Jani Lakanen wins orienteering World Championship title

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Finland's Jani Lakanen has won the long distance gold at the Orienteering World Championships in Århus, Denmark.
      After winning yesterday's race Lakanen was moved to tears and for a moment he was unable to utter a word.
     
Sprinting down the home straight Lakanen was already sure of his victory and punched the air wildly in celebration. The 17.2-kilometre distance with 32 control points had nevertheless taken its toll, and after diving across the finish line Lakanen continued his celebrations from a prone position on the ground.
      The first to congratulate Lakanen was the Finnish team head coach Janne Salmi, a middle distance World Champion himself from 1997.
      "This is the greatest day of my career", Lakanen declared. "I thought if I didn't win today I possibly never would."
     
Second place in Århus went to Switzerland's Marc Lauenstein, who took his second consecutive silver medal in the long distance event. Last year's winner, Russian Andrei Hramov, came in third.
      Lakanen, who already has a World Championship long distance silver medal from 2001, also won the European Championship earlier this year. His win was only the second Finnish gold at World Championships level in the long distance event, but we have to go back 21 years to Kari Sallinen's victory in 1985.
      Heli Jukkola was fourth in the women's long distance event on Wednesday. On Thursday the men and women compete in the middle distance individual races and the relay events will be held on Saturday.


Links:
  World Orienteering Championships 2006

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