Number Two: Long and tough is what they want!

We are moving up to number two in the course of the year 2010 competition, and find yet another long distance race. There are fewer and fewer long distance races on the international calendar – but these races are still the ones the orienteering community long for. Number two in “The Course of the Year 2010″ is the Norwegian Champs Long distance (first suggested by Bjørn and since suggested by several others).

– I think [the best course of 2010] must be the Norwegian Championships Long distance. Challenging technical in the start which gave few possibilities to plan routes ahead, World Champion on the long distance Olav Lundanes answered when asked about his favourite course this year. The course didn’t make it all the way to the top – but a second place is still a very good confirmation for course setter Tore Sandvik that he has done a lot of things right here.

Three different types of terrain

– The course had both long and short routechoice legs with a lot of possibilities. It is not often that the medal winners run this differently. The course did also have three different types of terrain, which gave many differences in the o-technique one had to apply – and constant challenges, Lundanes continued in his description of the terrain in the interview with World of O ahead of “The course of the Year 2010″.

Links to the map and coverage of the race:

• Map in GPSSeuranta available here
• Route choice analysis available over at o-training.net

Overall standings

The voting for “The course of the Year 2010″ finished two days ago- now the top 3 courses are presented one each day until the winner is revealed on Thursday along with the complete list.

1. Revealed November 25th 2010
2. Norwegian Champs Long 2010, 8920 points
3. World Cup France 2010, 8370 points

Analysis

I have already made a routechoice analysis of the course over at o-training.net, but to make the day a little bit more interesting for you, I have remade some of the legs using a different visualization technique. In these illustrations, lines connect points at which the runners have used the same time from the start of the leg (Note! Split-times are approximate taken from GPS-data and not from split times – usually off by some seconds). You might want to have the complete map handy while looking at the illustrations. For the analysis, I suggest visiting o-training.net.

Prizes from our Sponsors

Prizes from our Sponsors always makes it more fun! There will be a prize for the course setter in “The course of the Year 2010″, a price for the first one suggesting the course which ends up becoming “The course of the Year 2010″, and finally prizes drawn among all suggesting and voting.

Sponsors for “The course of the Year 2010″:

• Trimtex sponsors “The course of the year 2010″ with 10 prizes. More information about the prizes to come. Trimtex Sport make technical team wear for athletes in clubs and companies. Trimtex’s products are world-leading within function, design and quality, whether it’s for cycling, running, skiing or orienteering.
• sun-o.com sponsors “The course of the year 2010″ with a voucher for a 2011 Sun-O Camp, value of 150 Euro. Sun-o offers orienteering travel-packages in Spain and Portugal, combining high quality terrains and varied O-maps, in regions with rich culture and sunny climate – organizing your O-holidays from from start to finish.
  
• For the record: All sponsor gifts/income related to “The Best Course of 2010″ goes directly to the WorldofO.com readers.