LuxSUL 5 – it couldn’t have been closer!
Drama! There was a tie for the winning place on the Deer course at our LuxSul 5 run. Strictly, Cedric G beat Sasha R by 0.251 of a second. So said the Helga timing system and the SportIdent timing equipment that LuxOC uses. But that’s all way too precise, as the rules of orienteering only allow results to be measured to the nearest completed second. Anyway – here’s a photo of our tied victors. Cedric also narrowly wins the award for the broader grin.
Once again, the weather gods were kind to LuxOC, and the “Sunset” Urban League participants were able to watch a fine sunset from the Kaltreis park picnic tables. It’s a good meeting point, and it was great that so many people stayed around for a quiet beer after their run while dusk darkened and a huge “super moon” rose.
Novice planner Atte A did a super job for us, and spent much time making sure the route choices looked equal, but were not too equal. We have it on good authority that it was 15 seconds quicker to go down the stairs if you were heading to Control 9 on the Deer course. The next Control 10 also caused a headache for some runners. The gate to the NE of the control wasn’t locked – all you had to do was use the handle! And anyone who tried to go direct from the path to the E of the control was only imagining a thin white line between the out of bounds olive green and the uncrossable fence around the playground! You really had to go to the end of the path and up the steep steps. That said, a mild apology for routing people through that little area, because by the time runners started passing it was obviously being used by some nefarious-looking people for some probably nefarious purposes...
The results for the evening are, as usual, posted on the Helga web results page – see https://helga-o.com/webres/index.php?lauf=5527. And the cumulative LuxSUL results to date are shown in the attached sheets.
The most impressive run of the evening – even counting the dead heat leaders on the Deer course – came from Laurent M, who was only 3 ½ minutes behind the winning pair. He claims to have been training for LuxSUL by running marathons. And young Paul M also put in a very useful time to claim 4th place, a minute or so further back.
Among the Rabbits (the shorter course), young Jáchym K officially took the honours, to make it two wins out of two runs for him in the series. Dad Ondra actually beat him by two minutes, but the LuxSUL co-ordinator (whose decision is of course utterly final!) has deemed that Ondra was non-competitive for LuxSUL purposes, because his running time showed remarkably little evidence of the injury he claimed as his reason for not doing the Deer course. Inga A and Orsi L were the leading ladies, with Inga just a minute quicker.
For the overall 2024 LuxSUL rankings, it’s “best four from six to count”, with times behind the winner at each run being totalled up as the way of scoring.
On the Deer course rankings after five runs, Cedric G now looks to be the unassailable leader, having done all five runs, won (or dead-heated) three out of the five, and being only a minute behind with his fourth best result. Sadly, Simon H, his closest rival and winner of the other two runs, has now moved back to Denmark, so won’t have the four results needed to challenge for the overall lead. Sasha also looks to be a cert for second place, but the bronze could go to any of Vivien T, Staffan V, Chris S, or Michael H. It’s all down to the last race, with a good run allowing an earlier less good result to be discarded! And also, on-form Laurent M could slide through, if he has another fast run to complete his set of “four to count”.
It's less complicated on the Rabbit, with Inga A and Orsi L in a straight fight, with Inga having the advantage, despite Orsi having won both the first two runs in the series.
So, LuxSUL 6 at Bertrange on 1 October will be the big decider! Full details are already posted in the Calendar webpages. We hope to see many of you then.
