Portu-geezers (and Portu-gals)
A fantastic 3rd place for Will Hensman in the Long distance chasing start race helped him to the overall Bronze medal in M45 at Portugal O-Meet 2026, which rounded off a great long weekend for the FVO party.
Will was in contention throughout the first three days, with a 4th (31.02), followed by a 6th (56.27) and a 3rd (29.01) to set up a final day chase for the medals, with a 2:13 gap to silver and a lead of 1:26 over 4th. Although the 4th place man got ahead early, and took a sensational lead, Will capitalised on a late error, and held on to finish just under a minute behind and retain his bronze medal.
Vicky Thornton was left with too much to do after taking it easy in the first two stages to protect a long-standing injury, but her end performances were spectacular, as she glued on a 4th place in the final stage (39.24) to add to a day 3 bronze, and move up the overall rankings into 8th.
Jen Leonard was also prominent in her W55 class, her worst result being a day two 10th, and she added a 6th, a 7th and an 8th to this to take the overall 6th. Sarah Rollins moved between W21 and W50 over the stages, but took full advantage in her one W50 race, where she laid down an early marker of 32.05 that nobody got close to.
The meeting was the first to be accorded IOF Gold status, and James Hammond belied his world ranking of 553rd in the elite race, as he led the field until after lunch, having posted an early 35.00, and it took the big beasts to move him, as he ended up in 17th .
There were also two non-ranked Sprint races, and the FVO athletes made hay. Will and Heather Fellbaum won both races, with a daytime gold for Sarah and a night win for Ben Stansfield. Paul Hammond won bronze in the first race, and the medals were rounded off in the night stage with a silver for Josie Stansfield and a bronze for Vicky.