Discussion: Sprint Finals

I counted 14 Americans through to the A finals, subject to my misunderstandings (they took away my illegal checkpoint descriptions this morning, so clearly I need to brush up on my Danish).

François Léonard, Sergiy Gnatiouk, Gregory Balter, Tom Hollowell, Sergey Velichko, Jeffrey Saeger, Chuck Spalding, Samantha Saeger, Cristina Luis, Marie-Josée Parayre, Antonina Kuzmis, Janet Tryson, Nancy Neuburger, and Sharon Crawford.

Very nice! Good luck to everyone in the A Finals, other finals, and the rest of the races.

Also: Sverre Froyen & Tom Nolan, both in M60; and Dave Cady in M70.
Nice run by Samantha, just 8 seconds behind and 2nd in her heat.

You know you're getting old when Samantha is running Masters...

At WMOC, to qualify for the A Final one needs to be (roughly) in the upper half of the entrants if there are 160 or less entrants in the age/gender category, or in the top 80 if there are more. Historically only a handful of U.S. entrants qualified. Exception was last year in New Zealand, when the numbers were about 16 in the Sprint and 20 in the Long, sorry I don't have the exact ones. So, this year's showing is among the best, with two good shots at the medals today for Samantha and Sharon.

Sverre, Tom, and Dave (and myself and 20-ish other Americans) will get another shot at qualifying on Tuesday and on Wednesday. There is a new and complicated qualifying scheme for the Long. For the Middle it is the same as above, top half or top 80, in a single qualification race.

Good luck everyone and have fun!!

Gold for Samantha!!

Congratulations Sam!!!!!
And Cristina not far behind in 12th!

Sharon was a second out of 5th place. :-(

But yay, Sam!

Congrats to Sam!!!!

World Masters Champion!!

Also to all the others who participated and placed!!
Plus all the others who had a really good time in a fantastic city.

That's awesome Samantha, huge congrats! And good news all around with so many qualifying for finals! Go USA!!