WOC 2009 Middle Qual: Live from 10:00 CET

Starttimes for WOC Qual Middle sorted by country are now available at the WOC 2009 Team page and will be a good tool to follow your favourite countries in the WOC Middle Qualification.

Important facts

15 runners will go to the final from each qualification heat in both mens and womens class. The men have 5.1 km stipulated to 25 min, the women 4.1 km (also 25 min).

• Live results middle Qual. Also live audio and commentary.
• WOC 2009 team page + team start list
• No live video and tracking available from Qualifications

WOC History

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.