Road to WOC: Japan (with maps)

The terrain from the Japan WOC selection races – held in Japan in April – does not at all look like the terrain the Japanese runners will meet in Trondheim in August. It is, however, not easy to find terrain in Japan which has much resemblance with the Trondheim marshes… Still, the runners met interesting orienteering technical challenges, and a fair team selection was held.

Thanks a lot to Koji Kashimada (chairman of the Japan Orienteering Federation) and Shunta Miyagishima (O-news.net) for information about the Japanese road to WOC.

Maps from selection races

Three selection races were held over two weekends in April in Japan:

• Long (Fuji, Shizuoka) – Map men / Map women
• Sprint (Mishima, Shizuoka) – Map men / Map women
• Middle (Fuji, Shizuoka) – Map men / Map women

A comment by the course planner from www.o-news.net:

Selection Criteria

The chairman of the Japan Orienteering Federation, Koji Kashimada, explains the following about the rules for the WOC selection for Japan:

• We choose the fastest runner in each races automatically.
• We choose second fastest runner in each races, if his time is within +7% of fastest runner, and already in national team.
• A few more runners were selected by Foot-O committee recommendation

– We had training almost every weekend from April to July. Especially we had concentrate on technical training in Fuji area, where famous intricate volcano formed terrain.

Japan WOC Team 2010

Men

• Toshiyuki Matsuzawa Age 38 : /9 times WOC runner
• Daisuke Yamaguchi Age 35 : /Finalist in WOC sprint 2004, 2005
• Hiroyuki Kato Age 31 :/Sprint Asian Chamipion in 2010
• Dai Yagishita Age 36 : /first WOC
• Wataru Teragauchi Age 29 : /first WOC
• Ryo Kobayashi Age 22 : /first WOC

Women

• Yoko Bamba Age 30 : /Finalist in WOC sprint 2008, middle 2005,2006, long 2006
• Shuko Hotoge Age 27:
• Madoka Watanabe : Age 35:
• Naoko Kano : Age 40 : Her second WOC in Norway (in 1997)
• Marie Sekiya : Age 24

• You find historical Japanese WOC results here. The best Japanese WOC result is a 23rd place in 2003 (Sprint, women).

What can the Japanese runners manage in Trondheim this year?

Results from selection races

Long
ME – 9.5km 320m
1 Wataru Teragauchi 1:09:18
2 Shigeyuki Koizumi 1:10:30
3 Dai Yagishita 1:10:42
4 Toshiyuki Matsuzawa 1:10:48
5 Hiroyuki Kato 1:12:47
6 Daisuke Yamaguchi 1:15:10

WE – 5.96km 200m
1 Sakiko Miyauchi 0:58:20
2 Madoka Kogure 0:58:25
3 Shuko Hotoge 1:04:27
4 Naoko Kanoh 1:05:47
5 Eriko Ide 1:09:58
6 Tomoko Hoshino 1:17:09
*Sakiko Miyauchi (1st place of Long selection) declined to concentrate on MTB-WOC

Sprint
ME – 2.5km 60m
1 Daisuke yamaguchi 0:17:12
2 Ryo Kobayashi 0:18:05
3 Shinichiro Sakuramoto 0:18:17
4 Hiroyuki Kato 0:18:24
5 Toshiyuki Matsuzawa 0:18:26
6 Wataru Teragauchi 0:18:28

WE – 2km 50m
1 Yoko Bamba 0:19:00
2 Shuko Hotoge 0:19:26
3 Naoko Kanoh 0:19:38
4 Madoka Kogure 0:20:26
5 Tomoko Hoshino 0:21:42
6 Marie Sekiya 0:21:53

Middle

ME – 3.88km 200m
1 Hiroyuki Kato 0:29:54
1 Toshiyuki Matsuzawa 0:29:54
3 Shigeyuki Koizumi 0:30:39
4 Daisuke Yamaguchi 0:31:09
5 Dai Yagishita 0:32:58
6 Nobhuhiro Nishio 0:33:04

WE – 3.12km 160m
1 Yoko Bamba 0:33:21
2 Naoko Kanoh 0:34:31
3 Madoka Kogure 0:36:47
4 Marie Sekiya 38:19
5 Shuko Hotoge 0:39:51
6 Sakiko Miyauchi 0:40:12

Road to WOC 2010 – “LiveBlog”

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