Last Saturday our athlete Sebastian Inderst, which is now living in Gothenburg, had the chance to take part at the sprint training organized there by the Swedish national team. The program was a simulation of a knockout race: qualification and quarterfinals in the morning, semi- and finals in the afternoon. This was a great occasion to get used to the new racing format, which will be part of the World Championships in Denmark this summer. Not only it is important to get used to the time schedule (warming up, cooling down and reloading for so many times in a day), but also competing side by side with such a high level of athletes is something we only can learn from.
After a good start in the qualification, where there was a starting interval of 45”, the concept of the quarterfinals came as a surprise: as it happened in the World Cup in Switzerland last year, just 2’ before starting the athletes got to know that there would be a so-called “runners choice”. This means that the athletes get 3 different course alternatives (usually just 3-4 controls, the rest of the course is the same for all) and 20” to decide which one they want to run, and then pick that map. After another good race, he couldn’t anyways keep up with the fastest swedes on the last meters, getting into 3rd position. The race time though was good enough so that Sebastian got the lucky looser spot for the semifinals, which gets awarded for the fastest 3rd position among the quarter finals.
After a few hours resting, the last 2 races took place in another area of the city with a bit more tricky entrances and several dead ends, which easily could cause problems to the runners. Our athlete this time had a big mistake in the beginning, which took him directly out of the game in the heat against Gustav Bergman & Co. Anyways this was a great experience, and even running in the B Final was a great training!
We would like to thank the Swedish National Team for letting Sebastian join for such a good training possibility and welcome them soon at MOC2k20!