World of O News
Very interesting and technical orienteering is expected when the 2023 World Orienteering Championships (WOC) starts in Flims Laax in Switzerland on Wednesday July 12th with the Middle Qualification. The championship continues with the Long distance on Thursday (no qualification), the Middle Final on Saturday after a rest day, and finally rounds of with the Relay on Sunday.
WOC 2023 is a very compact championship, with the same finish arena for both finals and the relay – and with the arena for the Middle qualification only a few kilometers away. But a compact WOC does not mean that the athletes will not meet different terrain types; the embargoed terrains vary from very detailed forests with many stone, cliff and contour details around 1000 masl as shown in part of the old map from the area to the east of the arena for the finals above – to open mountain terrain at higher altitude as shown in the old map example below (the quarantine for the long distance will be in the upper gondola station at 2200 masl shown in the map sample). The chosen terrains surely look intriguing, and with multiple World Champion Simone Niggli as head of the course setting team we can expect exciting courses!
Program
Three medal races are included in this year’s WOC – which is a forest only WOC. The full program is show below.
- Middle Qualification, Wednesday July 12th
- Start Men: 10:00 – 11:30 – winning time 25 minutes (decided by 12:00)
- Start Women: 11:40 – 13:00 – winning time 25 minutes (decided by 13:30)
- Long, Thursday July 13th
- Start Women: 09:00 – 12:25 – winning time 82 minutes (decided by 14:05)
- Start Men: 10:45 – 14:40 – winning time 90 minutes (decided by 16:15)
- Middle Final, Saturday July 15th
- Start Women: 10:33 – 12:30 – winning time 34 minutes (decided by 13:10)
- Start Men: 12:15 – 14:12 – winning time 34 minutes (decided by 14:50)
- Relay, Sunday July 15th
- Start Men: 12:20 (decided by 14:15)
- Start Women: 14:30 (decided by 16:20)
All times are CET.
Links & Live: How to follow the races
Use these links to follow the championships:
- Orienteering.sports live page – here you can also buy a LIVE pass for EUR 9 per competition or EUR 25 for all competitions to follow the competitions live on WebTV with English commentary. The TV-production is also broadcast in several countries.
- WOC webpage & WOC Eventor page
- WOC Bulletin 4 – detailed information
- WoO results archive which includes both EOC and WOC (via WorldofO.com results archive)
Race overview
The races will be organized around Flims Laax (open separate map here that includes more details on embargoed areas).
Race details and reigning champions
Middle Qualification
Terrain
The terrain is affected by the largest landslide ever seen in the Alps. Pre-alpine terrain with numerous contour details, forms, and rock formations at 800-1100 m above sea level. Most slopes are moderate, some are steep and certainly with breathtaking views. The detailed, complex contours and the many rock details require accurate map reading. Vegetation is pre-alpine, open and semi-open forest, mostly pine forest. Good to very good runnability with some undergrowth and rocky parts. Bracken and trees lying on the ground may reduce running speed.
Course details
- Women 1: 3.3km, 145m climb, 14 controls
- Women 2: 3.2km, 150m climb, 13 controls
- Women 3: 3.2km, 155m climb, 13 controls
- Men 1: 4.2km, 185m climb, 16 controls
- Men 2: 4.2km, 200m climb, 17 controls
- Men 3: 4.2km, 180m climb, 17 controls
Qualification rules
In the Middle distance final, the competitors placed number 15 and better in each qualification race heat may participate. Further places up to a maximum of 60 (subject to clause b) are selected as follows:
(a) The best placed runner from Federations which do not have a runner in the first 15 of any heat, considered in the order of their placing in the qualification race heats (If two athletes from the same country have the same place in different heats, the one who is the least time behind the winner of their heat is chosen).
(b) If two or more runners from different countries are tied for the last qualifying place under (a), all may participate in the final.
(c) In order to be selected for the final under (a) or (b), an athlete must have been within 100% of the heat winner’s time in their qualification race.
Middle Final
Terrain
The terrain is affected by the largest landslide ever seen in the Alps. Pre-alpine terrain with intricate contour details, forms and rock formations at 950- 1200m above sea level. Most slopes are moderate, some are steep and certainly with breathtaking views. The detailed, complex contours and the numerous rock details require accurate map reading. Vegetation is pre-alpine, open and semi-open forest, mostly pine forest. Runnability is good to very good with some undergrowth and rocky parts. Bracken and trees lying on the ground may reduce running speed.
Course details
- Women: 4.8km, 180m climb, 19 controls, 1 refreshment point. Expected winning time 34 minutes.
- Men: 5.9km, 220m climb, 22 controls, 1 refreshment point. Expected winning time 34 minutes.
Reigning champions
Long
Terrain
The mountainous terrain is dominated by steep slopes, deep stream systems and ditches changing to moderate hills with more rounded forms. The terrain is also affected by the largest landslide ever seen in the Alps. Beautiful views from the alpine and pre-alpine terrain will change to steep slopes varying with a lot of contour details, rocks and cliffs at 1000– 2000 m above sea level. The slopes will have both tough uphill and downhill passages. Slopes are moderate to steep. Detailed contours vary with slopes with few details. Vegetation is alpine, open and semi-open pine forest, meadows and grassland. Good to very good runnability with some undergrowth and stony parts.
Course details
- Women: 11.0km, 510m climb, 23 controls, 4 refreshment points. Expected winning time 82 minutes.
- ‘Men: 14.0km, 680m climb, 35 controls, 4 refreshment points. Expected winning time 90 minutes
Reigning champions
Relay
Terrain
The terrain is affected by the largest landslide ever seen in the Alps. Pre-alpine terrain with numerous contour details, landforms and rock formations at 1000-1300m above sea level. Most slopes are moderate, some are steep and certainly with breathtaking views. The detailed, complex contours and very many rock details require accurate map reading. Vegetation is pre-alpine, open and semi-open forest, mostly pine forest. Runnability is good to very good with some undergrowth and rocky parts. Bracken and trees lying on the ground may reduce running speed.
Course details
- Women: 3 legs with 4.4km, 280m climb, 16 controls, 1 refreshment point. Expected winning time 105 minutes.
- Men: 3 legs with 5.5km, 340m climb, 20 controls, 1 refreshment point. Expected winning time 105 minutes.
Reigning champions
Old maps
Hmm, Live services does not work well for the Middle Qual. GPS tracking works sometimes, live streaming started late and stopped after 30 seconds, live results shows nothing. Not a good start for the organizers.
yes GPS works 50/50… well, in replay it is ok… seems to be a connection problem…?
what I wonder more is why the position accuracy is still bad as in the last century?
Some parts of the area had poor phone coverage, so it was expected that there would be a bit of “stop-and-go” with the GPS-tracking – but the buffering function mostly worked well so that most GPS-data is available for post-race analysis. Hopefully the GPS-coverage is better for the races that are broadcast on TV, or at least that they have planned the broadcasts in a way that exploits the areas with good phone coverage. The poor position accuray is more of a puzzle, though. It might be that the units did not get good GPS fix before the start (e.g. if the place the GPS-units where placed before the start was not in an open area with good view to many satellites) or that the units used are not the best. It should be possible to have better position accuracy in this forest – it is not very close to very steep mountains, and althought the forest is dense, it is not extreme…
I do realy not understand the partizipation rules, 3 per country plus a champ? why can NLZ start with 4 womens…?
National Quota for WOC & World Cup 2023:
https://onedrive.live.com/embed?resid=663580750D0C0BCE%2148432&authkey=!APw-6tnq-9k65JI&em=2&wdHideHeaders=True&wdDownloadButton=False
thank you, of corse, each continent sends its champs :-)
Ok. Maybe a bit shady are those athletes, that seemingly never lived in the country they are running for.
For what I can see the Swiss Curiger, Schönleber and Gerber at the Men. Hanna Müller at the Women.
Also the Norwegian Vegard Jarvis Westergaard runs for Canada, and Anton Salmenkyla from Finland runs for the USA.
But this seems ok according to the IOF rules.
From the IOF Rule Book:
“6.1 A competitor may represent only one Federation at any one time. They must be a citizen of the country of that Federation. They must be able to provide either a passport or other valid documentation proving their citizenship. All competitors must ensure that the Federation they represent is correctly recorded in IOF Eventor.
| 6.2 Requests for change of Federation representation will be checked by the IOF Office and will come into effect on 15th April or 15th November. A competitor may not change their Federation representation more frequently than once every four years.”
I’m the giant capricorn. I’m much bigger than the other two but was unable to make it to today’s semifinal. Tomorrow I’ll be in the finish area. Unfortunately, they won’t place a control next to me.
Nice race today. Looking forward to seeing the LD course.
Web TV for long again didn´t start at 12:00 as promised… Why we are paying for such service…
The TV production of Long in my opinion really weak and boring. Not following the race, omitting informations from split times, not showing mistakes of runners (e.g. Svensk, Krivda, Hubmann). Missing some important moments in the race etc. Bring back Karel Jonak as TV director please.