FÍF archive

Bronze for Katarina Høj!!

08.07.2011 · Hallur Holm

Machine-translated from Faroese and not yet reviewed. Read the original.

Katarina Høj pulled off a real feat today when she won the bronze medal in the girls’ 12 600 metres at Nya Ullevi. People who follow running in the Faroe Islands know that there are several young girls who run really fast. Of the 40 who ran today, two were Faroese. As well as Katarina, Karin Holm Simonsen also took part. The high standard in the Faroe Islands was confirmed when both Faroese girls were placed in the fastest of the four heats.

Katarina crosses the line in third place in the first heat in 1:45.89.

Katarina’s previous best time was 1:51 and Karin’s was 1:53. On that basis, Katarina was expected to finish somewhere around the middle, while Karin would be battling among those at the back. And that is how it turned out. Katarina was in 4th place for the first 200 metres and then worked her way up into third. Rather than getting squeezed in third place, she closed in on second. But the order did not change, and with the phenomenal time of 1:45.19 she knocked a full 6 seconds off her previous best and won the bronze medal. On top of that, she broke the 6-year-old age-group record set by Rebekka Fuglø in Gothenburg in 2005.

Karin and Katarina just after crossing the line

Karin fought a hard battle with two others to avoid finishing last. It was close right to the end, but Karin had to give way. Karin’s time was a long way off her best, and no wonder. A foot injury has troubled her for a long time, so she has not been able to train enough lately. Even so, Karin finished 19th overall of the 40 runners, and when you run 1:58.15, 5 seconds off your best, it says quite a lot about your talent.

A happy and very pleased Katarina with her bronze medal. A Faroese girl, a Swede and a Dane

Our day had actually started with the javelin, where Hanus Bergsson was competing in the boys’ 17 event. Hanus has improved a lot recently and has thrown over 50 metres in training. He did not throw that far today, but he still had three good throws, all between 46 and 47 metres. The longest was 46.94, a small improvement on his old personal best. This is also a Faroese age-group record, and it was good enough for 18th place out of 31 throwers.

Hanus sends the javelin out to 46.94 metres, setting a new personal best and age-group record

13-year-old all-rounder Marita K. Petersen from Hvirlan is entered in no fewer than 6 events, and two of them were today. This morning she ran the 60 metres hurdles and got a very good result. She improved her time by just under a second and finished 31st overall out of 62 participants. A thoroughly respectable result in an event she is not that used to. Her time of 10.96 seconds is also a new Faroese age-group record.

Marita on her way to both a personal best and an age-group record in the 60 m hurdles in 10.96 sec.

In the afternoon Marita threw the javelin. And if things had gone well in the morning, they went even better now. With her very first throw she reached 32.11 metres. That is an improvement of a full 6 metres!! Marita has consistently thrown between 24 and 26 metres over the last two years, so it has just been a matter of waiting for it to suddenly click. And it certainly did today. Her 2nd and 3rd throws were 25.15 m and 26.00 m, and a place in the final with three extra throws was secured. And in the final Marita threw a long way again. First 28.63, then 31.14 and finally 27.17 metres. In the end Marita finished 8th and set a new age-group record.

Marita in her first attempt, sending the javelin out to a full 32.11 metres, a personal best and age-group record

In the boys’ 17 long jump, Trygvi Laksafoss competed against 28 others. His first jump was reasonable, but his left foot came down a bit early and landed first. The jump was measured at 5.35 metres. On his next jump the run-up just would not fit, and he ended up simply running through the sandpit without jumping. Now there was one attempt left. But this time Trygvi overstepped, so he was left with the 5.35 metres from the first round. A bit disappointing for Trygvi, who on a good day should jump close to 6 metres.

As you can see, the left foot was in the sand a bit early

And then came the 800 metres. Here we had three in the boys’ 17 race and Elsa Berg in the girls’ 15. If another medal was to be brought home today, it would have to come from our Island Games athlete Rúni Seloy, who has previously won medals at VU-Spelen. Rúni was running among the fastest of the 66 runners. He was in 2nd place after 100 metres, and the man in front was pushing so hard that the two of them opened a gap. Even so, Rúni went past after 350 metres and passed the bell in 56.6. And Rúni was still moving fast.

Rúni has just gone past at 400 m and is building a comfortable lead

Passing the 600-metre mark (1:26), the lead was still comfortable. 10 metres to 2nd and 13 to 3rd – and it looked as though it would hold. But then, with 100 metres to go, Rúni completely died. First one came past, then another, and a third and a fourth, before the finish line at long last brought the suffering to a merciful end. But this was a bold run and, all things considered, also well run (and especially well fought!) The winner, who passed Rúni with 90 metres to go, finished in 1:55.4! So the Faroese record – 1:55.5 – is probably not all that far away after all. Rúni’s time was 1:58.19, which was good enough for 5th place overall out of a total of 66 runners.

Over the last few metres Rúni’s legs would not do what Rúni wanted, and he had to settle for 5th place

Two of the 66 were Hans Jacobsen and Regin Joensen, who were both in heat 4. For the first 200 metres they kept up well, even though the pace was high. Although the pace dropped somewhat, they both fell back quite a bit, and with 200 metres to go Hans was second to last and Regin last. Over the last 100 metres Regin in particular picked up good speed and overtook Hans and two others. Hans got the one, but at 2:08.03 he was still a good 2 seconds off his best time, while Regin, with 2:07.01, managed to take just under a second off his best time. Overall Regin finished 39th while Hans finished 44th.

Regin and Hans crossing the finish line. Regin set a personal best with a time of 2:07.01.

Elsa Berg was in the third of the 4 girls’ 15 heats. She started a little cautiously and settled towards the back from the start. She gradually edged her way forward, and a first lap of around 75 sec suggested she might be on course for a small personal best. Although she overtook a few more on the second lap, it was run a little slower, so it was just short of a personal best. Her time was 2:33.63, which was good enough for 28th place overall out of 36 participants. Elsa recently ran an excellent 600 m, which suggests her 800-metre time will soon take a big leap in the right direction. With a slightly more aggressive race she could easily run 2:26–2:28 later this year.

Elsa has just set off in the 800 m

We have a long day of competition ahead of us tomorrow. As early as 09:10, Tinna Berg Jørgensen, who turned 12 today!!, starts in the 80 metres, and Rúni Seloy rounds off the day at 19:10 with his 400-metre race.

The Faroese girls at Ullevi: Elsa, Katarina, Rebekka, Tinna and Karin