10-11 of October Swedish champs in sprints were held.
Due to corona virus pandemic these starts originally were planed to be held in late May, but were rescheduled. But knock out champs was cancelled at all.
Saturday morning was qualifier of individual sprint.
The course was not demanding technically, but long legs were interesting.For M21 we had 2 heats with around 60 runners in each. 20 best from each heat went to A final.
I did ok race and went further without big issues.
In the afternoon we ran final.
As you can see, terrain is not the most exciting, so organisers made some artificial obstacles. Labyrinth at the very beginning of the course was small surprise as well. I don't remember I ran it ever during normal race before.
I made some small mistakes, loosing 2-3 seconds here and there, but it seems I had not high enough pace that day, so 12th place and almost 1 minute behind the winner Gustav Bergman .
Also it was a raining weekend. At the qualifier I ran in regular running shoes and that was ok, but not ok for the final, quite slippery, saw that was a wrong choice.
At Sunday was mixed sprint relay.
We have few strong boys in the club now, so individual sprint was also a selection race for relay. Both Gustav Bergman and Axel Granqvist beat me in the final, so I was selected for 2nd team.
I did quite ok race, with 6 time on my leg and our team finished 18.
I guess it was 4th victory in a row for Stora Tuna OK.
About relay selections.
The Swedish health care system allowed to have up to 50 people meet together at same time nowadays. Organisers of the event decided to let entry up to 25 relay teams in every heat (final) (so if all runners from one leg comeback at the same time and exchange to next leg, there is no more than 50 people in any case).
But there is more than 25 different clubs had a wish to run. So, organisers made selections based probably on results from previous years. Some clubs, Ravinen for example, got 2 places (teams) allowed to run in A final, and some none, so they ran B or C finals.
From one side it seems quite ok and reasonable. For example, even our 2nd team with 18th place in A final was quicker than B final winner by 17 seconds.
From another side, other teams had no any possibility to get to A final, while some had 2 teams. Looks a bit strange.
I think in this case possible qualifier for relay could be the best solution.
Anyway, despite a bit boring terrain for sprint and that we ran 3 races almost at same place, it was nice to ran event at all in this time.
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