Asha commenced her campaign with a fantastic second place in the Hungarian Middle Distance Champs! After a week in training camp, JWOC got underway, starting with the longest Long Distance ever raced at JWOC – 11 kms for the girls! The terrain was sand dunes – generally flat, but needing accuracy to do well. Asha had a very steady run and was a little hampered by a lingering cold, finishing 86th, very tired but reasonably happy.
The sprint was held in the old town of Kesckemet, full of 400 year old buildings, flower beds, alleyways and ice cream shops which were popular with the spectators! Asha had a good start, coming through early radio controls in the top 30, but fading over the last controls to finish respectably midfield.
On to the technical Middle Distance, on unique terrain known as “The Labyrinth”. The map was described thus: “It’s like someone with bad green and yellow chicken pox has invaded the map”. It consisted of sand dunes with open pine, interspersed with thick, prickly juniper. Asha managed to push her way through the qualification and into the B Final, which she described as one of her least enjoyable runs of all time. She described scrambling around in the Juniper as something she will not be rushing back to do again, and was looking forward to more open areas for the relay – her final JWOC competition.
Saving the best for last – the Relay map was fast and open, and Asha’s leg was over 6 kms long. She ran the anchor leg for Australia 1, and it was a fitting finale. The girls lifted from 31st at the end of Leg 1, to 24th after leg 2, to a fantastic 17th, with Asha lifting them 7 places. A truly memorable way to conclude her time at JWOC.