Machine-translated from Faroese and not yet reviewed. Read the original.
What was meant to be a great evening for Faroese running came to nothing. When we decided to send Valborg Heinesen and Marnar Djurhuus to the Nordic Championships over 10,000 m, we knew very well that this was a very big challenge in sporting terms. Still, we believed, and still believe, that it is important to show the Merkið, as we don’t have many opportunities to do so at the moment. The race also held real sporting promise, because both Marnar and Valborg had a good chance of setting new Faroese records over 10,000 m.
But Murphy’s law seems to have hit us hard. First Valborg became so ill that there was no question of travelling to Oslo to run. Marnar, however, was ready for the race, and was both in good shape and in good spirits. We had expected that he would probably end up running alone at the back fairly early on, but that did not happen. He settled in nicely with three other runners, and the pace was exactly right if Marnar was to reach his target, which was 31:30, or failing that 31:55, which is the Faroese record.
Vedvik of Norway and Budolfsen of Denmark were by far the strongest when the Nordic 10,000 m title was decided this evening.
The first kilometre went in 3:09, corresponding to exactly 31:30. After 2,000 m the clock showed 6:18, the same pace. Over the next 2,000 metres the pace dropped slightly, and with one lap to go to halfway, the 5,000 m split looked set to be around 15:48. So everything was still as it should be. But suddenly Marnar stopped and pulled out of the race. A sudden pain in his back forced him to stop at halfway. Marnar has had back problems earlier this year, but he and his physiotherapist have (or thought they had) got the problem under control.
Very unfortunate, but nothing can be done about it. There is always another race, and that goes for Marnar too, who was very disappointed at having to stop. The winner was Norway’s Marius Vedvik, who became Nordic champion, while Dane Lars Budolfsen had to settle for silver after a hard duel.
Men 10000m Nordic ChallengeFinal 22 May
1 Marius Vedvik Norway29:12.84
2 Lars Budolfsen Denmark29:22.67
3 Jaakko Nieminen Finland29:52.00
4 Fredrik Uhrblom Sweden29:52.99
5 Dadafo Dhaqabi89SK Vidar29:55.18
6 Henrik Them Andersen Denmark29:55.75
7 Rolf Steier84SK Vidar29:57.67
8 Eirik Gramstad Norway30:02.87
9 Andreas Åhwall Hässelby SK30:20.20
10 Lars Södergård Sweden30:35.58
11 Ørjan Grønnevig Norway31:00.85
12 Aki Nummela85Finland31:22.52
13 Fredrik Røtnes92BUL Tromsø32:24.26
14 Harald Solhaug Næss88SK Vidar32:26.02
– Tomas Bereket86SK VidarDNF – Patrick Engström FK StudenternaDNF – Marnar Djurhuus Faroe IslandsDNF – Asbjørn Ellefsen Persen NorwayDNF – Frew Zenebe Brkineh Sandnes ILDNS
