Orienteering race 18:00 [3]
Milano City Race.
Sprint race in the center of Milan, around the Duomo and inside the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, quite a nice setting for a city race. The race counted for the Italian Team sprint selection for the EOC in April in Portugal, so most of the italian top competitors were present.
It was nice to see a bunch of old friends and nice to run in a city setting.
Unfortunately though, the race was not fair and the Men 21 course was problematic. The first control was misplaced and the best route-choice between control 11 and control 12 had an unmapped gate. I couldn't find control 1 in the right place, panicked and went back to the start. Restarted the race and ended up hitting the same exact location, but this time saw the flag on the other side of the pedestrian isle (I learned only after the race that the flag was on the wrong corner). Really mad at myself and very confused about what had just happened, I continued my race nevertheless. Ran well, felt finally pretty good physically and ready for a race after all my February problems, and hit all controls nicely and fast. Then control 12 came around, I made the shortest route-choice, entered a tunnel only to find the gate at the end closed. First thought again was that I had made a mistake, but it was clear on the map that it should be open. Really mad, I backtracked and went for one of the other route-choices. Afterwards the race was pretty easy, even though I felt like every next underpass was going to be closed again. Ended with energy and sprinted well to the last controls, but once again was sort of disappointed to see some dangerous road crossings on the course and almost got hit by a car and had to slow down to a halt before the last control.
After the race I learned about the misplaced control 1, and that many others had the same problem with the gate. Some actually jumped the gate and continued, whereas some lucky ones had instead made a different route-choice. Moral of the story, the race was unfair, and I'm not even sure they will validate the course in Italy. I don't think they should, and I'm guessing the Italian coach will delete the problematic controls from the selection process, though fairness is kind of weird in these cases. I was certainly sad to see a good race possibility ruined by these problems, but at the same time made some good splits on most of the course and felt strong all the way though. I'm sure I will have plenty of more opportunities in a long and busy spring calendar to run sprint races. Too bad, because running in Milano center was a pretty epic and rare event.