The Yukon’s three athletes attending the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Kosice, Slovakia, will be looking for improved results as they head into the final day this week.
Kendra Murray, Kerstin Burnett and Trevor Bray, competing on Team Canada, raced in the final individual event, the middle distance, at the championships on Thursday.
Burnett and Murray placed 32nd and 38th respectively in the women’s B final. Bray finished 41st in the men’s C final.
“I am not entirely happy about this placing. However, I was mostly happy with my execution of my tactics during the race, so the placing is a result of that,” said Murray in an email to the News.
“I managed to reach most of my goals for this race, which I was happy with. The terrain was very open forest making for fast running, which suited me quite well. This race was also very physical with very steep hills with lots of gullies, which made this race very tiring. Hopefully this will not affect my legs for the relay tomorrow!”
“I am a little disappointed because I know I can do better than that,” said Bray in an email. “Overall the race was very clean but on one control I lost at least five minutes, which significantly dropped my placing. The map was very detailed with lots of small depressions/hill with very steep sides. Unfortunately it was raining so climbing them was very difficult and physically exhausting.”
Over the first three distances - sprint, long and middle - Murray has produced the highest placing out of the three Yukoners.
The 19-year-old placed 65th out of 140 competitors in the women’s sprint event on Sunday. Murray, the only of the three competing at her second junior worlds, was Canada’s top finisher and completed the 2.3-kilometre course in 14 minutes 0.4 seconds, just 2:47.6 behind the first-place finisher.
Murray then took 109th in Monday’s long distance event.
Burrnett, 19, navigated to 111th in the sprint and reached 100th in the long distance race.
Bray placed 161st in the sprint and was disqualified in the long distance event after missing a control.
Canada had a major breakthrough at the junior worlds on Monday. Ottawa’s Emily Kemp won Canada its first-ever medal at the championships, taking bronze in the long distance. It is only the third medal ever won by a North American at the event.
The junior worlds will end with a team relay event on Friday.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com