Nordic Orienteering Tour: All you need to know

The same importance for orienteering as Tour de Ski has had for cross country skiing: That is what Norway, Sweden and Finland hope for with the Nordic Orienteering Tour starting Thursday June 17th in Finland – and continuing next week in Sweden and Norway. This years edition has three races – the hope is to increase the Tour to 4-6 races the next years. Do you think the Nordic Orienteering Tour will be a success?

Update 16/9/2010 based on answers from the NORT media/information responsible (thank you very much):

• Stage 1 will be live broadcast by YLE on the Internet, and there will also be a 40 minute broadcast on regular TV in the evening (see here for Finnish and here for Swedish – thanks to Kenneth Lassila for Swedish link). No IP-restriction = viewable worldwide. TV/video for stage 3 will also be available worldwide on the Internet. For Stage 2 the broadcast will be available either through SVT or orientering.se.
• There will be GPS-tracking for Stage 1 and Stage 3 (not clear if both will be available online, or only for TV production)
• Sponsors: There are several local sponsors, but no sponsors are sponsoring all of the tour. The federations have given garanties that the organizers will not loose money, thus that means that the federations in principle are responsible for price money and TV production.
• The program for the Nordic Tour for 2011 will be planned based on how it works this year – more competitions is wanted (maybe 5-7 within 9-10 days).
• Regarding the choice of using no spreading at all in the Knock-out spint, the thought is that if the runners do not have the same course, the unfairness is to big. Also, in a course which takes 6-7 minutes it is not easy to make a gaffling which makes a TV-production which is easy to understand. There are thoughts about a possible solution for next year.

Note also that Bulletin 4 with latest detailed information is now available.

Program Overview

• Thursday June 17th, Finland. Middle and sprint mix. First start 15:26 CET. Last start: 17:44 CET.
• Tuesday June 22nd, Sweden. Knock-out sprint. Start Qualification 10:00 CET. Start finals 19:30 CET
• Saturday June 26th, Norway. Prolonged middle chasing start. Start first woman 14:00 CET. Start first man 15:00 CET.

WorldofO.com plans to follow the final parts of stage 1 and stage 2 through a LiveBlog – check WorldofO.com for more info the day of the events. There will at least be live GPS tracking online for stage 1. According to the NORT-page, links to live video/GPS-Tracking/results will be posted on this page.

Fantasy World Cup

All three stages in the Nordic Orienteering Tour are part of the World Cup – and therefore also part of the Fantasy World Cup. Remember to set up your Fantasy World Cup Team ahead of each event here:

• Fantasy World Cup 2010

Detailed Program

The Nordic Orienteering Tour consists of three races in three countries,

• Thursday June 17th, Finland. Middle and sprint mix. First start men is 15:26 CET. Last start men: 16:40 CET. First start women: 16:50 CET. Last start women: 17:44 CET. Tracking will be available on the Internet during the competition from here. There will be a map change at the arena with a change of scale and map standard to sprint standard. The overall winning time will be approximately 35 minutes. There is an individual interval start with no prior qualification. The start interval is 1 minute. Bonus seconds 60-45-30-20-10-5 seconds will be given to the first 6 after the middle distance section. Old maps NORT stage 1
• Tuesday June 22nd, Sweden. Knock-out sprint. Start Qualification 10:00 CET. Start Quarter-finals 13:00 CET. Start Semi-finals 18:30 CET. Start finals 19:30 CET The qualification race in the morning for allrunners will be a normal sprint (12-15 minute winning time) with a 1 minute start interval. The top 30 athletes qualify for quarter finals, of these 12 qualify for semi finals and 6 runners will run the finals. The quarter/semi/finals are mass-start events with 6-8 minute winning time. Note: There is no gaffling in the semi-final and final heats! The 6 runners in the final will get bonus seconds 120-90-70-60-55-50. All other runners in the semi/quarter finals also get bonus seconds, counting down to 1 second for the slowest time in the quarter finals. Old map qualification area NORT stage 2. Old map final area NORT stage 2
• Saturday June 26th, Norway. Prolonged middle chasing start. Start first woman 14:00 CET. Start first man 15:00 CET. Start times are based on the NORT overall time standings after two days. Only runners who were placed on NORT day one and also in the qualification race on NORT day two may compete on day three. The NORT overall time standings after two days are calculated as the time on day one plus the time for the qualification race on day two less the bonus seconds. Old map NORT stage 3

Useful links

• Nordic Orienteering Tour webpage
• Webpage of O-festivalen (third race of NORT 2010)
• NORT Bulletins

Prize money

Prize money for the overall results in NORT (both men and women):

• 1st spot: 6000 €
• 2nd spot: 2500€
• 3rd spot: 1500€
• 4th spot: 500€
• 5th spot: 500€
• 6th spot: 500€

For stage 1 and stage 2, there is 1000€ for the winner, 500€ for number two and 250€ for number three. For stage 3, there is 500€ for the fastest man and women of the day.

In total this gives 27500€ in prize money.

Note that several of the top runners skip the Nordic Orienteering Tour this year.

Success?

Do you think NORT 2010 will be a success? Do you like the NORT Program with focus on sprint/middle? Please add a comment below if you have any thoughts about NORT and its place in the future of the orienteering world.

LiveBlog

Some of the competitions in the Nordic Orienteering Tour will be covered through a LiveBlog.

<a href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=12b65c1ffa” mce_href=”http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php/option=com_mobile/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=12b65c1ffa” >Nordic Orienteering Tour</a>