Another excellent performance...

... this time by Felix as our only representative in the Long Final. Today was about going to the limit and over it if you wanted to do well. It was hot, darn hot and it just got hotter and hotter as the morning went on. Favourites fell by the way side or withdrew. Two top runners were not able to start as they were sick – it was a day of attrition, but Felix was not daunted.

As I said, Felix went into the race after about 1/3 of the starters had left already, and was caught by the following runner from Ukraine already at control 2. But he kept pushing. A further mistake to another control saw the runner from Sweden catching him by 4 minutes at the 6^th control. But he kept pushing. At the spectator control, reached after 14 km they were all three very close together. And still he kept pushing. By the end, Felix had not been able to hold the Ukrainian, but he had over taken the Swede again and he was rewarded with a very good result.

The day was won in the men by a masterful run from Matthias Merz, who cleaned up by 3,5 minutes to position number 2. Felix finished in 26^th place in 2:01:42, and he was ahead of many of the world top long distance runners who had succumbed to the heat. Well done to him.

In the ladies, the queen was dethroned as the two finish ladies Minna Kauppi and Heli Jukkola took gold. Simone was third after another excellent race – just shows that it’s not possible to win everything all the time.

It will be interesting to see how the relay goes on Saturday in this area.

Greetings from … well you know …

Richard.

P.S. Here you can find some photo's