Marika Mikkola wins bronze medal at Orienteering World Championships

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Marika Mikkola, 33, won the bronze medal on Thursday in the women’s distance event at the Orienteering World Championships in Fagersta, Sweden.
      She finished a minute and 26 seconds behind the eventual winner, Karolina Höjsgaard of Sweden, and just over a minute behind Hanne Staff of Norway. The race was over 11 kilometres.
      Mikkola can feel well satisfied with her performance, after a summer in which she was hospitalised with a serious case of pneumonia. She can also look on the result as a kind of revenge, as she finished six seconds ahead of the defending World Champion and the runaway winner of the previous day’s sprint competition, Switzerland's Simone Niggli-Luder.
      Niggli-Luder had denied Mikkola a gold medal by just three seconds in the distance race at the 2001 World Championships in Tampere.
      Thursday’s bronze medal by Mikkola goes with that earlier silver, and with a gold won in the women’s relay three years ago.


Links:
  WOC Orienteering World Championships, Fagersta, Sweden

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