 30 seconds ahead of Omega. Scheir already showed a strong performance earlier this season at POM (the mass start race) and today she showed again that she can surprise in this kind of competitions.

In the end the experience from Miek Fabré gave Omega another gold medal in the national relay championships. Only 15 seconds later Hamok came in as 2nd team, but their dramatic story continued. The 2nd leg runner had received and run with the map of the 3rd leg runner. Because of this wrong order, the Hamok-team got disqualified. So the silver medal went to Co Liege (Hermans, Ceulemans and Tilkin) and Omega2 (Maggioni, Buytaert and Moonen) won bronze. The best performance on the last leg (and 2nd best time overall) came from Anna Serrallonga from Trol. Despite her injury and cold last week, she came in as 5th with Trol.

Map men elite

In class H21E everyone was expecting a classic fight between Kol, Trol and Hamok. Both Kol and Trol were missing their strongest athletes Yannick Michiels and Sergey Fedatsenka. Also the German team Bottrop showed up with a strong team. It was a nice surprise and made the level from the competition higher. During the first leg Tristan Bloemen (Co Liege) did the best routechoice on the long leg towards the 6th control and kept the lead for the rest of the race. Pieter Hendrickx (Kol) came close in the end and finished only 10 seconds behind. It was a good start for the Kol team because the opponents Hamok (Jeroen Hoekx - 4th) and Trol (Desmond Franssen - 5th) lost some crucial time. 

The podium in class H21E: Michael van Baelen - Desmond Franssen - Jeremy Genar - Tomas Hendrickx - Wouter Hus - Pieter Hendrickx - Benjamin Anciaux - Jeroen Hoekx

During the 2nd leg Wouter Hus (Kol) took the lead. He even increased the gap a little bit with the opponents Hamok (Anciaux) and Trol (Genar). Co Liege with Clement Demeuse was still in 2nd position ahead of Bottrop (Paul Lutkzendorf - 3rd). 

During the last leg Tomas Hendrickx could start with a safe lead and secured the victory with an individual besttime overall. Alexander Lubina (Bottrop) had a good day and could finish in 2nd position, 4 minutes behind. Michael van Baelen could bring the silver medal home for Trol after a 2nd besttime overall (the 3rd besttime in total was for Tristan Bloemen on the 1st leg). The bronze medal was again for Hamok with Thomas van der Kleij on the anchor leg.

The honour to have the best 2nd team was again for Trol in 2015, ahead of Kol and Hamok.  

(*)Note: all 1st leg runners (from all classes) have run 1 minute faster than published in the results (mistake by the organisation). This explains why e.g. Greet Oeyen had actually the individual besttime in women's class.

Results
Map H21E (routechoices D. Franssen)

HOCup 2015: preview

Matthias Müller (SUI), Olle Karner (EST) and some Belgian national team athletes (like Tomas Hendrickx and Jeremy Genar) are already on the startlist for HOCup 2015. This 2-days event will take place in the south of Belgium the 11th and 12th of April 2015.

At the moment most Belgian athletes are focusing on the Belgian relay championships (next sunday) and the WOC selection races (at JK in the beginning of April), but one week later there is another interesting competition on the calendar. The HOCup 2015 will include a middle distance race on saturday and a long distance national race on sunday. 

The middle distance will be partly forest and partly urban terrain

The middle distance race on saturday will take place in Vierves and will be half urban and half forest (with microrelief) terrain. The longest course will measure 5.5km. On sunday a national long distance race will take place in Olloy. Here we can expect a physical (because of several steep climbs) and technical (specially in the rocky zones) tough race. Both races will be worth the trip.

Extract from the long distance race on sunday

Matthias Müller first experience with Belgian orienteering:
One of the most famous participants is Matthias Müller, the former Swiss worldchampion in sprint distance. Some weeks before the race he already spoke to the organisation about his expectations and ambitious:
"Throughout my carreer I raced in so many countries but it is my first time in Belgium and I am looking forward to race in this new terrain. The maps look very interesting and the pictures from the terrain too! It will be fun to race it. Since I retired I have not been training that hard, so I do not have any expectations about my own performance. Since I stared as a coach in the regional squad of Aargau (the canton I am from) I care more about the young promising athletes in my team than about myself. All these kids will be in HOCup too, for some of them it will be the first time they'll do orienteering outside Switzerland. It will be fun and I hope they all can learn some lessons on the way to top athletes!"

Trailer HOCup 2015

Registrations:

The entry deadline is already next monday 30th of March. Belgian participants should register by their clubs and foreigners can contact the organisation (more information in the link below). It's also possible to do extra trainings or even organise trainingscamps in this area.

HOCup 2015 website

HOCup event on facebook

Belgian relay champs 2015: statistics

Less than 2 weeks until the Belgian relay championships in orienteering will take place in Kasterlee. How many teams will be present at the startline and which club is the biggest?

In total we expect 146 teams at the start line in 'De Hoge Mouw'. The biggest club will be Omega (27 teams), followed by Kol (24 teams) and Trol (21 teams and organising club). The biggest class in the men's category will be: Men masters B (21 teams). The biggest class in women's category will be: Women open (the elite class).

Will we get to see this again in 2015? Aline Hermans (in the lead in D21E) chased by the leading group in H21E (Joost Talloen, Desmond Franssen and Pieter Hendrickx).

The most important classes are still the elite classes (named Men and Women open). In men's open Kol will defend the title from 2014. In 2015 they are the biggest club in this class with 4 teams representing the yellow-blue colours. In total 17 teams will fight for the victory in H21E.
In women's class we expect 11 teams at the start line. Co Liege took the victory last year and this year they will travel to Kasterlee with 1 (winning?) team. Trol is the biggest club in women's elite class with 3 teams.

For the compositions from the teams and the different legs, you'll still need some patience. The coaches from all different clubs are still thinking about the right strategy and tactics.

Review Belgian relay champs 2014
More information about the Belgian relay champs 2015

Belgian night champs 2015: Oeyen and Anciaux

Last night the first national championships of 2015 took place in Koersel. The first fight for a Belgian title took place during the night. In women's class Greet Oeyen was too strong for Miek Fabre and Anna Serrallonga. In men's class Benjamin Anciaux took his first national title ever.

Greet Oeyen wasn't really satisfied about her race when she crossed the finishline. But also her opponents didn't succeed to avoid mistakes. The map (which had some missing and some extra paths) didn't make it easy to do a perfect technical performance. Anyway, in the end Oeyen was 1 minute faster than Miek Fabre and 2 minutes faster than Anna Serrallonga. After the Flemish night champs last week, it was the 2nd victory in a row for Greet Oeyen.

Anna Serrallonga finishing in 3rd position (photo: A. Simkens)

Miek Fabre - Greet Oeyen - Anna Serrallonga (photo: E. Houben)

In class H21E Benjamin Anciaux had an impressive race last night. He succeeded to have both the highest running speed and to avoid big mistakes. Finally he won the race ahead of his training mate Olle Karner. Both athletes had spent last week together at Lipica Open (where Karner made a good impression during the 4th stage). But finally it was Anciaux who had the best recuperation and won the national champs 2 minutes ahead of Karner and Thomas van der Kleij.

Benjamin Anciaux - Thomas van der Kleij (Photo: E. Houben)

In 2 weeks the next championships will already take place. Trol will organise the Belgian relay champs in Kasterlee. We can expect some interesting fights for the victory both in men's and women's elite classes.

Results
Map H21E (routechoices D. Franssen)
3Drerun H21E