Do you want to know more about how to navigate on the fabulous Aguiar da Beira terrain?
With ABOM2019 and JWOC2021 coming around, it is nice to see you can get some time navigating in those Portuguese Forests!

Today we share with you one leg from the 2017’s Middle Distance WRE in Aguiar da Beira.
This was leg one from the Men Elite course. With a big and high-quality start field, the race was dominated by Thierry Gueorgiou and Olav Lundanes – with Thierry winning the race by only 5 seconds.

This was a crucial leg – Olav Lundanes lost here 24 seconds to Thierry, so we may say that his leg decided the final result.

Although there was a lot of spread on the route choices, you can clearly see that the top runners when north from the line.
That macro route choice allows then to use the most runnable parts of the forest, especially the bare rock areas – that in this terrain are really clear to see and really fast to run in.

But, why was Olli Ojanaho faster than Thierry on this leg?
From the auto-o analysis between them, we can understand that the running speed from Thierry is higher, since he is getting time on Olli at the beginning of the leg – when both were doing the exact same route.

However, after they crossed the small path, Olli used the bare rock area, kept is route mostly on white forest and had a really good line into the control. This allowed him to be the fastest one on this leg.

If you’re interested on this fantastic terrain, check out our training opportunities here
And of course, you are also invited to come for ABOM2019: https://abom2019.ori-estarreja.pt/