WOC 2014: All You Need to Know!

The World Orienteering Championships starts on Saturday July 5th at 09:00 CET with sprint qualification in Burano – an island outside Venice. The first medals are fought for in the sprint final in Venice in the afternoon – with start from 15:20 CET.

The championships continue with Mixed sprint relay in Trento on Monday, Long distance in Lavarone on Wednesday, Middle distance in Asiago on Friday and finally a forest relay in Asiago on Sunday. Note that this is the first year without qualification races in long and middle. Even though the number of races is reduced, several runners have decided that it is too much to run all races – the long distance typically being the race which is skipped by some.

The first medals are fought for in the sprint final in Venice

Live services: How to follow the competitions

For spectators – either in the arena or at home through the Internet – the World Championships in Italy should be excellent. Live TV and live GPS tracking is provided from all races (except for the sprint qualification) through the new IOF live center portal – you should buy a week pass for Euro 16.70 if you plan to watch more than a few races (buy the WOC week pass or single passes here).  There will also be live results and live speaker sound (for free). In addition to the live TV being available through the IOF live portal, WOC will also be broadcast live in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, France and Switzerland. Highlights will be available in the US, New Zealand and Australia and Italy.

Links:

• IOF Livecenter – go here to buy access
• Organizer’s live centre
• WOC sprint at Swedish TV

WOC 2014 Detailed program

All times are given in CET.

• Saturday July 5th 09:00: Sprint qualification / 15:20: Sprint final (until 17:25)
• Monday July 7th 17:25: Mixed sprint relay
• Wednesday July 9th 1200: Long final  (until 16:55)
• Friday July 11th 12:00: Middle final  (until 16:55)
• Saturday July 12th 13:00: Relay (until 16:20)

Startlists are typically available after the teamleader meeting the evening before the event – expect to see them around 20:00 CET.  From the sprint qualification, 15 runners go on to the finals in each heat.

Useful links

• Team overview WOC 2014 – with updated profile data.
• WOC 2014 webpage
• WOC Program
• WOC 2014 Bulletin 4 – all updated information about the competition
• Results from earlier WOCs and WOC history by country
• All embargoed areas and old maps

WOC Teams – sorted by country

Note that all teams have received login information to update the athlete data / profile miniature picture. If you are a competitor and have not received a link, please contact your team leader.

Argentina	Australia	Austria
Azerbaijan	Belgium	Belarus
Bulgaria	Canada	Chile
China	Colombia	Croatia
Cyprus	Czech Republic	Denmark
Ecuador	Spain	Estonia
Finland	France	Great Britain
Germany	Hong Kong	Hungary
Ireland	Israel	Italy
Japan	South Korea	Latvia
Lithuania	Moldova	Macedonia
Montenegro	Netherlands	Norway
New Zealand	Poland	Portugal
DPR Korea	Romania	South Africa
Russia	Slovenia	Serbia
Switzerland	Slovakia	Sweden
Chinese Taipei	Turkey	Ukraine
Uruguay	United States

Terrain

Two different terrain types will be featured in forest parts of WOC 2014. The long distance terrain is hilly with quite good runnability – featuring many route choice possibilities.  The middle/relay terrain is more technical and partly also stony with the runnability being quite bad at places.  The sprint parts of the championships will be in very interesting and picturesque areas. The highlight is of course Venice with its canals. See below for old maps and more details about each discipline.

WOC Long

Reigning champions are Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli.

WOC Sprint

Reigning champions are Mårten Boström and Simone Niggli.

WOC Middle

Reigning champions are Leonid Novikov and Minna Kauppi.

WOC Relay

Reigning champions are Russia and Norway.

The terrain for the relay is the same as for the middle distance.

Mixed sprint relay

The mixed sprint relay is new on the WOC program.