Austrian Cross Champs

Now it is time for me to report about our race at the Austrian Cross Champs this weekend.
Like last year, our whole military team competed on Sunday in St. Pölten on the long course.
Last year Gernot Kerschbaumer, Markus Lang and me got the silver medal in the team competition. Our goal was again to achieve a medal.
This year nearly all of Austrias best athletes were running on the long course.
Therefore it was much harder work for our team to get good individual placings.
In the beginning the race started really fast due to Günther Weidlinger and Martin Pröll battling in front.
For me it was clear that also Markus, Kerschi and Helmut Gremmel were too fast to follow.
I started fast but with caution. On the first small lap I then caught Warti and we ran at least the first two laps together with me in front. After a time I realised Warti could not follow me any longer and I had already seen Helmut G. in front of me. I then stayed at my pace and could also overtake Helmut within the next laps.
This was quite unexpected. In the end he was 50 seconds and Warti 1min 26 secs behind me.
In the teams competition Markus, Kerschi and me became second like last year.
It was also a nice feeling to be a little bit less behind them than last year.
So the next big competitions for me are Stigtomtakavlen and Tiomila in April.
This means a lot of training time ahead of them to convert the speed in orienteering speed.

Results individual