World of O News
Today’s leg in Route to O-Season 2020 is leg 14 in the M21 course from Aguiar da Beira O Meeting 2019 in Portugal last winter.
The leg is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think about how you would attack this leg (if the image is too small, you may click on it to get it larger):
Location
You find other maps from the area in omaps.worldofo.com here. See also latest additions in 3DRerun from this area in order to learn more about this terrain type.
Webroute
Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think through how you would attack this leg, and draw the route you would have made. Some comments about why you would choose a certain route are always nice for the other readers.
Then you can take a look at how the runners have solved this leg below. As you can see, although it is tempting to go around to the left, the best technical orienteers in the world (Olav Lundanes and Gustav Bergman) still manage to run faster on direct routes. It is, however, not trivial to find the correct micro-routechoices straight – probably many would benefit from running around to the left?
Density map
See below for a density map of some of the ones who have drawn their routes so far (available during the day when some readers have drawn their route).
Additional information
You find the complete map in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.
Route to O-Season 2020 series
Route Choice Challenges while waiting for the real action: With the upcoming orienteering season indefinitely on hold in large parts of the the world due to COVID-19, regular orienteering route choice challenges may be one way to make sure those orienteering skills don’t get completely rusty. I’ll try to keep these coming daily, but need help from all of you out there to keep them coming and to keep up a certain quality.
Tips on good route choice challenges – either from races/trainings (even cancelled ones) or theoretical ones with accompanying analysis – are very welcome (please e-mail to jan@kocbach.net).
Not all legs are taken for the interesting routechoice alternatives – some are also taken because the map is interesting – or because it is not straightforward to see what to do on a certain leg. Any comments are welcome – especially if you ran the event chosen for todays leg!
What about going to the right? Going via control number 2. It’s easier orienteering, downhill all the way to the field and seems like a quite easy approach to control via the large grey area…
It is shorter than going around left, but the tricky bit might be from road to field through the mixed terrain… Not the fastest for the professionals, but probably faster and less work for the rest of us.
If you ran via control 2 you have the risk to run out of the map and for me the orienteering doesn´t look easier than the direct way. If want an easier course you have to choose the left via start and control 18.
What’s the grey mean on the Portugal Day 41 map in terms of runnability?
Brian, it is bare rock so very good runnability – like the open rock at Jessica Lake.