Nordic Orienteering Tour: All you need to know!

3 stages – 3 countries – 9 days. Already the qualification Thursday morning will be very important for the overall results – a 30-35 minute “prolonged sprint” with the race time counting in the overall results – part of the terrain being described as rather hilly and physically demanding “offering enjoyable orienteering with variable speed”.

• New! Startlist qualification stage 2 now up on NORT page. Timetable stage 2 (Tuesday June 21st): Qual 10:00, Quarterfinal 13:00, Semifinal 18:10 CET, Final 19:10 CET. All times are CET. There is only live results in the morning, but there will be live TV for the finals
• Remember to set up your Fantasy World Cup team – last chance is Tuesday 10:00 CET for Stage 2.

The Nordic Orienteering Tours (NORT) marks the first part of the 2011 World Cup, and with 300 World Cup points to be won at NORT, the future 2011 overall World Cup winner will definitely have to participate at the NORT.
Stage 1 and 2 gives the half the points compared to a normal World Cup-event, i.e. 50 points to the winner of stage 1 and 2. For the total results of NORT, the winner gets 200 World Cup points.

Many top runners decided to skip the Nordic Orienteering Tour in 2010 – and we see the same trend in 2011 even if there is overall prize money of 31.000 Euro in NORT 2011. In the womens class all of the Top 5 on the WRE-ranking are not on the start – all these are however out due to injuries/childbirth. In the mens class three of the Top 10 on the WRE-list are missing – but again all are due to injuries or retirement except for Thierry Gueorgiou who does not prioritize NORT in 2011. Of the Top 30 on the WRE list in the men’s class, 12 are missing in NORT. The corresponding number in the womens class is 13 missing. You can see the full list of participants compared to the current WRE standings further down on the page.

NORT 2010 winner Audun Weltzien is among the favourites also in 2011.

NORT 2011 Program

Following the qualification Thursday morning is a regular sprint final in the afternoon. The race time for this sprint final does not count in the overall – instead bonus seconds are awarded – 120 seconds for the winner, 90 seconds for number two, and 70, 60, 55, 50, 40, 38, 36, 34, 32, 30, 18, 17, 16 and so on down to 1 second for number 30.

After stage 1 in Finland on Thursday, NORT moves to Sweden with a KnockOut-sprint in Göteborg on Tuesday. The NORT final is a chasing start south of Oslo in Norway. The full program is shown in the table below:

See also the detailed program at the bottom of this article with more information about each stage, bonus seconds etc..

Fantasy World Cup

New year – new rules – more fun! The WoO Fantasy World Cup is a ‘for-fun’ manager-type competition where you can set up a World Cup Team consisting of 10 runners (either men, women or a mix), and get points according to their performance. New in 2011! Your team must contain two runners outside the ‘Red group’ – thus giving room for some more tactics.

• Read more and set up your team here

Old maps from the competition areas

• NORT stage 1 part 1 and part 2 (Note! The new map will be according to ISSOM)
• NORT stage 2
• NORT stage 3 (O-festivalen) part 1 and part 2 (Note! There is also an old map from 2006 which I have not seen online)

How to follow NORT live

There will be excellent possibilities to follow the NORT races live – so look forward to some high class orienteering events the coming week (with the Jukola relay in between). Here are the live possibilities.

• WebTV: (All WebTV available from here)
  • Live web-TV from stage 1 final (via Finnish broadcaster YLE – also available outside Finland). Broadcast from 15.00 CET.
  • Live web-TV from stage 2 final round (via SVT Play – should will also be available outside Sweden – please check back for final confirmation).
  • Live web-TV from stage 3 is planned based on the big screen production – depending on if the organizers manage to get the required bandwidth.
• GPS-tracking: (All live tracking available from here)
  • Live GPS-tracking from stage 1 (both qualification and final)
  • There will be live GPS-tracking from stage 2 for the TV-production, and this will probably also be live on the Internet (please check back for more information).
  • Live GPS-tracking from stage 3.
• Live results: (All live results available from here)
  • Live results from all stages – both qualifications and finals.

Useful links

• Nordic Orienteering Tour webpage
• Bulletin 3 – NORT 2011

Below you see the participants for NORT 2011 (as of June 14th 22:00 CET) compared to the Top 100 World Ranking list. As you see, many top names are missing – but there will still be a tough fight for the top positions. According to the NORT webpage, in the mens class all the top 10 runners from last year are coming this year. In the ladies 7 of the top 10 are going to fight about the prize money.

Stage 1

The tour starts with a qualification race on the morning. The 30 best women and men are qualified for the final in the evening. The time from the qualification race is the time that counts for the tour. In the final the winner get 120 seconds in bonus and then all the other runners get less time down to 1 second.

This stage of a prolonged Sprint as a qualification race in the morning, with a winning time of 30-35 minutes, followed by a Sprint final in the evening. The qualification race has an individual interval start with a 1 minute start interval. The start order for the qualification race is determined by the reverse standing of the official World Rankings as published at the end of May 2011. The qualification race times (less any bonus seconds) are used (together with the day two qualification race times) to calculate the start times for NORT day three. The final is for the top 30 athletes from the qualification race. The start order is the reverse order of the qualification race
results (winner starts last).

Terrain for middle distance style sprint is mainly pine and spuce mixed forest, good visibility, dense network of paths and mainly good run ability. Kokonniemi hill is 60 m above Porvoo river level on its highest point; so that part is rather hilly and physically demanding. It has sharp slopes and steeps. The hill area is partly very detailed demanding concentration and offering enjoyable orienteering with variable speed. Only minor part has a nature of park. Good visibility.

Sprint is run in urban area in the centre of the Old Town with old stone and wooden houses, mainly cobblestone roads, stairs and small alleys. The area has mainly level underfoot, thus offering good run ability. Old Porvoo Castle hill as well as parts of western side of Porvoo river with sharp slopes and wide paths are sandy and partly uneven. Some grassy areas appear. Generally very good visibility.

Stage 2

In the morning it is a qualification race, the 30 best are qualified and divided into 5 quarter finals. There are 5 consecutive mass-start quarter-finals each running the same course with a 7-9 minute winning time. The 2 best runners in each heat are qualified for semifinal and also the 2 runners with the fastest times in places 3 and 4.

The 2 semifinal-heats also have 6 runners in each heat and the qualification for the final is the same as for the semi-final. All runners that are qualified for quarter-final get bonus time from 120 to 1 second. There are 2 consecutive mass-start semi-finals each running the same course with a 6-8 minute winning time. The final will be a mass-start Sprint with a 8-10 minute winning time.

The terrain is mixed of urban areas and parks, moderately hilly, some large building complexes connected. Dry and mainly level underfoot, therefore good run ability. Generally very good visibility.

Stage 3

The last stage is a chase start where the total time and bonus time makes the ground for the start list. This makes that the runner that is first over the finish-line is the winner of NORT. Stage 3 is a prolonged Middle Distance chasing start (women 40 minutes, men 50 minutes) with the start times based on the NORT overall time standings after two days.

Only runners who started in both of the qualification races of NORT days one and two may start on day three. Runners who started but were not placed in either (or both) of the qualification races of NORT days one and two will take part in a separate interval start competition on the same course with the first runner starting 10 minutes after the last chasing start runner has departed. There will be a 2 minute start interval and individual start times are drawn at random. The first runner to the finish is the NORT winner.

The terrain is mainly old coniferous forest but also parts with mixed forest. Medium hilly with mostly good runability. Some bigger marshes and a dense network of small and bigger paths.