O - Race 39:58 [5] 7.4 km (5:24 / km)
shoes: VJ Bold SM 15
WOC Relay 3rd Leg, 4th Place
Solid work from the boys to send me out with Sweden and Finland in the fight for 3rd, 4th, and 5th. William was happy to push the pace at the front and I was content to sit behind Mikko and back myself to be more stable technically on what I believed to be quite a tricky course.
Some small wobbles through a few controls but going towards 7 was still in touch with both of them. I was pretty certain I saw William get his forking and I was on the way there when I spotted a boulder to the right of me, I couldn't see another boulder on the hillside so I felt I had to go and check it out, no control, and I knew I was off the back. However, coming into 8 Mikko was still in sight so I knew the race was still on.
Approaching the 9th control I took a slightly different line to Mikko and to my surprise caught sight of William again. In hindsight I should really have pushed hard on the middle section of the long leg, or at least pushed hard to catch up to William once I had spotted him. But the 9th control looked tricky, and I thought almost certainly the last forked control, so I wanted to hit it cleanly. William got in without problems and had a 30 second lead going into the final loop but I was still with Mikko.
At first I was planning on just sitting on, until the second last control but four from the end I felt that an opportunity presented itself and I took the chance. My route to the third last was worse than I expected so I was quite relieved to see that Mikko had not past me on a different choice, a slightly tricky second last control and then I was away and comfortable.