On a day when many of the favourites made mistakes among the tricky moraine of Darnaway, reigning world champion Annika Billstam ran a superb race to retain her Middle title in style. Merja Rantanen of Finland was second and Emma Johansson, also of Sweden, was third.
Many athletes remarked that they found today's courses more difficult than they had expected, both physically and technically. Nobody had a perfect race, but Annika Billstam came closest: she lost 25 seconds to Emma Johansson by choosing a lower route to the first control, but that was the biggest mistake she make all day, and although she was the fastest runner on only three on the 22 legs, her steady performance when others were making big errors was enough to bring her victory by 50 seconds.
The 25 seconds she lost through route choice here was Annika Billstam's only real mistake
Billstam's performance was so impressive that she caught and overtook several of the runners who started ahead of her: she was running with Norway's Mari Fasting most of the way from control 12 to the finish, and at one point her pack also included Ida Bobach of Denmark and Saila Kinni of Finland, both of whom dropped back through the tough, phyical terrain around controls 15 and 16.
Billstam indicated that catching the other runners had encouraged her to maintain her speed through the latter part of the course, saying:
I was very nervous before the start. The course was very challenging at the beginning and faster towards the end, particularly because I had caught up a lot of fast runners.
Billstam's Swedish teammate Johansson had looked as if she were on course for the gold and was leading three controls from the end, but lost over ninety seconds with a surprising error on the penultimate control and ended up with bronze.
Emma Johansson had to settle for bronze after a surprising mistake on control 20
Johansson described her mistake, saying:
I had a fantastic race until that control, where I got stuck in a really green area, so I'm a little disappointed.
Merja Rantanen of Finland, who claimed silver with an otherwise steady run, lost around 25 seconds on the same control, although even without that error she wouldn't have beaten Billstam.
Several of the pre-race favourites made big mistakes that cost them a chance of a medal. Ida Bobach, who finished in fourth position, was one of the fastest runners on the course, but undid her good work with several sizeable errors, the worst of which cost her over two minutes on control 4.
Ida Bobach took herself out of contention for a medal by losing over two minutes on control 4
Helena Jansson of Sweden, who was many people's top tip for gold, never really recovered from losing almost two minutes through the first three controls, while Finland's Minna Kauppi made several major mistakes including losing well over three minutes on control 8.
Both Helena Jansson (left) and Minna Kauppi (right) made major errors in the tricky glacial terrain
Great Britain's Cat Taylor finished in fifth place, to the delight of the home crowd, recovering very well after an error on the second control.
Cat Taylor recovered well after losing time on the second control
Acknowledging her error, Taylor said:
The course was a lot trickier than I was expecting, and I had to push hard. Overall, I'm satisfied with my performance.
