World of O News
Who is in the WOC Team for my country? Where can I see the GPS tracking? When is the Long Final? WOC 2009 starts in Miskolc, Hungary with the Long distance Qualification the coming Sunday August 16th at 10:00 CET. Here you find all the information you need – including the program, who competes for which country, and information about how to follow the championships via the Internet. Did you know that there will be live GPS tracking – but you’ll have to pay for it?
We have prepared a WOC 2009 Team page – giving you the WOC Teams from each country. This page will be updated with the final competitor lists Saturday – and during WOC it will be updated with results and pictures – so you can see all results of the athletes from your country in one place.
Another useful resource is the World of O Runners WOC history page – giving you all the best WOC results for each discipline sorted by country. Who is the best placed Latvian in the Long distance ever? Of course you knew: Ants Grende in 1993. (Note! As you see in the comments, a Latvian runner was better placed in 1989, but she was then running for Russia). We will also try to update these pages during the championships.
Program
The first two days are the most important ones for many of the smaller orienteering nations – then we have qualifications in Middle and Long distance. The first final is the Middle final at Wednesday – whereas the Long final is the last competition in this World Orienteering Champs at Sunday August 23rd.
- Sunday 16.08: Middle Qualification, 10:00-12:00 CET
- Monday 17.08: Long Qualification, 09:00-12:00 CET
- Wednesday 19.08: Middle Final, 10:00-14:15 CET
- Thursday 20.08: (1) Sprint Qualification, 09:00-11:00 CET. (2) Sprint Final, 16:20-19:00 CET
- Friday 21.08: Relay, 11:00-16:30 CET
- Sunday 23.08: Long Final, 11:00 CET – 16:00 CET
Course lengths
For complete information about the courses, see Bulletin 4.
- Middle Qualification: Men 5.1 km (25 min), Women 4.1 km (25 min)
- Long Qualification: Men 10.4-10.5 km (58 min), Women 6.5-6.8 km (43 min)
- Sprint Qualification: Men 2.9 km (14 min), Women 2.5-2.6 km (14 min)
- Sprint Final: Men 3.2 km (15 min), Women 2.6 km (14 min)
- Middle Final: Men 6.6 km (35 min), Women 5.3 km (35 min)
- Long Final: Men 17.6 km (95 min), Women 11.8 km (75 min)
- Relay: Men 6.0-8.8-8.7 (36-53-53), Women 4.9-6.9-7.2 (32-43-45)
Note! The 15 best in each qualification heat will qualify for the final.
Maps and Terrain
We have published a separate article about the maps and the terrain. You find the article about old maps for the competition areas here.
The terrain for all competitions except for the long final and the sprint is described as non-typical karst with a small number of negative features and many point objects. The terrain is quite hilly, and the competitions will be physically though. For the sprint, the terrain is describes as semi-urban with many paths and some erosion features. The long distance final is the most special terrain ? with many negative features and quite stony.
GPS Tracking, Live results and Live tracking
There will be live GPS Tracking form the middle final, long final and relay. Note that GPS-tracking is a pay-service, and you will have to buy a code before you can view the tracking. Tracking is available through www.smartway.hu.
In addition to GPS Tracking, there will be live results, the organizers provide live text commentary, and maps will be presented in RouteGadget after the competitions.
We have not yet decided if we will provide a LiveBlog for discussions at World of O during the races as the organizers already have a live text commentary. However, the LiveBlog will be used for Twitter updates during the WOC week – and if I find some administrators who can be in charge of discussions during the competitions (please email me at jan@kocbach.net), we will support it for discussions throughout the competitions as well. I will be taking photos on site during the competitions – and also sending some info to the LiveBlog via Twitter.
The WOC 2009 live page will soon open to the public, and there you will find links to live results, live tracking etc. See below for the link to the WOC 2009 live page.
- Live results, live tracking, live commentary at the WOC 2009 live page
- WOC 2009 Teams (will be updated!)
- WOC 2009 LiveBlog @ WorldofO.com
WoO Fantasy World Cup
The World of O Fantasy World Cup will continue at the Middle Final at Wednesday august 19th. See the Fantasy World Cup page for more information.
Overview map
Below you see an overview map for the WOC 2009 area (taken from the WOC 2009 page). All competitions except for the long distance final will be help close to Miskolc, whereas the long distance final at the last day of the championships will be held close to the Slovakian border.
Bulletin 4
Are you still missing some basic information about WOC 2009? Take a look at Bulletin number 4 – it gives a lot of useful information .
#WOC2009 @ Twitter
Follow the action in at the World Orienteering Champs through Twitter. Below the latest Tweets for #WOC2009 are shown in the LiveBlog. Your tweets including the hash-tag #woc2009 will also show up below. There is also a mobile version of the LiveBlog here.
Who is the best placed Latvian in the Long distance ever?
Of course Alida Abola 3rd in Sweden 1989. Not Ants Grende.
I can only warn the WOC online spectators to purchase the license key online!
I am willing to pay 15 € total for live broadcast with the exciting comments from Per Forsberg and GPS live tracking (if it is working). A lot of progress has been made recently and is gratefully acknowledged.
However, when ordering the license key via shareit.com, an e-mail address must be provided and a free e-mail address is not accepted:
>>> ! We cannot accept free e-mail addresses, such as “hotmail.com”, for orders using the payment type you selected. Please enter a different e-mail address or change the payment type. <<<
Although they emphasize safety issues, I believe that the purpose of this policy is to collect e-mail addresses that are frequently read and to sell and use them for spamming. AFAIR I ordered once software via this portal using my main e-mail address and have received from (free) e-mail addresses a lot of spam offering various software.
Of course one can order the license key by fax or wire transfer and perhaps receive it after WOC.
What a bad start of 2009 WOC for the online spectators!
At that time, Latvia did not exist.
I´m not willing to pay 5 euros to see ONE COMPETITION live on GPS tracker. That price is ugly. I thought GPS system was made for spectators and viewers to make following more easier but now it seems that it´s a new way to make money. If you wanna see each competion you have to pay 15 euros. It´s ugly price and it´s not any kind of development for orienteering between other sports.
This year WOC has been so un-succesful for viewers and net users. You have to pay to see things live and such a POOR live results works now and then.
Thank you.