Norway Celebrates Emphatic Win at Nordic Cross-Country Championships
Norway clean swept the Nordic Cross-Country Championships held on home grounds in Trondheim on Sunday. It bagged almost every possible title out of it. Among whole lot of participants, Saara Nikander from Finland was the only prominent non Norwegian athlete
who ended up well. She participated in women’s junior division.
For senior men’s 9 kilometres race, three runners battled well while putting all of their energies on the straight track, this culminated in an interesting competition and forced the jury to look at the photo finish to decide about the gold medallist. Hillary
Kipchumba was the top finishers of the race, who, despite of living there in Norway, did not have the right to represent the country.
Since Kipcumba crossed the finishing line by clocking the same time as Sondre Nordstad Moen from Norway, the later was declared as the Nordic champion. With a difference of one second, Dabaya Badhaso from Ethiopia made it to cross the finishing line; he
was entitled for the silver medal.
After the battling win, while talking to the media personnel, Moen said that he felt quite comfortable during the race. In the final round he had decided to not to lead the run until they were there at the final hill where it was a bit slippery.
Mustafa Mohamed, the world class steeplechaser from Sweden was declared third, he was 24 seconds behind Moen.
Norway again took a double in the men’s junior 6km race where Johan Bugge ended up a little ahead of Orjan Ronnevik in the final spurt. For following the top two quite closely, Napoleon Solomon, the 16-years old runner from Sweden claimed the bronze medal.
He was one second behind Ronnevik.
A big support athletes got on the day of competition was extended by the ideal weather condition in Trondheim, Central Norway. Though there was some light rain in the beginning of the day, but soon the sun began to shine and temperature rose to 5 C; this
caused the ice to melt on the course, causing a bit of trouble for the heavier runners.
On women’s side, Kirsten Marathon Melkevik the 40-years old runner from Norway tried overdoing the close rival Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal in women’s 7.5 kilometres race. However, the later proved too quick to be surpassed. Grovdal secured her victory in the
final kilometre of the race. Bjerkeli Grovdal, who also happened to be the European champion for 3000m in steeplechase in 2009, beat Melkevik with a difference of 6 seconds. Melkevik who had a strong PB of two hours, twenty nine minutes and twelve seconds
for marathon distance and was a strong contestant for the event could only end up with the bronze medal.
Looking quite contended with the performance after her win, while talking to the media reporters Bjerkeli Grovdal said that it was a hard course and the conditions for the runners were also not good. While she was running, she constantly felt a nasty piece
of ice grip onto her spike shoe amid which she had to stop and take it off. However, the final results were more than satisfactory and she was happy with them.
Sandra Eriksson, the runner from Finland who had won 1500m, 5000m and 3000 steeplechase at the Finish Championships this season could not compete with the Norwegian duo. She finished a little ahead of Ragnhild Kvarbeg and claimed third position in the event.
For women’s junior 4.5 kilometres race, Saara Nikander marvellously outperformed the rivals, she took the lead of the run right in the beginning and maintained it till the end, she finished bagging a gold medal as did she do last year.
Nikander, the 16-years old young runner is emerging as the biggest Finish talent ever. With currently running for the short distances, most probably soon she would be targeting 5000m and 10,000 meters races.
At the end of the event, Norway emphatically dominated the results, except the junior women’s competitions where Sweden managed to bag the gold while Finland finished with the silver.
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