Thierry Gueorgiou scored the 17th highest number of World Ranking points ever at Portugal O-meeting Monday. 1426 points is 90 points off the highest ever – scored at Portugal O-meeting in 2007. Now 4 of the Top 20 WRE scored in the mens class are from Portugal – and 3 of the Top 20 WRE scores are by Gueorgiou.

We had a terrific terrain here, exactly what I like in a middle distance (Gueorgiou)

The races in Portugal/Spain in winter time is a good time to collect some WRE points if you focus on the race – as many others are in the middle of a training period. The WRE points for a race do not give a full picture of how good a race is – but the points help Gueorgiou securing his spot on top of the World Ranking ahead of a season with World Championships on home ground. Simone Niggli won the women’s race – but did “only” get around 1300 WRE points.

• WRE points – Portugal O-meeting 2011
• Top 25 WRE points (choose “All years” at the bottom of the page)
• About the World Ranking scheme

- We had a terrific terrain here, exactly what I like in a middle distance. It’s possible to run really fast, because the terrains are so clean, but there is also a large density of elements, so you have to do the right options in order to continue running faster and faster. I liked a lot the race today, Thierry Gueorgiou said to Ultimate-Orienteering.com.

It was a very challenging terrain, not only because of the stones, but also because of the green between the stones, Simone Niggli said to Ultimate-Orienteering.com.

Maps and results POM 2011

• Map POM Day 3 (WRE) – Men Superelite (See also Men Elite)
• Map POM Day 3 (WRE) – Women Elite
• Results POM Day 3 (WRE)
• Map POM Day 2 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 2 – Women Elite
• Results POM Day 2
• Map POM Day 1 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 1 – Women Elite
• Full results POM Day 1

Yet another victory for Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli in technical Portuguese terrain! This third day of the Portugal O-meeting was the highlight of the races – a fast paced middle distance race with World Ranking status. 6.1 km in 28:41 means that you have to keep full focus all the way.  Gueorgiou and Niggli both won the Portugal O-meeting last year as well.

- Altough some health problems ruining his training week and making him rest on POM’s first day, he started strongly winning yesterday and on today’s WRE he left second place Oleksandr Kratov 1:55 behind. Jonas Gvildys surprisingly took 3rd place leaving behind Adamski in 4th and Fohr in 5th,  the organizers report.

In the womens class, Niggli got a very tough fight for the victory today. Five women within 1 minute – closest to Niggli was Maja Møller Alm, 39 seconds down. Young Tove Alexandersson and Venla Niemi followed one second behind Møller Alm.

Tomorrow is the closing day of Portugal’O'Meeting using the same Arena and a wider map for a closing long distance event.

Results Men – POM Day 3

Photo: Freestyle-spirit.com

    1    100 Thierry Gueorgiou               [4671] Kalevan Rasti              28:41
    2    107 Oleksandr Kratov             85 [1999] OK Orion                   30:36
    3    126 Jonas Vytautas Gvildys       87 [4489] Rehns Bk                   31:51
    4    109 Philippe Adamski                [4671] Kalevan Rasti              32:02
    5    106 Tero Föhr                    80 [4708] Team Finland               32:08
    6    101 Matthias Mueller             82 [4387] Swiss Orienteer            32:13
    7    127 Olle Boström                 90 [4706] Järla                      32:14
    8    120 Søren Bobach                 89 [4679] Danish National            32:23
    9    131 Wojciech Dwojak              81 [052] GD4C                        32:47
   10    116 Hannu Airila                    [4671] Kalevan Rasti              32:50 

Results Women – POM Day 3

Photo: Freestyle-spirit.com

    1    300 Simone Niggli                82 [4387] Swiss Orienteer            34:04
    2    305 Maja Møller Alm              88 [4679] Danish National            34:43
    3    312 Tove Alexandersson           92 [4408] Stora Tuna OK              34:44
    3    354 Venla Niemi                  90 [4708] Team Finland               34:44
    5    311 Amelie Chataing                 [4671] Kalevan Rasti              34:56
    6    307 Maria Rantala                80 [4708] Team Finland               35:03
    7    322 Heini Wennman                86 [4736] SK Pohjantähti             35:29
    8    302 Vroni Koenig-Salmi           69 [4387] Swiss Orienteer            35:57
    9    327 Saila Kinni                  87 [4708] Team Finland               36:04
   10    303 Signe Søes                   83 [4679] Danish National            36:17 

Maps and results POM 2011

• Map POM Day 3 (WRE) – Men Superelite (See also Men Elite)
• Map POM Day 3 (WRE) – Women Elite
• Results POM Day 3 (WRE)
• Map POM Day 2 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 2 – Women Elite
• Results POM Day 2
• Map POM Day 1 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 1 – Women Elite
• Full results POM Day 1

Middle distance in Portugal O-Meeting – and Thierry Gueorgiou is back on top. Gueorgiou won today’s rocky middle distance race with nearly 1:30 down to Søren Bobach in second spot.  In women elite Simone Niggli took another victory – today ahead of Maja Alm. Today’s terrain was more technical than the long distance yesterday.

POM 2011 is a 4 day event consisting of a long distance on Saturday, a middle distance on Sunday, a middle distance with World Ranking status on Monday and another long distance race on Monday. The most prestigious event is the World Ranking event on Monday – expect a real fight for victory there!

Results Men – POM Day 2

Photo: Freestyle-spirit.com

    1    100 Thierry Gueorgiou               [4671] Kalevan Rasti              28:38
    2    120 Søren Bobach                 89 [4679] Danish National            30:02
    3    107 Oleksandr Kratov             85 [1999] OK Orion                   30:39
    4    108 Tue Lassen                   85 [4679] Danish National            30:58
    5    127 Olle Boström                 90 [4706] Järla                      31:08
    6    116 Hannu Airila                    [4671] Kalevan Rasti              31:12
    7    142 Timo Sild                    88 [4731] Delta                      31:32
    8    126 Jonas Vytautas Gvildys       87 [4489] Rehns Bk                   31:38
    9    115 Jerker Lysell                89 [4489] Rehns Bk                   31:42
   10    131 Wojciech Dwojak              81 [052] GD4C                        31:43 

Results Women – POM Day 2

Photo: Freestyle-spirit.com

    1    300 Simone Niggli                82 [4387] Swiss Orienteer            29:28
    2    305 Maja Møller Alm              88 [4679] Danish National            31:54
    3    311 Amelie Chataing                 [4671] Kalevan Rasti              32:05
    4    327 Saila Kinni                  87 [4708] Team Finland               32:47
    5    315 Rachael Elder                80 [4629] SYO                        33:08
    6    308 Sara Luescher                78 [4387] Swiss Orienteer            33:58
    7    386 Therese Klintberg            90 [4680] Eksjö SOK                  34:47
    8    313 Iveta Duchova                86 [4388] OK Lokomotiva P            35:08
    9    316 Grace Crane                  83 [4623] SLOK                       35:14
   10    325 Nadiya Volynska              84 [1999] OK Orion                   35:24
   11    354 Venla Niemi                  90 [4708] Team Finland               35:59 

Maps and results POM 2011

• Map POM Day 2 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 2 – Women Elite
• Results POM Day 2
• Map POM Day 1 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 1 – Women Elite
• Full results POM Day 1

Portugal O-meeting 2011 (POM 2011)- the biggest of the winter time events in Spain/Portugal in February/March – started Saturday with a long distance race. The race was won by Philippe Adamski and Simone Niggli. The terrain on this first day of POM 2011 was quite fast and not the most technical one – expect more challenging terrain for the coming races in POM. A typical comment from the runners was “The orienteering wasn’t very hard, but the race was very fast and funny.”

The most prestigious event is the World Ranking event on Monday

POM 2011 is a 4 day event consisting of a long distance on Saturday, a middle distance on Sunday, a middle distance with World Ranking status on Monday and another long distance race on Monday. The most prestigious event is the World Ranking event on Monday – expect a real fight for victory there!

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.

Results – Men, POM Day 1
1. Philippe Adamski 1:07:24
2. Oleksandr Kratov 1:08:03
3. Jera Pajunen 1:08:37
4. Tero Föhr 1:08:42
5. Pasi Ikonen 1:08:58
6. Scott Fraser 1:09:22
7. Wojciech Kowalski 1:09:28
8. Wojciech Dwojak 1:09:33
9. Tiago Aires 1:09:39
10. Andreas Ruedlinger 1:09:54

Results – Women, POM Day 1

1. Simone Niggli 1:03:40
2. Minna Kauppi 1:07:00
3. Signe Søes 1:10:52
4. Vroni Koenig-Salmi 1:11:11
5. Nadiya Volynska 1:11:38
6. Martina Zverinova 1:12:48
7. Rahel Friederich 1:13:02
8. Aija Skrastina 1:14:05
9. Rachael Elder 1:14:22
10. Venla Niemi 1:14:31

• Map POM Day 1 – Men Elite
• Map POM Day 1 – Women Elite
• Full results POM Day 1
• Race report at Ultimate Orienteering – including comments from the top runners

Runners choice, The 8-map format and Score-o sections – three different mass start spreading methods with a lot in common have surfaced in the orienteering community lately. I have received several emails about these methods – and some of them have also been discussed in several forums – thus I decided to present them briefly here. Can any of these – or another spreading method using elements from one/several of them – be the future spreading method in a mass start or chasing start event in the World Championships?

There will probably be either a mass start or a chasing start in future World Championships – see this article for some background info and discussion. As discussed in the article, none of the presently used spreading methods for mass starts seem to have what is needed to fulfill the requirements for fairness, spreading and spectator/TV/GPS-friendliness. Three methods have recently been suggested/discussed. These methods are briefly introduced below – with links to more information about them. What do you think about these methods?

Runners choice

The Runners choice method was suggested by Tore Sagvolden at the NORD meeting in January. According to an article at orientering.no (Norwegian language), this method has been developed for 1-2 years. The thought behind the method is that one shall have a mass start in a World Championship race, and the runners shall still have to orienteer independently. - I think this is both exciting and challenging for the runner, and at the same time I think they will experience it as fair, Sagvolden explains to orientering.no. - The goal is to test drive the spreading method in competition this sprint, to make it possible to discuss it at the president meeting of the IOF during WOC in France this summer.

The above illustration given an example of the method in use. It is based on the runner choosing one of three alternatives when approaching a common control (control 1 in the illustration above). You can see more details about the method in this powerpoint presentation. The method has been discussed in detail at Alternativet.nu.

The 8 map format

The 8 map format was suggested by “Mr Routegadget”, Jarkko Ryyppö already more than half a year ago at a discussion at Attackpoint.org. Jarkko has now further detailed it, and set up an example course. The method can be described as follows (taken from here):

• Mass start, each runner gets 8 maps at start. They need to pick one and drop the rest. They can use as much time as they like, but time is ticking and they can also pick any map and start immediately. Those dropped 7 maps are scanned with bar code reader right after the start, so TV speakers / GPS tracking web spectators will know what spreading each runner is on.
• To make co-operation and code yelling during the race slightly more difficult two sets of codes can be used. Aka at each control there is two codes, like 64 and 72. You have 72 in your map and your friend has 64, you can’t tell just by the code will you have the same or not.
• Objective is to figure out new, GPS tracking friendly, fun and reasonably fair mass start format. The idea here is to keep keep runners close together and have lots of spreading controls, so runners can’t never be sure the pack is going to the right control. And if it goes to wrong one he can’t see where it is, spreading controls are not printed on his map.

Score-o sections

In the article about mass start in WOC I suggested a method using sections of “score-o”. This method was actually partly inspired by the “Runners choice” method of Sagvolden which I had heard something about prior to writing my suggestion.

The method can be described as follows:

• One possible scenario would be to have several score-o sections on the course, e.g. one early in the race and one in the middle of the race.
• The score-o sections should be held quite short. The important thing: The runners should have to choose the order to take the controls on in this section based on their own judgement only – before entering that section. This would not give the same situation as in a relay, but at least the competitors would not know if their next control is the same as their rivals for these parts. Technically this could be done by choosing from e.g. a set of pre-defined courses A-E which each have the score-o controls in a different order.
• Taking it a step further, you could introduce a set of pre-defined courses A-E – not even being defined by the same controls (-> this can actually be the “Runners choice” method)

Summary

Three methods in which the runner chooses which controls to take – are any of these any good? Personally I see some issues with all of them, but I think most of the issues should be solvable. What do you think? Does any of these methods have potential? Please try to look beyond the issues, and try to see possibilities instead of problems (I know it is tempting to bash all the methods…).

For now don’t think of it as a method for the World Champs – rather think of it as a spreading method for more of a “show type race”  optimized for TV/spectators – like for example one leg of a future “Nordic Orienteering Tour”… Can you see any of these methods used in the Nordic Orienteering Tour or in a “Show race” optimized for TV?