WOC 2015: All You Need To Know

The World Orienteering Championships starts on Friday July 31st at 19:00 CET with sprint qualification in Forres – a small town on the coast northeast of Inverness. The first medals are fought for in the sprint relay in neighbour town Nairn the day after – with start from 19:05 CET.

The championships continues with sprint final in Forres on Sunday (17:51 CET), Middle distance in Darnaway on Tuesday (12:54 CET), Relay in Darnaway on Wednesday (15:00 CET) and finally the long distance on Friday in  Glen Affric (11:00 CET). Note that there are again no qualification races in long and middle.

The first medals are fought for in the sprint relay in Nairn on Saturday

Live services: How to follow the competitions

For spectators – either in the arena or at home through the Internet – the World Championships in Scotland should be excellent. Live TV and live GPS tracking is provided from all races through the IOF live center portal – you should buy a week pass for Euro 18 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. Because Glen Affric is such a remote wilderness area, it has very poor mobile phone coverage, and so there will be very limited live GPS tracking available for the Long race.  In addition to the live TV being available through the IOF live portal, WOC will also be broadcast live in  Sweden, Norway and Finland – and party in the UK. The organizers will also provide a live text commentary. WorldofO.com will follow the championships on the Twitter accounts WorldofOLive and WorldofO.

Useful links:

• IOF Livecenter – go here to buy access
• Live pages for each event at the organizers’ webpage (note that the organizer has very informative webpages this year):
  • Sprint Qual – Sprint Relay – Sprint Final – Middle – Relay – Long
• WorldofOLive at Twitter

WOC 2015 Detailed program

All times are given in CET.

• Friday July 31st 19:00 (Women), 20:00 (Men): Sprint qualification – decided at 21:00
• Saturday August 1st 19:05: Mixed Sprint Relay (decided at 20:00)
• Sunday August 2nd 17:51 (Women), 18:55 (Men): Sprint final  (decided 20:00)
• Tuesday August 4th 12:54 (Women), 15:13 (Men): Middle  (decided 16:55)
• Wednesday August 5th 15:00 (Women), 17:00 (Men): Relay (decided 18:40)
• Friday August 6th 10:00 (Men and Women): Long (until 16:00)

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.

In addition to the WOC competitions, IOF will also be having several meetings which are important for the future of the sport (full list of meeting schedule) – one of them is the extraordinary General Assembly Thursday morning.

Useful links

• Team overview WOC 2015 – with updated profile data.
• WOC 2015 webpage
• WOC 2015 Bulletin 4 – all updated information about the competition
• Results from earlier WOCs and WOC history by country
• Spectator information on the WOC 2015 page
• 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.

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

Terrain

Two different terrain types will be featured in forest parts of WOC 2015. The relay and middle distance will feature quite fast terrain at Darnaway with many contour details – described as complex glacial terrain. The forest has numerous small hills and depressions making for tricky navigation. There is a mixture of woodland types: open pine wood with ground cover of heather and dwarf shrub, denser pine and areas of broadleaves, especially beech. Both runnability and visibility will vary throughout the courses.

The long distance terrain is a lot more hilly, with a mix of pine, birch and oak, with steep slopes, complex contour detail, and few paths – real Scottish wilderness. Although the terrain is hilly, it is generally runnable, with localised deep heather and very little bracken.

The sprint parts of the championships will be in small Scottish towns –  the terrain varying from the narrow lanes of the old town and complex housing estates to areas of parkland. The competitions will include a range of types of terrain from housing estate with extensive path networks to complex old town with many “vennels” (small lanes and minor roads). There are also several areas of parkland with an extensive path network. For the sprint relay, sand dunes are also mentioned in the terrain description.

WOC Long

Reigning champions are Thierry Gueorgiou and Svetlana Mironova (full results 2014 and article at WorldofO about WOC Long 2014).

WOC Sprint

Reigning champions are Søren Bobach and Judith Wyder (full results 2014 and article about WOC 2014 sprint on World of O).

WOC Middle

Reigning champions are Olav Lundanes and Annika Billstam (full results 2014 and article with maps and results from 2014).

WOC Relay

Reigning champions are Sweden and Switzerland (full results 2014 and article about WOC 2014 relay at WorldofO).

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

Sprint Relay (Mixed)

Reigning champion is Switzerland (full results 2014 and article about WOC 2014 Sprint Relay at World of O).

Where in the world …