What a successful JWOC. The anticipation was high beforehand, and Zefa Fa’avae winning  2nd place in the long event is our best ever placing in the forest terrain for the Junior World Orienteering Championships long event. It follows in the footsteps of Matt Ogden’s golden medal win in the forest terrain for the middle event in 2012.

Sprint relay
JWOC 2024 started under threatening grey clouds hinting at a coming thunderstorm. Finland showed early brilliance but was overshadowed by lightning-fast runs from three Norwegian competitors. All Kiwi teams performed admirably, showcasing their skill and making us proud.
The challenging course began with a gruelling climb from the event arena, leaving runners breathless by their first critical route choice atop the hill. Organisers added to the difficulty with cleverly placed spectator controls and a split that sent runners scrambling across the hillside, testing their navigation skills.
Despite some runners faltering with direction changes mid-leg, the Kiwis remained composed, executing their legs flawlessly. The first team finished 19th overall (11th by nation), the second team placed 26th, and the third team secured a solid 41st position. A promising start to the 2024 JWOC campaign. Onwards!
RESULT:
11th New Zealand:  Zara Stewart, Nathan Borton, Felix Hunt, Kaia Joergensen  1 58:25    +4:17

Sprint – 13th place for Felix, 20th for Kaia!
Felix and Kaia lead the way in a strong New Zealand performance in the JWOC sprint held today in the town of Stříbro. Felix finished in 13th place only 47 seconds behind the winner Matthieu Buehrer from Switzerland while Kaia was 20th, 54 seconds behind Elli Punto, Finland and Michaela Novotna, Czechia who shared first place for the women.

The courses were characterised with some challenging route choices, including the first leg straight out of the start triangle which involved finding a way along the cobbled village streets, and steps, avoiding several artificial barriers. One of the most decisive legs on both the men and women’s courses involved choosing between a route on paths through a forest crossing, from one side of small valley to another, or a longer route along roads which used a bridge across the valley. In the men’s course the road route seemed to be the winner while the opposite was the case for the women.

Some New Zealanders got caught out by a very narrow piece of uncrossable fence which was difficult to see on the map and meant they had to backtrack to find their way round to the control. Overall though there were very few mistakes from the team, a great performance from the team which included four JWOC debutants.

Tomorrow will be a whole new challenge with the long distance event in a steep forested area to the north of Pilsen.

Long event – Big hills & challenging routes conquered by Zefa!

The long distance race lived up to its name with the winning times some 5 minutes longer than estimated, but Zefa relished the challenge and attacked the whole way round. At the halfway mark, Zefa held the lead but a small mistake and a strong finish by the Swiss runner, Mattheau Buerher pushed Zefa back into silver. There was no disappointment with a silver medal though and a super excited New Zealand team filled the arena with their cheers!
Both the men’s and women’s courses had 4 or 5 long route choice legs. Zefa took some quite wide choices minimising climb and using tracks, and these seemed to give him the edge over the competition. The other New Zealanders were less sure of the options they chose but on the whole their execution was good with not too many wobbles. It was an all-round great performance by the New Zealand team, while the obvious highlight was Zefa’s silver medal, there were also strong runs from Felix (33rd), Kaia (36th) and debutants Tide Fa’avae (39th), and Jake McLellan (48th). Tide and Jake have 2 and 3 more years running at JWOC respectively – very exciting prospects ahead!

MEN
2nd Zefa Fa’avae 1:16:00. +0:54
33rd Felix Hunt 1:26:04 +10:58
48th Jake McLellan 1:31:14 +16:08
98th Riley Croxford 1:42:21 +27:15
100th Nathan Borton 1:44:10 +29:04
104th Sam Carryer 1:45:45 +30:39

WOMEN
36th Kaia Joergensen 1:32:20 +17:32
39th Tide Fa’avae 1:34:10 +19:22
52nd Katherine Babington 1:39:56 +25:08
55th Rachel Baker 1:40:03 +25:15
69th Phoebe Hunt 1:45:39 +30:51
88th Zara Stewart 1:52:04 +37:16

Middle event – Mining terrain yields rewards for NZ! 
The middle distance of the Junior World Championships was held in terrain shaped by mining, very reminiscent of the Central Otago town of Naseby. The steep and intricate gully systems provided both technical and physical challenges for the competitors. In quite different terrain, from the long distance, Zefa once again flew the flag for New Zealand, with a high-speed and technically clean run for a podium placing of 6th place.

There were six different nations represented on the men’s podium, led by the home nation runner, Czech, Jan Stryek who finished ahead of the Sprint and Long, gold medalist, Swiss, Matthieu Muehrer and Norwegian Alfred Bjoerneroed.

The women’s race was dominated again by Czech Lucie Dittrichova repeating her gold medal performance from the long, with her compatriot Viktorie Skachova moving from the bronze position into silver, and Sweden taking their first individual medal with Alma Svennerud in bronze.

Kaia achieved her second top 20 for the week, repeating her position from the 2023 middle distance with an 18th place. Kaia started fast having the fifth fastest time to the first radio, but like many others, she was still feeling the effects of the long distance race in her legs and couldn’t quite maintain that pace.

It was a great day for all of New Zealand runners, with only small mistakes and although their bodies were tired they pushed themselves hard. The team is hoping to hold their position in the nation competition, which adds the places of the best three men and women for each country. After the sprint relay, sprint and long, New Zealand was in 9th place just edging out Great Britain and Australia.

MEN
6. Zefa Faavae 26:56 +1:14
62. Felix Hunt 31:05 +5:23
66. Jake McLellan 31:24 +5:42
106. Sam Carryer 34:00 +8:18
118. Nathan Borton 34:43 +9:01
122. Riley Croxford 35:05 +9:23

WOMEN
18. Kaia Joergensen 28:08 +3:56
48. Zara Stewart 31:19 +7:07
51. Rachel Baker 31:45 +7:33
53. Katherine Babington 31:52 +7:40
84. Phoebe Hunt 35:41 +11:29
– Tide Faavae mispunched

Forest relay – Kiwi energy right to the final finish line 
The terrain traversed for the relay was familiar to the team with the dense areas of erosion details in depressions interspersed with lengths of open running terrain and patches of green undergrowth.

The event revealed many mistakes from top athletes after days of racing and the pressure of a relay with forking in the mixed terrain. So we are elated with a very stable women’s team run. They were so close to breaking into that top 6 but we are extremely happy with a top 10 result.

The men’s team had a very competitive Oceania finish with all the drama as Zefa overhauled Australian runner Oscar Mella for 10-20 metres in the finish chute to beat the Aussies by 1 second.

Last year during JWOC on Romanian terrain we finished 8th in the mens and 9th in the women’s forest relay – so the the women’s team have finished the event on a definite high note.

RELAY RESULTS:
WOMEN NZ 1
8th  1:51:42 +10:48
Kaia Joergensen, Zara Stewart, Tide Fa’avae

WOMEN NZ 2
23rd Rachel Baker, Phoebe Hunt, Katherine Babington

MEN NZ 1
12th  1:52:52 +10:47
Felix Hunt, Jake McLellan, Zefa Fa’avae

MEN NZ 2
39th Riley Croxford, Nathan Borton, Sam Carryer

Read more on the ONZ website here