World of O News
Long Saturday, Middle Sunday, Long WRE Monday and a chasing start Long on Tuesday. Live GPS tracking on Monday – live results and speaker sound planned for all foud races. This is the program and the live services of Portugal O-Meeting – the largest elite event in Portugal annually. This year the event will for the first time pass 2000 participants – it broke the previous record of entries with more than 400 entries.
The start list is strong as always – although the early World Cup start in Australia and the terrain choice for POM this year might have reduced the number of top names a bit compared to earlier years. Of the Top 15 in the World Ranking (as of early February), 5 men are on the starting list; Olav Lundanes (1st), Gustav Bergman (7th), Baptiste Rollier (8th), Magne Dæhlie (9th) and Carl Godager Kaas (15th). For the women four from the Top 15 are on the start list; Mari Fasting (5th), Saila Kinni (8th), Annika Billstam (10th) and Sofia Haajanen (12th). Still the start fields are very strong, and the elite field is divided into SuperElite and regular Elite.
Useful links:
- POM 2015 website – all live services will be reachable from here
- Old map POM 2015 Stage 1 + 2
- Start lists
- Elite participants in Portugal O-Meeting 2015
Terrain: Sand dunes
The terrain is described as typical Portuguese sand dunes terrain, with pine forest and some very small open areas. Several small green areas/dots and some undergrowth vegetation areas. Good/very good visibility and runnability. Thus the terrain is not the technical, stony parts which we have seen in some editions of POM, but rather the fast ones near the coast.
Parts of the area for day 1 and 2 has been visited by quite a few orienteers before (Old map POM 2015 Stage 1 + 2) – stages 3 and 4 seems to be a more novel area (Dunas de Vagos, map from 2014).
