Route To O-Season 2020: Day 60

In today’s edition of  Route to O-Season 2020 we are back in terrain relevant for next year’s World Orienteering Championship in Czech Republic. 

The Czech national team prepared a mass start race for Czech TV (probably for some testing ahead of next year’s World Orienteering Championships), with live GPS-tracking online.  One interesting leg which was common for the men’s and women’s course has been chosen for today’s edition. 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. Let’s first look at the women: From these GPS-tracks (and also from the map) it is clear that going around to the left on the big track is too far around (or with too much climb if you take the control from behind) – thus it may look like Adelka’s route (short but with a steep climb) is the best on this leg.

However, when looking at the men’s route, it is interesting to note that Glonek runs faster than all the others with a route further to the right. Further analysis (see autOanalysis-plots below) reveals that Glonek actually gains even more time on the part of the route where his route deviates from the others, losing more time towards the control. Some careful analysis must be done to understand why Glonek’s route is faster: On first sight it may look like there is a lot more climb on Glonek’s route because he needs to cross a valley – however the S-shaped route has nearly as much climb (5 meters less) as they need to go nearly as far down in the valley and they need to go up to a higher top. Further on, Glonek takes the climb in a much less steep hillside, which is important in order to save time.

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!