Jussi Utriainen (FIN), men's winner at the 2007 Nordic XC Champs, Södertälje, Sweden 4 Nov (© Hasse Sjögren)
Very few runners would even for a split second consider attempting to compete in a 4.6 kilometre international championship cross country race one week after running a PB in the marathon. But Norway's Kirsten Melkevik Otterbu is no ordinary runner, as she regularly exceeds 300 kilometres per week in training.
So just seven days after lowering her marathon best mark to 2:29 when finishing third in Frankfurt Marathon, the 37-years-old Norwegian in convincing from-start-to-finish fashion defended her 2006 Nordic Cross Country women's title at the 11th edition of the championships held on Sunday (4) in Södertälje some 30 km southwest of the Swedish capitol Stockholm. The venue is the hometown of 1976 Olympic Javelin Throw medallist Kenth Eldebrink, 1989 World Junior cross country champion Malin Ewerlöf,and tennis legend Björn Borg!
The course was not just much shorter than a marathon but also completely different in character – a 1.4 km loop on soft trails in a hilly pine forest – but that obviously didn't disturb Melkevik Otterbu the least. She is obviously comfortable in just about every kind of running environment, as underlined by the fact that she this summer got a bronze medal at the European Mountain Running Championships.
Today the Norwegian just ran her own race never being seriously challenged at any stage. Sweden's steeplechase specialist Ida Nilsson stayed reasonably close during the first lap but that proved slightly costly and in the end Nilsson had to relinquish the silver position to fellow Swede Lisa Blommé.
Utriainen takes the win on the rise
The men's 8.8 km race quickly developed into a duel between Finland's Jussi Utriainen and Sweden's Erik Sjöqvist. The two of them have met each other numerous times over the last years, the last time in early September at the "Finnkampen" match between their two countries when Sjöqvist prevailed at both 10000m and 5000m.
The race today had a seesaw character where Sjöqvist appeared to push the pace on the up-hills while Utriainen responded on the down-hills. The gap, however, never exceeded 5-7 metres. But on the second to last of the six laps it was Utriainen who took the lead on the big uphill (25 metres rise in some 300 metres) and although Sjöqvist reduced the gap somewhat in the early part of the last lap he never managed to reestablish contact.
This was his third silver medal (he also has one bronze and two fourth places) at the Nordic cross country championships but Sjöqvist got some compensation from the fact that he led Sweden to a very comfortable victory in the team competition after cramming all four scoring runners into the top-6. A pattern very closely mimicking that in the women's race where Swedish runners occupied positions 2-3-4-5 behind Melkevik Otterbu!
Norway take junior wins too
The junior races resembled the senior races in as much as the girls’ race had a dominant winner in Kristine Eikrem Engeset (Norway) and as the boys’ race was a closely fought 2-man race. In fact the latter was even closer than the seniors as Sondre Nordstad Moen (Norway) and Alexander Söderberg (Sweden) sprinted side-by-side down the finishing straight with the Norwegian prevailing by just half a metre.
Norway took the junior men’s team win, while Finland took the junior women’s team title.
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
RESULTS
MEN (8.83km)
1) Jussi Utriainen FIN 27:39
2) Erik Sjöqvist SWE 27:46
3) Øystein Sylta NOR 27:48
Teams: Sweden 17; Finland 34; Norway 49
Junior (6.03km)
1) Sondre Nordstad Moen NOR 19:07
2) Alexander Söderberg SWE 19:08
3) Sindre Buraas NOR 19:12
Teams: Norway 9; Sweden 13; Denmark 37
WOMEN (4.63km)
1) Kirsten Melkevik Otterbu NOR 15:54
2) Lisa Blommé SWE 16:10
3) Ida Nilsson SWE 16:20
Teams: Sweden 9; Norway 22; Finland 23
Junior (4.63km)
1) Kristine Eikrem Engeset NOR 16:32
2) Suvi Miettinen FIN 16:55
3) Charlotte Sinclair SWE 17:06
Teams: Finland 13; Sweden 14; Norway 19
