Thierry Gueorgiou and Helena Jansson got a DNF and DNS respectively in World Cup race number 4 of the season at O-festivalen in Oslo, Norway. Thus many managers lost two of the runners in their team, and thus only had a team of 8 runners. Manager Magne Dæhlie with the Dæhlie Team did not have Gueorgiou in his team – instead he had both winners Minna Kauppi (picture, right) and Martin Johansson (picture, left) in his team – and thus took the victory for World Cup race number four with a total of 640 points.

In the overall Fantasy World Cup, the Scary Team increased its lead to 19 points – with Bushmen in second spot.

Jansson dropped the race due to knee problems, whereas Gueorgiou quit the race at the 21st control as can be seen on the GPSseuranta Tracking from the event.

The World Cup – and therefore also the Fantasy World Cup – now takes a break until the World Orienteering Championships in Hungary in August. The next three World Cup races are the WOC Middle distance on August 19th, the WOC sprint distance on August 20th and the Long distance on August 23rd.

Dæhlie Team – Best in World Cup race 4

The Dæhli Team with manager Magne Dæhli won the 4th round of the Fantasy World Cup with the following team:

1.   Minna Kauppi – 150.00	2.   Marianne Andersen – 100.00	3.   Daniel Hubmann – 44.00
4.   Emil Wingstedt – 60.00	5.   Helena Jansson – 0.00	6.   Carl Waaler Kaas – 45.00
7.   Simone Niggli – 60.00	8.   Martin Johansson – 100.00	9.   Peter Öberg – 50.00
10.   Matthias Merz – 31.00

Standings

• Fantasy World Cup overall standings
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 4
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 3
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 2
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 1

Top 10 after World Cup Race 4

Want to be a sponsor?

The WoO Fantasy World Cup has proven to be very popular – with more than 200 Teams participating. The best managers deserve a price for their hard work – and thus I’m now looking for sponsors who want to sponsor the WoO Fantasy World Cup with some fine prizes for the best managers. Want to get your company visibility with the Fantasy World Cup? Drop me a message at Jan@Kocbach.net.

World Cup, O-festivalen: Daniel Hubmann has 1.26 to catch on Peter Öberg and Carl Waaler Kaas, but is still the favourite of the WoO Fantasy World Cup managers in the mens class when the World Cup continues with a long distance chasing start at O-festivalen in Oslo today. For the women, Kauppi is the big favourite. There will again be possibilities to follow this exciting race with live webTV, live GPS tracking and live results.

Fight against Kauppi

Kauppi is the favourite among the women, but she will still have to fight hard for the victory. Marianne Andersen starts only 47 seconds behind – and with a tough long distance course in terrain similar to Marianne Andersens home terrain, Kauppi will not have an easy task. Simone Niggli in fourth position – 2:16 behind Kauppi – is also very interested in showing that she is really back in the top. The Swedish girls Helena Jansson and Emma Johansson will also be part of the fight for the victory.

1. Kauppi,Minna Finland 14:30:00
2. Andersen,Marianne Norway 14:30:47
3. Jansson,Helena Sweden 14:31:58
4. Niggli,Simone Switzerland 14:32:16
5. Johansson,Emma Sweden 14:32:38
6. Holmström,Bodil Finland 14:32:44

Hubmann again?

Hubmann is the favourite among the Fantasy World Cup managers after his impressing last leg legs for Kristiansand at Jukola and 10Mila. Will the Swiss runner be the best in a fight man against man in the tough Norwegian terrain as well? Mattias Merz is another Swiss runner who has shown impressive results in similar fights earlier – starting 1:37 behind. However, Peter Öberg, Carl Waaler Kaas and Anders Nordberg who are the first starters will have to be counted among the very big favourites. And don’t forget Thierry Guergiou – who really wants to get his revenge after several for him disappointing performances this season.

1. Öberg,Peter Sweden 15:00:00
2. Kaas,Carl Waaler Norway 15:00:00
3. Nordberg,Anders Norway 15:00:21
4. Wingstedt,Emil Sweden 15:00:38
5. Gueorgiou,Thierry France 15:00:43
6. Andersson,David Sweden 15:01:09
7. Föhr,Tero Finland 15:01:16
8. Johansson,Martin Sweden 15:01:26
9. Hubmann,Daniel Switzerland 15:01:26
10. Adamski,Phillippe France 15:01:27
11. Merz,Matthias Switzerland 15:01:37
12. Renard,Damien France 15:02:05

Follow the race live

Use the following possibilites to follow the race live

• Startlist men and startlist women
• Online results
• Live webTV for international and norwegian viewers
• Live GPS Tracking
• Arena speaker (combination of arena speaker and webTV might be a good option for international viewers who do not understand Norwegian)

Manager favourites

Below you see the favourites of the managers in the WoO Fantasy World Cup ahead of the chasing start.

1. Minna Kauppi (194 teams)
   

2. Daniel Hubmann (193 teams)
   
3. Thierry Gueorgiou (191 teams)
   
4. Simone Niggli (157 teams)
   
5. Peter Öberg (147 teams)
6. Helena Jansson (147 teams)
   
7. Matthias Merz (137 teams)
   
8. Marianne Andersen (120 teams)
   
9. Anders Nordberg (114 teams)
   
10. Emil Wingstedt (94 teams)
    

The Scary Team with Anders Skarholt (pictured from todays race) as manager took back the lead in the Fantasy World Cup after todays 3rd World Cup race of the season. Skarholt finished 16th in the real World Cup race today, and would have increased his lead in the Fantasy World Cup even more by stepping in for Annika Billstam on his own team. Maybe there is room for Skarholt in the Scary Team tomorrow? The Scary Team now has a lead of more than 10 points down to TTT. Best in todays Fantasy World Cup round was Team Bananen with manager Martin Hoset, going up to 46th position overall.

Update June 27th 1400! Heidi Bagstevold got 27 points on WC 3. competition, but in Fantasy World Cup her points was 0.0. This will be fixed when results of WC 4 are published monday morning.

Note! Results are preliminary – please report any errors in the calculations in a comment below.

World Cup race number 4

The next race in the World Cup is already tomorrow – the deadline for setting up your team is at 14:00 CET. Log in to set up your team here. Remember that tomorrows race is a chasing start – so take a good look at todays results (or here) before setting up your team. Note! Points for the Fantasy World Cup are as always calculated according to the World Cup point rules – i.e. the total time (and not the competition time for race 4 alone) is what counts.

Standings

• Fantasy World Cup overall standings (preliminary)
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 3 (preliminary)
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 2
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 1 (updated!)

Want to be a sponsor?

The WoO Fantasy World Cup has proven to be very popular – with more than 200 Teams participating. The best managers deserve a price for their hard work – and thus I’m now looking for sponsors who want to sponsor the WoO Fantasy World Cup with some fine prizes for the best managers. Want to get your company visibility with the Fantasy World Cup? Drop me a message at Jan@Kocbach.net.

Top 10 after World Cup Race 3

After a dramatic race, Carl Waaler Kaas and Peter Öberg and shared the victory in todays World Cup Middle distance in the mens class. Minna Kauppi was again the best woman – winning ahead of Marianne Andersen.

Tricky Norwegian terrain

The terrain north of Oslo proved to be tricky – many of the top runners having problems on the way. Notably, both Thierry Gueorgiou and Daniel Hubmann made several mistakes, finishing 5th and 8th respectively. Below you see the routechoices (from GPS track of GPSseuranta) of Carl Waaler Kaas and Peter Öberg. You find GPS tracks of all the top runners at the GPSseuranta page.

For a nice coverage of the races as they developed, see this article at Orienteering.is for the men, and this article at Orienteering.is for the women.

Results Men

1 Öberg, Peter Sweden 35:31
1 Waaler Kaas, Carl Norway 35:31
3 Nordberg, Anders Norway 35:52
4 Wingstedt, Emil Sweden 36:09
5 Gueorgiou, Thierry France 36:14
6 Andersson, David Sweden 36:40
7 Föhr, Tero Finland 36:47
8 Johansson, Martin Sweden 36:57
8 Hubmann, Daniel Switzerland 36:57
10 Adamski, Phillippe France 36:58

Results Women

1 Kauppi, Minna Finland 34:34
2 Andersen, Marianne Norway 35:21
3 Jansson, Helena Sweden 36:32
4 Niggli, Simone Switzerland 36:50
5 Johansson, Emma Sweden 37:12
6 Holmström, Bodil Finland 37:18
7 Sundberg, Karoliina Finland 38:02
8 Fasting, Mari Norway 38:11
9 Lindeqvist, Katri Finland 38:29
10 Jurenikova, Eva Czech Rep. 39:24

• Online results available here
• Full results will be available here

World of O Runners will be updated with pictures of most runners after the weekend.

International viewers WILL be able to view the excellent webTV-coverage promised from the the World Cup races in Norway June 26th and 27th. For some time it was unclear if the coverage would be available outside Norway. There will be a separate link for international viewers and a separate link for viewers in Norway. In addition, full GPS tracking of about 50 athletes will be available during the races. Web TV production will be made with 7 cameras by a Finnish production company. GPS tracking will be made by GPSseuranta – the same tracking which got a lot of praise during the NOC and Jukola.

On Friday the races takes place from 13.30 CET to 17.00 CET, and Saturday’s race is held between 14.30 CET and 17.00 CET. See more information in the article about the Fantasy World Cup.

Follow the race live

Use the following possibilites to follow the race live

• Startlist men and startlist women
• Online results
• Live webTV for international and norwegian viewers
• Live GPS Tracking
• Arena speaker (combination of arena speaker and webTV might be a good option for international viewers who do not understand Norwegian)

24 nations

Runners from 24 nations will participate in the World Cup round. This will be the biggest TV show from Norwegian Orienteering yet, with 7 cameras and direct web-TV broadcast at nrksport.no including GPS-Tracking of 50 runners (20 women and 30 men).

Some useful links:

• GPSseuranta page for World Cup races 3 and 4
• O-festivalen homepage (English version) – Links to webTV coverage will be given here
• Bulletin Four – O-Festivalen World Cup

Tomorrow on Friday June 26th the third World Cup race of the season is held in Oslo, Norway – The Norwegian O-Festival. Now is the time to remember to set up your Fantasy World Cup Team ahead of the race. The WoO Fantasy World Cup is a ‘for-fun’ manager-type competition where you can set up a World Cup Team consisting of 10 runners (either men, women or a mix), and get points according to their performance.

World Cup Race information

Expect startlists to appear during Thursday as deadline for entering names of runners is Thursday at 12:00 CET.

• First start on Friday’s Middle distance is 13:31 CET for women and 13:42 CET for men according to Bulletin 4. For the Fantasy World Cup, Team registration will be open until Friday June 26th at 12:00 CET.
• For Saturdays Chasing start Long distance first start is 14:30 CET for women and 15:00 CET for men. For the Fantasy World Cup, Team registration will be open until Saturday June 27th at 14:00 CET

Runners from 24 nations will participate in the World Cup round. This will be the biggest TV show from Norwegian Orienteering yet, with 7 cameras and direct web-TV broadcast at nrksport.no including GPS-Tracking of 50 runners.

Some useful links:

• Startlist World Cup Middle Men
• Startlist World Cup Middle Women
• O-festivalen homepage (English version)
• Bulletin Four – O-Festivalen World Cup

Standings

• Fantasy World Cup overall standings
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 2
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 1

Top 10 after World Cup Race 2

Rules

Choose a Team consisting of 10 runners (you can choose arbitrary number of men/women).

Points are calculated in the following way:

• For each World Cup race, your score is calculated as the World Cup points of the 10 runners in your team
• Bonus: In each World Cup race, you get a bonus of 50% of the points for the runner who is on the top of your team-list. Another 25% bonus for the runner on second place on your team-list, and yet another 10% bonus for the runner who is number three on your team-list
• Your 7 best total sums of the 9 World Cup races count in the total figure
• You may drag as many runners over to your team in the right column as you want, but only the 10 topmost runners count in your sum
• You can change which runners are in your team between each race
• Last chance to change your team ahead of each World Cup race is given in the overview table here.
• Calculation of points will be done after each World Cup round – but you may change your team ahead of each competition.

See the complete rules – and register your Team here!.

Did influence from other runners cost Simone Niggli a top position in NOC Middle? A detailed analysis of grouping in the Nordic Championships shows that even if there were a lot of packs – especially in the Middle – the runners getting the top positions did not gain a lot by running in packs. On the contrary – the analysis indicates that several runners might have lost time by being in big packs instead of gaining time as we have seen in other competitions.

Rather small

- The influence-benefits for both races and all classes seems to be rather small, even if there were lots of meetings in the forest. I assume that it wasn’t the separation techniques alone but a combination of terrains, difficulty, long legs and separation, says Swiss Martin Lerjen who has made the analysis. Lerjen is the man who made a very interesting analysis of the packs in the European Champs last year, when there was lots of discussion about grouping.

- A lot of mistakes were made in packs, so it might well be that packs were no good this time, Lerjen comments. Lerjen does not say anything specific about the NOC middle distance races of Simone Niggli (10th place) or Emma Johansson (12th place), but the packfigures from NOC middle give Niggli and Johansson 1st and 2nd best “calculated running time without pack influence”, respectively. This is of course only a scientific calculation with no real significance – and we all know that an important part of the task for an orienteer is to manage to find the controls without being influenced by other runners.

Dizzy chickens

Still, it is interesting to put this into the context of what Linnea Gustafsson writes in her NOC Blog:

• - Simone Niggli caught me already at the third control, and I thought that I could just blindly trust her orienteering. But no – it didn’t help at all, and instead we made mistakes together. [...] a large group of runners joined us, and we run as a group of dizzy chickens around Simone, and all ran in the wrong direction on a long leg (See GPS tracking screenshot above). Embarrassing for us and certainly annoying for Simone! At least I did a good finish, and finished first in our group.

Of course Niggli should have tackled the pack of other runners – as this is part of the orienteering sport – but still very interesting to get some insight into what happened in the forest.

Probably not

So – what is my answer to the question I posed at the start of this article? Probably not. From the GPS tracking you can observe that Niggli makes small mistakes all the way – also already at the 3rd control. For the big mistake to the 14th control, it seems that she is in command when things start going wrong. Still, all the runners around her may have influenced her concentration a lot – but to handle that is part of the game…

Going further on the packfigures from NOC middle, we see that Emma Johansson has the second best “calculated running time without pack influence”. However, when again looking at the GPS tracking (see screenshot below), we see that Emma Johansson was very much in command when making her mistakes – the other runners being at least 15-20 meters behind here. However, having other runners behind you may influence you to run faster than you should – and not concentrate enough on the orienteering…

You can find a lot more information in the packfigures from NOC middle and long below combined with the GPS tracking. Be warned, though, that these figures may seem quite confusing at first sight – and it may take some work to understand all the details in the figures.

• Packfigures from NOC middle distance
• Packfigures from NOC long distance
• Packfigures explained – and another background article
• GPS Tracking NOC

Note that packfigures are generally more useful for long distance competitions than for middle distance competitions, and that the large number of packs in NOC middle in particular makes it necessary to do more manual analysis of the packfigure.

Navigate independently

Treat this type of figures with care regarding individual runners – and take a look at the GPS tracking to see if your suspicions about groups are valid. The GPS tracking of all runners – as done at the Nordic Championships – actually makes it feasible for the IOF to some time in the future follow up the “sleeping” IOF Fair Play rule 26.2, stating “In an individual interval start race, competitors shall navigate and run through the terrain independently”. Packfigures are very useful in finding potential cases, but tracking is needed to make a detailed analysis for each case.

A success

Compared to several previous championships, this years NOC was a success in the respect that the runners getting the top positions did not gain a lot by running in packs. As Lerjen states, this was only partly due to the forking system (which in my opinion works a lot better than the short butterflies with equal length we have seen a lot of the last years). More important is terrain, difficulty and a very wise use of long legs with different route choice alternatives (even in the “butterfly”).

For international championships in so-called continental terrain with better visibility in the forest and less route choice alternatives, it is a lot more difficult to cope with the grouping issue than in the terrain used in the Nordic Championships. If rule 26.2 should still be part of the IOF competition rules, imposed GPS tracking on all runners in international championships – along with some amendment to the IOF Fair Play rule 26.2 – might be something to work towards to ensure fair results.

A lot happened in the forest among the top teams – now you can replay GPS Tracking from all legs in both Jukola and Venla relays on the GPSseuranta website, and understand more about how the two relays developed.

Already early on the first leg KOK had some trouble (see above), but Jon Duncan run fast – and was soon in the lead group again. Later on the leg, a group of runners had trouble finding the 9th control (where was the compass?). Both screenshots are from the GPSseuranta webservice.

• GPSseuranta Jukola and Venla Tracking
• Map from last leg of Jukola with routes of Hubmann, Gueorgiou and Wingstedt (also from GPSseuranta)

This route choice to the third last control – and Hubmanns higher speed – decided the Jukola relay after a long night of running and orienteering. What looked like an easy victory for Halden after Anders Nordbergs fantastic 3rd leg, turned into a thriller on the last leg with Thierry Gueorgiou (Kalevan Rasti), Daniel Hubmann (Kristiansand OK) and Emil Wingstedt (Halden SK) running head to head for the Jukola victory.

1. Kristiansand OK NOR 8:02:43
2. Kalevan Rasti FIN +0.23
3. Halden SK NOR +3:04

• Final results

The ones keeping awake through all the night – following the WoO/UO LiveBlog – got a fantastic experience. We followed the excitement in the forest north of Mikkeli step by step – below you get some excerpts from the last leg. All images are screenshots from the Jukola web-TV service.

Daniel Hubmann – Kristiansand OK (winner)

- I felt really strong, and also in the forest I made no mistake. I had one difficult situation where I lost contact with Thierry, but then I got contact with him again.

- I knew that the last foour controls were more or less running, so I was looking forward to this. I had a good feeling.

Thierry Gueorgiou – Kalevan Rasti

- I had a good chance in the middle of the race, but then I did a big mistake. The last kilometers I was already quite a lot behind, and I had already lost.

- I felt quite well during the race, but I couldn’t use the course to get away from Daniel because we had the same forking. Thus Daniel took the victory in the end.

The decisive moments of the last leg

• From the start, Halden with Emil Wingstedt had a lead of more than 3 minutes. KOK (Daniel Hubmann) and Kalevan Rasti (Thierry Gueorgiou) crept closer meter by meter already from the start due to higher running speed. If all would run without mistakes – it looked like Emil would just manage to take the win.
  

• Some tricky controls with forking – but Wingstedt keeps his head cool and the lead.
  

• Then a small mistake from Wingstedt – and the lead goes down to two minutes.
  

• Then a big mistake by Halden – the lead going down to one minute
  

• Hubmann and Gueorgiou continue running with a slightly higher speed than Wingstedt – waiting for another mistake. Now down to less than a minute.
  
  

• Then a long leg for which Wingstedt chooses to go left along roads – whereas Hubmann and Gueorgiou go direct. This proved to be a decisive moment ….
  

• Suddenly they were all three together. And then Hubmann made a small mistake, and Gueorgiou was alone in the lead.
  

• Gueorgiou kept the lead for one control only. I know a man who won’t forget the 21st control in the 2009 Jukola for a year – at least…
  

• They continue together all three, but Wingstedt can’t keep up the speed. Soon they are only two together – and based on Gueorgiou’s comments after the race, he was not on top of the situation. He takes another route than Hubmann to the third last control – looses 13 second – an Hubmann never gives those seconds back….
  

Below you can relive all of the excitement – all the way from the start of the Venla relay – until the end of the Jukola relay early this morning. Enjoy! And join us here at World of O for the next LiveBlog from a big orienteering event – you won’t regret it!

Some statistics:

• A total of 3025 unique readers pressed “watch now” during the LiveBlog
• 786 writers comments were published – 16 Twitter comments were published (provided by Kristiansand OK with runners comments right after the race)
• 168 images shown. 30 polls shown. 1 video played.

As Wingstedt and the others who got disqualified in the NOC Sprint (+ 12th/13th/14th in the Qual) also got World Cup points, Fantasy WC results have now been updated according to the official results which got available at the IOF site today. Bushmen are still in top with the 0.5 points lead on the Johnsson Team.

Standings

• Fantasy World Cup overall standings
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 2
• Team results Fantasy World Cup race 1 (updated!)

Top 10 after World Cup Race 2 (updated)

Want to be a sponsor?

The WoO Fantasy World Cup has proven to be very popular – with more than 200 Teams participating. The best managers deserve a price for their hard work – and thus I’m now looking for sponsors who want to sponsor the WoO Fantasy World Cup with some fine prizes for the best managers. Want to get your company visibility with the Fantasy World Cup? Drop me a message at Jan@Kocbach.net.