As a service to the readers of World of O (so you don’t have to pay extra) – and to all organizers who have been kind enough to put their event into World of O Calendar along with a map sample/scenery picture, I’ve included a table with all of these events between June 11th and August 31st below.

Note that a few of the big events this summer are missing in the table below – they have not used the opportunity to get some extra PR by adding a map sample/picture in World of O Calendar. Maybe next time?

3 days of Belgium 2011 Belgium – 2011-06-11	Alpe Adria Cup 2011 Croatia – 2011-06-17	TAKAS 2011 Lithuania – 2011-06-23
Wawel Cup Poland – 2011-06-24	WRE middle + 100CP Estonia – 2011-06-25	Midnattsolgaloppen(Fjord-O Arctic) Norway – 2011-06-28
Dølauka 2011 Norway – 2011-07-01	ICE-O 2011 Iceland – 2011-07-01	Kaszebe O-Cup JWOC2011Public Event Poland – 2011-07-02
World Masters Orienteering Championships Hungary – 2011-07-01	Czech Canada 2011 Czech Republic – 2011-07-02	BudaSprint Hungary – 2011-07-09
6 Days of Austria Austria – 2011-07-10	Kopaonik open 2011 Serbia – 2011-07-12	Uslar 5-Days-Orienteering Germany – 2011-07-12
Mentor Silva Cup 2011 – Europe South-East Tour Romania – 2011-07-13	Croatia open 2011 Croatia – 2011-07-13	HSH Vysocina Cup Czech Republic – 2011-07-14
OO.cup/2011 Slovenia – 2011-07-22	3 days in Tuscany MTB-O Italy – 2011-07-29	Petit Prix 2011 Czech Republic – 2011-07-29
Pannon O-Days Hungary – 2011-07-29	Swiss O Week 2011 Flims-Laax Switzerland – 2011-07-30	Scottish 6 Days, Oban, 2011 Great Britain – 2011-07-31
BOHEMIA ORIENTEERING 2011 Czech Republic – 2011-08-03	Argovia 3 days Switzerland – 2011-08-12	Flanders 3-days Belgium – 2011-08-13
O’Festival ERDF Savoie Grand Revard France – 2011-08-14	Hungaria Cup Hungary – 2011-08-17	Romanian Cup + Transylvania Open 2011 – WRE Romania – 2011-08-26
O-Weekend Hamburg Germany – 2011-08-26

Your summer orienteering plans?

My summer orienteering will be OOCup and the O’Festival ERDF Savoie Grand Revard (WOC spectator events). The reason: I think these are two of the places which I get the most challenging orienteering – important for me as I’ll be walking around in the forest. Swiss O-week, Croatia Open, Bohemia Orienteering, Kopaonik Open and Fjord-o Midnattsolgaloppen were also on my consideration list, but you can’t go everywhere. And I have to say that ICE-O 2011 on Iceland also looks very interesting, but I didn’t see it before writing this article, and now it’s too late for that…  Were do you plan to travel this summer for orienteering, and why?

Starting off with Ski-O Woc

Based on previous feedback I know that quite a few of you will be disappointed with me starting off with a ski-orienteering leg, but as we have the World Ski-Orienteering Championships going these days, it feels very appropriate to start off in northern Sweden with the Ski WOC Sprint held earlier today. Not a very interesting leg – but still the most interesting today in my opinion.

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):

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.

Finally you can take a look at the GPS-data of the best skiers on each of the three alternative routes. Note that times are off the GPS, so there might be some inaccuracies at the start/end of each track.

Bonus: Pace distribution over the course

As a bonus I have assembled a pace distribution over the course. Here you can see how fast the fastest skier (of the ones with GPS) was at any point on the track.

Complete map

The complete map is available here in omaps.worldofo.com.

The training/competition was organized at April 4th 2010. If you know more about this training/competition, please add a comment below. Please don’t forget to tip about good candidates for Route to Christmas. I have only got a few good Routegadget-choices left (thanks to some tips from you) – and then I’ll have to go over to GPSSeuranta legs from Nordic terrain the last days until Christmas.

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):

New: A giveaway for you!?

We have been lucky enough to be able to give away a free copy of the book “O-Boka 2010″ (including shipping to wherever you live) to one of you who draws your suggested route for todays edition of ‘Route to Christmas’ in the Webroute below (remember to leave your e-mail address if you want to receive an email if drawn as a winner). “O-Boka 2010″ is a book in Norwegian language about the orienteering season 2010 including nearly 50 maps with routes (see review at OPN.no here). A nice book even if you don’t speak the language – and also a nice Christmas present.
For the record: This is a giveaway directly from the publisher to the readers of World of O as a service to the readers ; I do not receive any payment from the publisher. If you have a similar giveaway for the visitors for another day of Route to Christmas, please send an email to jan@kocbach.net with your suggestions.

Webroute

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg. It looks like the two main choices – going around the big hill on the left or on the right – are approximately equal, although I might favor the right variant myself. What do you think? Add a comment – or wait for the density map this evening if you don’t want to speak up…

Below you see a density map based on who has drawn their route in the Webroute. A majority of the ones drawing their chosen route have found a variant to the right of the hill to be the best option – with two different options for the last part of the leg.

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

Omaps.worldofo.com

The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular the last years – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2010-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.

There will be no analysis about the best routechoice for each leg – you can provide that yourself in the comments or in the Webroute. 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!

Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.

Above you see a density map from the Route to Christmas of today. The density map is made by identifying how many of you choose the different routes – visualized by a deep red color for many on a route green color for few. As you can see, most of the 120 drawing their route when this diagram was made choose a variant to the right, avoiding the big valley along the direct route. Also, quite a few choose variations of the direct route.  Most of the ones choosing the direct route run straight south out of the control down the path.

For your comparison, below is the routes chosen by selected runners in the competition in question.  Looking at the direct option, none of the runners in the competition for whom routes were drawn choose to follow the path south out of the control. The reason for this is probably that the white forest is so fast that it is better to cut through the forest than to take the path.

These density maps do of course not tell anything about which route is the fastest – but it is still interesting to see what people not familiar with the terrain think about the various choices. If you have any suggestions for further improvements, please add a comment below.

I have made similar density maps for all the days in Route to Christmas so far (see below). Note some have obviously had some fun drawing strange routes some days – they can easily be spotted in the illustrations below. Also, for some days the different routes are so spread out that it is difficult to see anything at all on the map. This is the kind of legs which are excellent from a spreading perspective – as the chances for group building is a lot reduced for this kind of legs. Enjoy!

Update! The idea to these density maps are partly based on an article on O-zeugs earlier this year, showing similar density maps based on Routegadget entries)

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 1

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 2

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 3

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 4

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 5

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 6

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 7

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 8

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 9

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 10

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.

Route to Christmas 2010 – Day 11

See all information about this day of Route to Christmas here.
]]> http://news.worldofo.com/2010/12/12/route-to-christmas-one-step-further/feed/ 3 http://news.worldofo.com/2010/12/10/route-to-christmas-day-10-2010/ http://news.worldofo.com/2010/12/10/route-to-christmas-day-10-2010/#comments Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:00:02 +0000 Jan Kocbach http://news.worldofo.com/?p=2641 Todays leg in Route to Christmas is a leg from the United States with several routechoice options. The competition is the 31st West Point Orienteering Meet on May 2nd 2010, and control 2 in the blue course is chosen. This is one of those legs where you feel you have to choose between “several evils” – no choice looking perfect…

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):

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg below. Ross Smith has the fastest time by running furthest to the left – avoiding some climb and green compared to the ones running more straight, but instead running on stony ground and running a longer route. Based on the information available, I can’t say if straight or left is faster. The right variants seem slower based on the runners who have drawn their route. You find all information about the event – including invitation and results here.

Bonus leg: Leg 15

Leg 15 in the same competition is a bonus leg – going in the opposite direction but except for that a very similar leg.

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):

Bonus leg: 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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg:

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

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):

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg. The basis for choosing your route on this type of leg is a bit different than on the longer legs which have been the topic in Route to Christmas the previous days. Here typically simplification and risk-reduction while keeping the speed at a maximum is what dictates the choice. Without having been in the terrain, it looks to me like attacking the control from below is the most secure way – following e.g. the blue route of BB.

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

After many legs in Men 21, we are now up in Men 50 category (as very few Men 21 runners have drawn their routes). We are looking at leg number 8 in the H50. Thanks to Terje Mathisen for the tip about this leg.

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):

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg below. The best times are run for a direct variant. Terje Mathisen’s comment about the leg (run the southern-most variant): – I think I took the optimal route choice with respect to avoiding uphill in “lyng” (high undergrowth). Please add a comment below if you ran the leg and have further information about it.

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

Omaps.worldofo.com

The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular the last years – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2010-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.

There will be no analysis about the best routechoice for each leg – you can provide that yourself in the comments or in the Webroute. 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!

Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.

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). You find the results from the event here. See also this training map from Øystein Kvaal Østerbø from the Trossachs map. Updated information! Note that on the race map the road was out of bounds up to the car park by the Loch (from the comments below).

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg. As you can see, there are not big differences in running time for the different straight-on options – but the runner going to the left along the road looses a lot of time. Of all runners drawing their routechoice, this is the only runner going all the way down to the road. Updated information! Note that the road was out of bounds up to the car park by the Loch (from the comments below).

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location – and can see the position of the map in the map to the right.

Omaps.worldofo.com

The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular the last years – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2010-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.

There will be no analysis about the best routechoice for each leg – you can provide that yourself in the comments or in the Webroute. 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!

Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.

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). You may also take a look at a scanned version of the map with the complete course here (not including route choice on the leg in question). Full results with splits are available here.

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg. Note that the fastest runners have not drawn their route for this particular leg – Martin Janata who is best of the runners listed here finished 6th overall. Update: I just received an email from the winner of the race Jacek Morawski, who had not drawn his route in Routegadget. He run the leg in 11:08 by following a route similar to Vojtich Kral in the first half of the leg, but then choosing a more southern route for the last part of the leg (not shown below).

See also maps from this race and nearby races in omaps.worldofo.com. If you participated in the race and know more about the route in question, please add a comment below!

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

Omaps.worldofo.com

The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular the last years – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2010-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.

Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.

Note that there was no GPS tracking for the Norwegian runners – but for the Swedish runners who had the same leg there was GPS tracking. Some details from the GPS analysis of the Swedish runners is included below.

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). Note that the leg goes from north (control number 8) to south (control number 9).

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 who have drawn their route choice solved this leg:

GPS data: Swedish test races

Sweden had their WOC selection races in the same location with very similar courses. As Sweden had GPS-Tracking for many of their runners via GPSSeuranta, it is interesting to take a look at some of their routes on this particular leg. Below I have chosen the three Swedish runners who are fastest on each of three alternative routechoices (note that split times are approximate). As you can see, Marcus Millegård is fastest with a route similar to the route of Olav Lundanes above (not shown here are routes of Erik Andersson and David Andersson who had similar routes and times of around 16:30 and 16:50). Comparing the position of Millegård along the leg with the positions of Matthias Karlsson and Jerker Lysell, you see that both Lysell and Karlsson loose time on the climb. Also, it seems that the runnability along Millegård’s route at the middle of the leg is better than for Lysell’s route.

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and Routegadget info in omaps.worldofo.com at this location.

Omaps.worldofo.com

The ‘Route to Christmas’ series at World of O was very popular last years – and I’ve therefore decided to continue the series this Christmas as well. If you have got any good legs in RouteGadget from 2010-competitions – or old forgotten ones which are still interesting – please email me the link at Jan@Kocbach.net, and I’ll include it in Route to Christmas if it looks good. Route to Christmas will not be interesting if YOU don’t contribute.

There will be no analysis about the best routechoice for each leg – you can provide that yourself in the comments or in the Webroute. 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!

Note that there may be some errors in the Routegadget data (sometimes somebody draws a route for another runner just for fun). Please add a comment below if you spot en error.

With nearly twice as many points as number two on the list, Jukola was a very clear winner in “The Course of the Year 2010″.

Congratulations go to the course planner Ari Kattainen who managed to set challenging courses with real forest orienteering while adhering to a lot of restrictions for the gigantic Finnish relay.

Read on below for the top 10 list in “Course of the Year 2010″ – along with some goodies from the Jukola relay.

Prizes from our sponsors

The course planner Ari Kattainen receives a Trimtex Dynamic TX Jacket as a prize from our sponsor Trimtex. We plan to come back with an interview with Ari Kattainen.

Jukola 2010 has been one of the most popular courses among the WorldofO.com readers – first suggested by Alex L who receives a Trimtex Run Ventzone LZR Long Tights as a prize from our sponsor Trimtex. Jukola was since suggested by several others like Audun Weltzien, Maxime Gauduin, Olav Lundanes (as choice number two) and Thierry Gueorgiou (as choice number two).

In addition we have drawn the following prizes among the ones suggesting courses and voting:

• A voucher for a 2011 Sun-O Camp, value of 150 Euro (transferable to another person) goes to Helen Palmer for her suggestions and to Bjarne Christensen for his vote.
• Trimtex Necks go to Gurvas and Michael Wood for their suggestions, and Hannibal and Lukas Frei for their votes.
• Trimtex Vision LZR headbands go to Matija Razum for his suggestion via news.worldofo.com, Aron Less who suggested a course through the WorldofO.com Facebook page, and Jacek Morawski and Harald Storrønning for their votes.

All winners will receive an email in which they are asked to provide their postal address.

Overall results: The Course of the Year 2010

We got three tough long distance races on the top of the list for “The Course of the Year 2010″ – maybe because a long course gives more possibilities for varied challenges than a shorter course? It is at least a signal to all organizers that you should not let the long distance format dye – there are many fans of the long distance out there! The final Top 10-list for “The course of the Year 2010″:

1. Jukola 2010 17220 points
2. Norwegian Champs Long H21 2010 8920 points
3. World Cup France 2010, W21 8370 points
4. Portugal “O” Meeting 2010 – Day 3 7030 points
5. Finnish Champs Middle 2010 – Final 5990 points
6. NAOM Day1 long 5820 points
7. OTomne en Savoie Day 1 5190 points
8. EYOC 2010 Long 4540 points
9. JWOC 2010 Sprint – M20 with routes 3970 points
10. Temptation Island 3870 points

Jukola 2010: The race

Links to the map and coverage of the race:

• Here is for example the first leg in GPSSeuranta – but there are more than 50 maps from Jukola 2010 in omaps.worldofo.com – see for example here and here.
• Full event coverage of Jukola 2010 at WorldofO.com – including link to all maps, discussion of the decisive moments, possibility to replay the LiveBlog, and so on.

Selected legs from the Jukola relay 2010

Below you see some selected legs from the Jukola relay. For each leg, the fastest runner from the GPS-tracking along different routes is chosen – and the runners are compared by connecting points at the routes at which the runners have used the same time.

Leg 1, control 13-14

Of the runners compared, the direct route is the faster one. In the right route, it is the part in the green just ahead of the lake which is slower. Note also that it is significantly faster in the marsh north of the lake compared to at the south edge of the lake. The runner on the northern route looses time when climbing the hill in last half of the leg.

Leg 3, control 6-7

The southern route is more hilly – it seems like this is the reason for it being slower. Note that this is night orienteering.

Leg 3, control 9-10

Feel free to discuss the remaining legs in the comments – it is getting too late at night for the author of this article now…

Leg 7, control 17-18

Leg 7, control 19-20

Leg 7, control 20-21

Decisive moments – Jukola relay

The following are some of the most decisive moments in the Jukola relay (see GPS Tracking of some of them in the video below):

• 1st leg,  6th control. Kristiansand (Jostein Andersen) has no punch on the control, and gets disqualified. Halden SK (Kiril Nikolov) and Kalevan Rasti (Jan Prochazka) loose between 3 and 4 minutes, but this is not important for the overall results in the end. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 1st leg)
• 2nd leg. Kalevan Rasti (Tommi Tölkkö) looses nearly 7 minutes to Halden (Erik Axelsson) and several of the other top teams – down to 28th place for Kalevan Rasti. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 2nd leg)
• 3rd leg. Halden (Anders Nordberg) gets a 5 minute lead after a very good race at the long and dark 3rd leg. Note however that Kalevan Rasti (Hannu Airila) has a time which is only one second slower than Halden on this leg – getting Kalevan Rasti up to 3rd place. Thus there were two kings of the night at this years Jukola relay, although Nordberg’s solo in the lead is more impressive. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 3rd leg)
• 4th leg. Halden (Mattias Karlsson) continues to run very well with few mistakes, while Kalevan Rasti (Simo Martomaa) looses another 6 minutes. Second now is IFK Lidingö SOK 8:41 down. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 4th leg)
• 5th leg. Halden (Mats Haldin) does a good race, keeping Kalevan Rasti (Philippe Adamski) at a distance and increasing the lead to the other teams. Haldens lead is more than 11 minutes after the 5th leg, and the relay is decided. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 5th leg)
• 6th leg. Halden (Emil Wingstedt) does another good leg, not giving Kalevan Rasti (Fabian Hertner) any chance to get closer – Halden is actually increasing the lead further (GPS Tracking Jukola, 6th leg).
• 7th leg. Kalevan Rasti (Thierry Gueorgiou) runs a great race, decreasing the lead of Halden (Olav Lundanes) minute by minute, finally stopping at just above 7 minutes for a very secure 2nd spot. (GPS Tracking Jukola, 7th leg)

Maps and GPS Tracking

• Jukola, 1st leg. See also direct link to map for 1st leg Jukola
• Jukola, 2nd leg
• Jukola, 3rd leg. See also direct link to map for 3rd leg Jukola
• Jukola, 4th leg
• Jukola, 5th leg
• Jukola, 6th leg
• Jukola, 7th leg
• Venla, 1st leg. See also direct link to map for 1st leg Jukola
• Venla, 2nd leg
• Venla, 3rd leg
• Venla, 4th leg

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. 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.

- 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.

“The Course of the Year 2010″

WorldofO.com has interviewed Matthias Müller for “The Course of the Year 2010″ – you can read more about “The Course of the Year 2010″ here, including all the suggestions by WorldofO.com readers – and also suggest your own courses and win great prizes by Trimtex and sun-o.com (more info about prizes and sponsors below the interview).

Interview with Matthias Müller

Thanks a lot to Matthias Müller who took the time to answer a few questions for “The Course of the Year 2010″.

Q: What was the best course you run in 2010 – and why?
The Swiss long distance championships. The area is just great, demanding both physical and even more technical. The course was very varied between short difficult legs and routechoices. Well, I performed quite bad in that competition, but anyway, this was for me the best competition in 2010. [Editors comment: See map with route of Dani Z here - small version of the map included at the top of this page].

Q: What is the worst course you run in 2010?
That was a middle distance training in France this autumn. It was cold, foggy and rainy. And I made many mistakes, sometimes because of my fault but often because the map was so terribly bad. During the race, I got quite angry and demotivated. Superman had 40 minutes, the winner 51 minutes, and I had 54 minutes. As I remember the times went up to 70 minutes… Once we all were dry and warm again, it was great fun to tell all the stories about that session! (Map available here – read more about the training camp at the website of Müller)

Q: What is the best course you have run ever – if you must pick one from the top of your head?
Last year in November in Trondheim in Nordmarka, frozen marshes, blue sky above and fog below me. That was amazing! [Editors comment: The Nordmarka map is available here with a course run by Francois Gonon from the Norwegian Champs 2001].

Q: Are the courses generally getting better, worse or staying on a level?
The courses I ran this season were all good! I see a trend to more controls, if that is good or bad? I don’t know, sometimes I think it could be better to let some of the controls away to find some more long legs and routechoices.

Q: What is the most important ingredients in a course in order for it to be a good course – in your opinion?
The course should change in it’s difficulty. A runner should never feel safe and get bored. I think that it is more challenging to have 10 easy controls + 5 difficult controls than 15 difficult controls. With 15 difficult ones you get used to it and know how to master it, but if you have the chance to go full speed sometimes it’s difficult to find the challenging ones inbetween. Variety is the key to a good course!

Q: What are your goals for next year – and how do you change your training and focus in order to reach your goals in 2011?
I would like to compete on the same level as I did in 2010 and fight for top ranks in the big competitons. I have to work on my concentration over longdistance races to decrease the failurerate and become competitve also in that distance. Since I’ll stay in sweden one more winter I’ll do things more or less the same as last season.

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.

Whereas Simone Niggli and Daniel Hubmann took clear victories in the real World Cup, it was a lot tighter in the Fantasy World Cup. The team OrientExpress with manager Ulis took the victory with 7745.45 points according to the unofficial results – only 11.3 points ahead of the BennyB-team. With double points, the sprint final in Geneva decided the Fantasy World Cup. OrientExpress won the last race – and thus pushed the BennyB-team down from the top.

Thank you to everybody for participating in the Fantasy World Cup!

Note! This article is based on unofficial Fantasy World Cup results. Please add a comment below if you find any errors in the calculations!

Overall results

• Full results with all details
• The Fantasy World Cup webpage

The middle distance on Saturday is extra important due to the fact that the race is held just south of the area which is embargoed for the World Orienteering Championships in 2012 – and thus this is one of the early steps in the preparations for WOC 2012 for many teams.

Many teams have spent the week between the World Cup race in France last Sunday and this weekend in France making preparations for the World Orienteering Champs in 2011 (and partly also for the World Championships in 2012) – and thus many runners have absorbed a lot of training in the tricky terrain south of Annecy the last days, and will therefore not be 100% prepared physically for the World Cup Final.

Relevant links

• Webpage of World Cup Final, Switzerland (PostFinance Sprint)
• Fantasy World Cup (remember to set up your team)
• Overall World Cup standings
• World of O Ranking
• Startlists will be available here (for the middle distance from 18:00 CET Friday October 8th)

Fight for the Triple

In the mens class there is still a fight for the overall World Cup victory. Daniel Hubmann has a lead of 144 points down to Matthias Müller in second spot. With 300 points to fight for in the two last races (100 points for victory, points are doubled in the sprint on Sunday) – and both races counting for all runners, this would normally be an easy task for Hubmann who is chasing his third overall World Cup victory. However, Hubmann has injury-problems and quit his race after 9 controls in France last weekend after trying to run without injection of sedatives. Hubmann is, however, planning to start both days in the World Cup final, and will have a lead of at least 44 points when starting on the sprint on Sunday even if getting another race with zero World Cup points on Saturday. In theory, 9 runners can win the overall World Cup in the mens class (actually 8 as Fabian Hertner is not running due to his injury at WOC in Trondheim):

1. 547, Daniel Hubmann, SUI
2. 403, Matthias Müller, SUI
3. 379, Fabian Hertner, SUI
4. 328, Carl Waaler Kaas, NOR
5. 321, Valentin Novikov, RUS
6. 320, Audun Weltzien, NOR
7. 301, Matthias Merz, SUI
8. 296, Olav Lundanes, NOR
9. 250, Thierry Gueorgiou, FRA

Due to the double set of points on the sprint race on Sunday, this last sprint race is the key to the overall World Cup victory (not all runners are happy that sprint is this important in the overall World Cup – 4 races along with the middle/sprint combo in NORT compared to three long distance races). Some thoughts around the possible outcomes:

• Müller has a good chance to win the overall World Cup if he takes victories both Saturday and Sunday. Hubmann then needs 156 points – which means that with a second spot on the sprint he would need no points on the middle, with a third spot on the sprint he would need a 7th spot on the middle, and with a fourth spot on the sprint he would need a third spot on the middle distance.
• For each spot Müller looses on the sprint, his chances for an overall World Cup victory are decreased significantly. Even if Hubmann gets no World Cup points at all this weekend, Müller must perform well in the weekend – victory in the middle distance and 6th spot in the sprint would not be enough.
• Carl Waaler Kaas – now in third spot – needs 219 points to pass Hubmann. With a victory in the sprint and a 21st spot in the middle distance that would be possible. However, the strength of Kaas is rather on the middle distance (where he is reigning World Champion) than in the sprint – and even with a victory on the middle distance Kaas would need a third spot on the sprint to take home the overall World Cup.
• Gueorgiou has only a theoretical chance of winning the overall World Cup. Gueorgiou needs two victories, and Hubmann must be number 38 or worse – in addition to several other top runners underperforming…

The most probable outcome is thus the third overall World Cup victory for Hubmann – but the injury makes it a bit more interesting for the spectators (of which a lot are expected in Geneva on Sunday).

World Cup victory number 50?

Among the women, Simone Niggli has already decided the overall World Cup with her victory last weekend – now being 310 points ahead of Helena Jansson in second spot with 300 points to run for. According to Swiss Orienteering, the race on Saturday is still important for Niggli as she is running for her 50th World Cup victory! Nobody would be surprised if Niggli took her 50th World Cup victory this weekend – and maybe even her 51st….

1. 780, Simone Niggli-Luder, SUI
2. 470, Helena Jansson, SWE
3. 352, Marianne Andersen, NOR
4. 309, Minna Kauppi, FIN
5. 298, Maja Alm, DEN
6. 288, Lena Eliasson, SWE
7. 286, Dana Brožková, CZE
8. 273, Annika Billstam, SWE
9. 250, Anni-Maija Fincke, FIN
10. 211, Celine Dodin, FRA

Fantasy World Cup

Along with the World Cup, the Fantasy World Cup is decided this weekend. If you are participating in the Fantasy World Cup, remember to set up your team ahead of the World Cup finals in order to get maximum World Cup points. With double amount of points, a lot can happen in the final race!

• Fantasy World Cup (remember to set up your team)