Both sprints were held in small towns with many small streets – and gave interesting orienteering challenges for the runners. For the big challenges they will have to wait for Forest Umbra tomorrow.

Gabriele Viale has again managed to attract several of the top elite runners – and although there is a long way to the elite field in Portugal O-meeting, this will be another interesting weekend. The terrain of the Middle distance of Saturday is the tricky Umbra Forest (see map extract above from Thierry Gueorgiou’s training camp last year).

Maps

Part of the Men 21 course from the Nightsprint.

Here you find maps from the first day of MOC 2010:

• Prologue: Men 21 – Women 21
• Etappe 1: Men 21 – Women 21

Results

Men
1. Daniel Hubmann, Switzerland, 14:09
2. Martin Hubmann, Switzerland, 14:55
3. Fabian Hertner, Switzerland, 15:19
…
8. O-Markus Taivainen, Finland, 16:06
27. Peter Öberg, Sweden, 18:01

Women
1. Simone Niggli, Switzerland, 12:38
2. Helena Jansson, Sweden, 13:10
3. Kajsa Nilsson, Sweden, 13:19
4. Minna Kauppi, Finland, 13:43
5. Linnea Gustafsson, Sweden, 13:52
…

• Results MOC 2010

Below an introduction about MOC 2010 from the intro-article is repeated.

Hubmann against Öberg

In the first big meeting of the year – the middle distance with World Ranking Event (WRE) status at Portugal O-meeting Thierry Gueorgiou took the victory in the mens class ahead of Emil Wingstedt and Fabian Hertner. Daniel Hubmann was disqualified for punching a wrong control at the WRE, but had an impressive race at the first day of Portugal O-meeting. In Italy Hubmann will get a new chance against the big runner of the 2009 spring season – Peter Öberg – who did not compete in Portugal. Also at the start in Italy will be Olli-Markus Taivainen.

Season opening for Kauppi

Simone Niggli and Helena Jansson shared the victories in Portugal O-meeting between them – Niggli taking the first spot in the most prestigious WRE middle distance event. In Italy, they will meet Minna Kauppi, who is ready to leave the snow in Finland and become a gazelle in Italy – according to Kauppi is is nearly half a year since she was running the last time. It doesn’t stop there – however: Also coming to MOC according to Viale are the top Swedes Linnea Gustavsson, Kajsa Nilsson and Lena Eliasson.

Sprint, Middle and Relay

MOC this year consists of three events,

• Friday February 26th: Sprint – Peschici (historic town)
• Saturday February 27th: Middle – Foresta Umbra (tricky terrain with depressions, see map sample above and here)
• Sunday February 28th: Relay – Piano Impiombato (mostly grasslands, some depressions)

In addition there will be a prologue Friday morning. None of the events at MOC are World Ranking Events.

We have been promised maps from the MOC events soon after the events are finished – these will be posted as soon as possible here at World of O.

• MOC homepage

Video – MOC 2008

The video from MOC 2008 – featuring Thierry Gueorgiou and Francois Gonon, is one of the best orienteering videos I know about (it’s kind of a slow start, but then it takes off) Take a look yourself – Gueorgiou and Gonon are explaining what orienteering is all about:

Gabriele Viale has again managed to attract several of the top elite runners – and although there is a long way to the elite field in Portugal O-meeting, this will be another interesting weekend. The terrain of the Middle distance of Saturday is the tricky Umbra Forest (see map extract above from Thierry Gueorgiou’s training camp last year).

Hubmann against Öberg

In the first big meeting of the year – the middle distance with World Ranking Event (WRE) status at Portugal O-meeting Thierry Gueorgiou took the victory in the mens class ahead of Emil Wingstedt and Fabian Hertner. Daniel Hubmann was disqualified for punching a wrong control at the WRE, but had an impressive race at the first day of Portugal O-meeting. In Italy Hubmann will get a new chance against the big runner of the 2009 spring season – Peter Öberg – who did not compete in Portugal. Also at the start in Italy will be Olli-Markus Taivainen.

Season opening for Kauppi

Simone Niggli and Helena Jansson shared the victories in Portugal O-meeting between them – Niggli taking the first spot in the most prestigious WRE middle distance event. In Italy, they will meet Minna Kauppi, who is ready to leave the snow in Finland and become a gazelle in Italy – according to Kauppi is is nearly half a year since she was running the last time. It doesn’t stop there – however: Also coming to MOC according to Viale are the top Swedes Linnea Gustavsson, Kajsa Nilsson and Lena Eliasson.

Sprint, Middle and Relay

MOC this year consists of three events,

• Friday February 26th: Sprint – Peschici (historic town)
• Saturday February 27th: Middle – Foresta Umbra (tricky terrain with depressions, see map sample above and here)
• Sunday February 28th: Relay – Piano Impiombato (mostly grasslands, some depressions)

In addition there will be a prologue Friday morning. None of the events at MOC are World Ranking Events.

We have been promised maps from the MOC events soon after the events are finished – these will be posted as soon as possible here at World of O.

• MOC homepage

Video – MOC 2008

The video from MOC 2008 – featuring Thierry Gueorgiou and Francois Gonon, is one of the best orienteering videos I know about (it’s kind of a slow start, but then it takes off) Take a look yourself – Gueorgiou and Gonon are explaining what orienteering is all about:

Do you think the IOF-rules should be changed so that base station must be checked if written protest? There have been fierce discussion about the topic after the World Cup and EOC in Ski-Orienteering in Bulgaria/Romania.

A team was disqualified from a Gold medal in the mixed relay, but the competitor was 100% sure that he had received visual/audio signal at the SportIdent control. A protest was delivered, and the base station was checked for registration. The registration was found in the base station, and the team was reinstated on the result list. This is actually against the IOF rules (depending on how you interpret the rules). The problem with having to check the base station is of course that it may take an extra hour or more before the winner is certain in a competition.

• The background story at “Norsk Skiorientering” (Norwegian text)

Dead running is probably the separation method which has best potential for spreading runners without the course planner needing to make significant compromises (except for increased start interval). For all other known spreading methods, the course maker must change the course layout – i.e. the butterflies, phi-loops or the other spreading method “steals” part of the course. Yet, dead running has been given little attention.

… get back the good route choice courses of the old days

- The idea with “dead running” is to kill two birds with one stone, says the inventor of the method, Jarkko Ryyppö, also known as the man behind Routegadget. – We are trying to both eliminate the pack/following issues and get back the good route choice courses of the old days, Ryyppö explains. Read on to learn more about the method.

Article series about separating

This article is part IV in an article series about methods for separating runners in orienteering based on an extensive report on the topic. For background information about the report, see part I in the article series, which gives a general overview of the report along with main conclusions.

• Part I: The report
• Start Interval
• Phi loop implementations and start interval
• Part IV: Dead running (this part)

Still untested – great potential

Dead running was described and briefly discussed in the extensive report about separating runners in orienteering, but the method was not given much attention. Based on the runners comments, it is clear that few have a good understanding of the method, and therefore this article tries to explain the method in detail. Note that the method is still untested – but tests are planned in Finland this winter/spring. Dead running is especially geared towards the long distance.

What is dead running?

Dead running consists of introducing controlled delays for the runners at specific places in the course. These delays are planned in a way which gives maximum spreading throughout the start field. The suggested type of dead running introduces 2 controls with delays, giving three different “courses” – A, B and C:

• The courses are assigned to runners according to the start list in the order A, B, C, A, B, C …
• All courses are identical seem from an orienteering perspective – i.e. the only difference for the three courses is the two controls for which delays are introduced.
• At the first spreading site, course A will cause 80 seconds delay, course B 40 seconds delay and course C 0 seconds delay.
• At the second spreading site, these delays are just made even, i.e. 0 seconds for A, 40 seconds for B and 80 seconds for C.

The delay is introduced through the competitor running a stretch on a road or in the forest (similar to a penalty loop). The challenge for the method is to make the running stretches at the two controls as equal in time as possible. For this reason, the first suggestion of the method involved doing the running stretches on a road – making it easy to get equal time for the running stretches. This obviously gives constraints for the course planner, and thus the running stretches / loops should ideally be run in the forest.

Example: WOC 2009 Long distance

At the top of this page, you see an example of how dead running could be implemented in the course from WOC 2009 Long distance in Hungary (see here for the complete courses). Note that for this implementation, the running stretch is made on the road instead of in the forest. Running in the forest would make it necessary to make even less compromises for the route planner. For the various courses, we have the following loops/stretches:

• A: Two running stretches at control 8 – leading to about 80 seconds delay. No running stretches at control 20.
• B: One running stretch at control 8 – leading to about 40 seconds delay. The same around control 20.
• C: No running stretch/delay at control 8. Two running stretches/delays around control 20 (around 80 seconds delay).

Note that the runners can see from the map/control numbering how many running stretches they have to run.

To illustrate the potential of the dead running method, Ryyppö has taken the time to show graphically what would happen if dead running would have been implemented at control number 11 in the WOC 2009 Long distance at which the butterfly loop started in the actual competition. Note that both of the pairs Hubmann/Mamleev and Gueorgiou/Gristwood are split due to the delay:

Discussion

As any spreading method, dead running raises some issues:

• Are there advantages of having the running stretches early in the course compared to late in the course?
• The runner with longest delay can try to increase the speed to catch the other runner – turning the delay into an advantage (especially if there is good visibility in the forest).
• What about map reading during the running stretches – will it be allowed? You could have map exchange at both running stretches positions, but this will destroy part of the simplicity of the method.
• The spectators will not know the actual standings before all runners have run all loops. However, it should be possible to calculate this with good accuracy either by subtracting actual split times or approximate split times.

Jarkko Ryyppö has written a document describing the method in detail. In the document Ryyppö discusses the choice of delays, course layout, how to set up the running stretches, and many of the issues regarding the method. A lot of effort has been put into making the method as fair as possible while giving maximum of spreading for the startfield.

What do you think about dead running? Can this be the future of spreading over the long distance in orienteering? Please use the comments below.

Daniel Hubmann mispunched on the 19th control at yesterday’s WRE race – and took it easy at Day 3, finishing 11th (read more at Hubmann’s webpage).

The terrain itself was very very fast, as on every competition day

Gernot Kerschbaumer’s (English language) and Anders Nordberg’s (Norwegian language) reports from Portugal O-meeting are also worth a read. Here is what Kerschbaumer has to tell about the WRE-event on Sunday:

• - With about 250 starters in men elite, we saw a very strong participant field, with reverse starting order from current WRE-standing and 1 minute start interval (with butterfly) making it very exciting. I really focused on this competition during POM (as maybe most of the runners) and could perform quite well. Just on the first and fourth leg I could have taken more time to find a better route through the forest. I managed to stay focused through the whole course and could select the most important features from the detailed map. The terrain itself was very very fast, as on every competition day. [read more here]

Maps Portugal O-Meeting

• Map Day 3 (Daniel Hubmann)
• Map Day 3 (Gernot Kerschbaumer)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 2 – WRE (Daniel Hubmann)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 2 – WRE (Gernot Kerschbaumer)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 2 – WRE (Anders Nordberg)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 2 – WRE (Jarkko Huovila)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 1 (Olle Boström)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 1 (Michael Sørensen)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Nightsprint (Olle Boström)

Results Men

1 8134 Scott Fraser 80 [3960] Tume 1:14:22
2 7953 Hertner Fabian 85 [3872] O-POR SWISS OT 1:14:59
3 7322 Jonas Pilblad 77 [3603] IFK Göteborg 1:17:17
4 7472 Jonas Vytautas Gvildys 88 [3714] IGTISA – LTU 1:17:32
5 8151 Mikhail Mamleev 75 [3967] ITA 1:17:35
6 7473 Simonas Krepsta 84 [3714] IGTISA – LTU 1:17:38
7 8135 Vyacheslav Mukhidinov 80 [3960] Tume 1:17:59
8 1888 Diogo Miguel 89 [007] Ori-Estarreja 1:18:30
9 7823 Airila Hannu 85 [3837] KR 1:18:36
10 8023 Emil Wingstedt [3909] COC TC Halden SK 1:19:04

• Full results

Results Women

1 8034 Helena Jansson [3912] COC TC IF Hagen 1:06:06
2 7940 Niggli Simone 82 [3872] O-POR SWISS OT 1:08:30
3 7933 Lina Persson 82 [3867] O-POR KOK 1:12:11
4 7757 Yulia Novikova 80 [3800] Delta RUS 1:12:26
5 8072 Lina Strand 88 [3927] Göteborg-Majorna OK 1:13:08
6 8015 Vendula Klechova [3909] COC TC Halden SK 1:15:10
7 7946 Wild Angela 80 [3872] O-POR SWISS OT 1:15:18
8 7732 Rachael Elder 80 [3786] Sheffield 1:15:24
9 7467 Rasa Ptasekaite 87 [3714] IGTISA – LTU 1:15:45
10 8178 Grace Crane 83 [3950] BOK 1:16:06

• Full results

World of O at Google Buzz / Facebook

I’ve just started experimenting with setting up Google Buzz / Facebook pages for World of O. You can follow / become a Fan here:

• Google Buzz page for World of O
• Become a Fan of World of O at Facebook

[Updated with map] Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli are on top of the results list after the World Ranking event over middle distance in the big season opening in Portugal O-Meeting 2010. At yesterday’s long distance (which was not a World Ranking event) Daniel Hubmann and Helena Jansson were on the top of the result list – today Jansson became second and Hubmann is listed as mispunched.

Map

Above you see part of the map from Day 1 of Portugal O-meeting (from Olle Boström). Below are links to maps from both Day 1 and Day 2 of Portugal O-Meeting 2010.

• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 2 – WRE (Anders Nordberg)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 2 – WRE (Jarkko Huovila)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 1 (Olle Boström)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Day 1 (Michael Sørensen)
• Map Portugal O-Meeting Nightsprint (Olle Boström)

Results Men

1 Thierry Gueorgiou FRA 31:00 1365
2 Emil Wingstedt SWE 31:38 1335
3 Fabian Hertner SUI 31:41 1332
4 Carl Waaler Kaas NOR 32:07 1312
5 Olle Boström SWE 32:27 1296
=6 Tero Föhr FIN 32:30 1294
=6 Leonid Novikov RUS 32:30 1294
8 Francois Gonon FRA 32:36 1289
=9 Philippe Adamski FRA 32:37 1288
=9 Mikhail Mamleev ITA 32:37 1288

• Full results and splits

Results Women

1 Simone Niggli-Luder SUI 31:58 1399
2 Helena Jansson SWE 32:44 1368
3 Julia Novikova RUS 34:52 1283
4 Celine Dodin FRA 35:16 1267
5 Ida Bobach DEN 35:50 1244
6 Lina Persson SWE 36:08 1232
7 Sara Lüscher SUI 36:32 1216
8 Anne Margrethe Hausken NOR 36:51 1203
9 Angela Wild SUI 36:53 1202
=10 Eva Juřeníková CZE 37:01 1197
=10 Lina Strand SWE 37:01 1197

• Full results and splits

Taking over after Spring Cup

Portugal O-Meeting seems to have managed to take over Sprint Cup’s position as the international season opening for the orienteering elite (although Sprint Cup still has a quality field). The highest scored World Ranking points ever was at POM 2007 by Thierry Gueorgiou with 1516 points. Damien Renard (2nd, 1473 points) has the third highest World Ranking score ever from the same event. Simone Niggli scored the 4th highest World Ranking points in 2009 at POM 2009.

Gueorgiou scored 1365 points for his victory at POM 2010 whereas Niggli scored 1399 points for her victory. Very good point scores for both of them!

Coupling Google StreetView with an orienteering map in split view turned out pretty cool. You can click any point on the orienteering map for which there is StreetView available, and see how it looks in real life. The other way around, you can use your cursor keys or mouse and wander around in the city using StreetView while your position (and view direction) is constantly updated on the orienteering map.

The city of Bergen just got Google’s StreetView implemented a few days ago – and most of the area used in the chasing start of Bergen Sprint Camp last weekend is covered using Google’s service. I’ll save the technical details for the last part of this article – but pairing Google StreetView with an orienteering map was actually quite easy. The below video shows it in action – using the keyboard to navigate around in StreetView while the position and view direction is constantly updated on the orienteeringmap:

Demo

You find the demo of StreetView + Orienteeringmap here. It would be quite straightforward to make this into a game where you would have to navigate around using StreetView only, and would get a notice each time you got to a control.

Useful?

Is this useful for anything? It may be a good way for beginners to understand the correspondence between map and terrain in an urban environment. It may also be a good way to get to know an area ahead of a race – even better than with using StreetView only. This feels like it is in the ethical gray zone in my opinion, but it is allowed according to the rules. For example, if StreetView would be available for this years WOC sprint area in Trondheim, it would be simple to set up a similar service. For Trondheim there is no StreetView available yet though – Google will continue working in direction Trondheim in May, and will probably not have it ready for the WOC. Instead there is a service similar to Google’s StreetView available from finn.kart.no (click “3D” or “Gatebilder”) – but without an API which is that comprehensive.

Technical details

Technically this is quite easy to achieve – most of the code is available in the demos. I took the StreetView demo from this page, used this demo for the orienteering flag overlay (when seeing a control location), used this demo to show where StreetView is available, used this demo for the “Tour” from control 3 to control 4, added some extra code in order to update the StreetView position when clicking on the orienteering map, got the dynamic beacon from this page (but modified to use 360 predefined jpg’s instead of php-generation on the fly) and used the following technique to make a tile layer for the orienteering map to overlay on Google Maps.

For the orienteering map overlay, a direct overlay without tiles would have been possible if the map did not have to be rotated. Unfortunately, Google Maps can not have overlays which are rotated (if you know a method, please give me a tip in the comments!), and thus the tile layer is the best approach for an accurate overlay. I’ve got an idea for how this can automatically be done directly for all maps in omaps.worldofo.com with QuickRoute data situated in areas with StreetView (without going the way around tiles, but instead using OpenLayers for the map) – more about that later if I get time.

For now – enjoy the demo from Bergen in nice sunny weather!

Update! You find full results from POM 2010 here.

In the womens class, the situation is similar. Reading from the end of the start list, we have got Simone Niggli, Anne-Margrethe Hausken, Helena Jansson, Signe Søes, Eva Jurenikova, Julia Novikova, Angela Wild and Heidi Østlid Bagstevold.

The map above is from a training Øystein Kvaal Østerbø had on Quiaios. Quiaios will also be used for Day 3 in Portugal O-Meeting.

Taking over after Spring Cup

As written in the February Top Picks, Portugal O-Meeting seems to have managed to take over Sprint Cup’s position as the international season opening for the orienteering elite (although Sprint Cup still has a quality field). The highest scored World Ranking points ever was at POM 2007 by Thierry Gueorgiou with 1516 points. Damien Renard (2nd, 1473 points) has the third highest World Ranking score ever from the same event. Simone Niggli scored the 4th highest World Ranking points in 2009 at POM 2009.

Maps and results

There are several maps in the area in Omaps.worldofo.com – click this link to see maps in the surroundings. There are also some maps from runners training in this area the last days – for example the training of Alessio Tenani (see e.g. map here, and here).

I will try to update you with maps and results from POM during the next days. As an extra service, news from Portugal O-Meeting have been added on the World of O main page for the duration of the races in order to get the latest news out to World of O readers.

Programme

POM 2010 consists of 2 Long distance events, two middle distance events and an additional Night urban sprint:

• Saturday February 13th: Long Distance – Leirosa’s map
• Saturday February 13th: Night urban sprint – Costa de Lavos’ map (POM extra-competition event)
• Sunday February 14th: Middle Distance WRE – Lagoa da Braças’ map
• Monday February 15th: Long Distance – Quiaios’ map
• Tuesday February 16th: Middle Distance – Lagoa da Vela’s map

Terrain

POM 2010 offers varied terrain – you find terrain pictures and map samples here – below a short summary of the terrain:

• Stage 1. Day 1 – Saturday, 13-02 Praia da Leirosa Long Distance Pine forest terrain with some patches of different trees, with reduced higher grass of shrubbery growth. Presents, some open and one semi-open areas with good visibility. Typical pathways (sandways).
• Day 2 – Sunday, 14-02 Lagoa das Braças, Quiaios Middle Distance – WRE Small-grown pine forest terrain with some patches of different trees and shrubbery, with reduced higher grass growth. Presents micro-contour areas, requiring greater navigation skills
• Day 3 – Monday, 15-02 Quiaios Long Distance Pine forest terrain with reduced higher grass of shrubbery growth. Presents both micro-contour as well as medium contour areas, with good runnability but low visibility. Patterned pathways; altitude between marks 21 and 60.
• Day 4 – Tuesday, 16-02 Lagoa da Vela, Quiaios Middle Distance Pine forest terrain with reduced higher grass of shrubbery growth, with good runnability. Typical pathways (sandways). Presents micro-contour areas, requiring greater navigation skills.

Links

Some useful links for the upcoming POM 2010 competitions:

• Startlist all days
• Program
• POM 2010 homepage

Both for the WOC Final and for the WOC Qualification over the Long distance the start interval is increased from 2 minutes till 3 minutes, according to reports from the IOF meetings in Helsinki last week. This is very good news for the work for fairness in orienteering, as increased start interval has been found to be the best (and only really effective?) measure for separating runners in orienteering.

Background

An extensive report on separating methods in Orienteering was published at the end of 2009. In the report, the conclusion was that “in National and International Championships with live TV coverage, the start interval can hardly be increased” due to TV (I co-authored the report, but I personally disagreed with this part of the conclusion). The issue has been debated a lot, and in a poll at World of O more than 80% of the readers wanted increased start interval for the WOC long distance.

A good decision by the IOF – the WOC long distance can still be very attractive for TV as a partly recorded/partly live transmission.

Rule 26.2

On the downside, the IOF removed the rule 26.2,

• 26.2 In an individual interval start race, competitors shall navigate and run through the terrain independently.

The Nordic Orienteering Federations are very upset with the removal of this rule, and are now sending a protest letter to the IOF according to the article. See also article/discussion at Alternativet.nu (Swedish language).

The reasoning for removing the rule, is according to what I have heard that this rule is problematic due to protests not leading to disqualification even when runners did clearly run together for large parts of the course (protests in WOC 2005 and WOC 2009). An alternative instead of removing the rule altogether, might have been to rephrase the rule back towards its old wording: “In an individual interval start race, competitors are expected to navigate and run through the terrain independently”.

The Swedish Orienteering Federation is considering taking the opposite route – they might introduce a rule for Swedish competitions disqualifying runners who are within 12 seconds for more than 3 controls in a row (Swedish text).

Do you think it was a good decision by IOF to remove this rule? Is the Swedish alternative better? Do you see any better alternatives?

Map WOC Long distance 1993 – with 3 minutes start interval, but without qualification races

Article updated February 4th, 16:15 CET