World of O News
Todays leg in Route to Christmas is a long leg from Switzerland with several route choice options. The event is the 6th National event in Höhronen organized at October 3rd. The leg is from the Men 35 category – as the Men 35 in Switzerland seem to be better than the Men Elite at drawing their routes in Routegadget after the events.
Thanks for Martin Lerjen for the tip – and to Gaudenz S. and Michael E. for drawing their routes on request from Martin to make the analysis more interesting.
The leg is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think about how you would attack this leg (if the image is too small, you may click on it to get it larger):
Webroute
Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think through how you would attack this leg, and draw the route you would have made. Some comments about why you would choose a certain route are always nice for the other readers.
Then you can take a look at how the runners who have drawn their route choice solved this leg. If you run the event yourself, please provide some analysis in the comments!
The Men Elite category had a somewhat similar leg. Unfortunately only a few runners have drawn their routechoice – still here it is for you to take a look at.
Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com
You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.
Omaps.worldofo.com
The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular the last years – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2010-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.
There will be no analysis about the best routechoice for each leg – you can provide that yourself in the comments or in the Webroute. Not all legs are taken for the interesting routechoice alternatives – some are also taken because the map is interesting – or because it is not straightforward to see what to do on a certain leg. Any comments are welcome – especially if you ran the event chosen for todays leg!
Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.
Let me add, that the first control was only around 70 Seconds after start. It was impossible to have the routechoice completely before the control. This explains why only very few runners left the first control directly towards west down to the road, but started climbing right away…
& the this women at this years WOC LONG Final had the similar task to deal with.
http://www.woc2010.com/images/stories/woc/maps/long-final/woc2010longfinalwomen.jpg
I wonder what tactics are useful in such a situation. Stop until the choice is made?
I guess try to make the choice very fast while orienteering to control number one, and in case one is not sure about the choice, stop and read the map until you are sure about your choice. But of course you have to be strong mentally to stop for 10 seconds at the first control in an important race – it is easier to just make a quick choice…
Little wonder that orienteering is losing its following.
You have got to be a masochist to enjoy this sort of terrain.
It is for the superfit only.
Any recent recruit to the sport would be gone for good after this one.
Most orienteers like challenges – and travel a long way to experience such courses:) If you look at “The course of the Year 2010″ it is dominated by this kind of tough courses: http://news.worldofo.com/2010/11/25/the-course-of-the-year-2010-jukola/
I enjoyed the race. The course was interesting, the runability was good in the most part of the terrain and last but not least, the WEATHER was fine.
This is a terrain which has never been used for orienteering before. Most of the competitions in Switzerland are held in well known terrain.
@Bill Melville
Orienteering is not for lazy ass people, thats true. But usually the sport offers a variety of courses, so that beginners and less fit people can run easier races. To distinguish the good from the bad however, it is sometimes necessary to present a terrain like this.
Should the sport adobt to the increasing amount of people spending more time in their sofa, than anything else. No, stick with races that are challenging physically and technically and so tough that fat people cry of joy when they reach the finish line and not some easy sprint in a kindergarden.
Now I don’t know if you meant what you wrote, or if you just said it to praise the course, but it is an interesting discussion.