The English translation through Google of an interview with Thierry Gueorgiou in the French magazine
Forez is absolutely worth a read. Focus is a bit different than in the “usual” interviews in orienteering magazines. For example,

- “We must learn to see the field in 3D. It is not clear at all. I noticed that women seem to have more difficulty in having this vision in three dimensions, even if they offset by other qualities …”

These days many orienteers are deciding where to go for orienteering holidays next year - and it is thus time for race organizers and other interested to add their events to the World of O Calendar. The World of O Calendar is the first place many go searching for this type of information - so make sure that your event is to be found there!

Within the next few weeks, World of O will have a series of presentations of some of the most interesting “Holiday orienteering events” next year. If you want your event to be presented, make sure the event has a good description including pictures and map extracts in World of O Calendar, and send me an email at Jan@Kocbach.net where you tell me why you think your event is worth a visit! The events to be described must not necessarily be in the summer season, but they should be at least 2-day events - probably 3-day events, and have something special to offer the visitors. This could be interesting terrain, special things to between the races, and so on.

For now, the following events are included in the calender for next summer (June-August) - see the full calendar for events for the rest of the year including other holiday seasons,

PS! Did you know that you can find Training camps / Orienteering Tours in World of O Calendar as well. Take a look here!

Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli-Luder are still on top of the World of O Ranking after the World Championships in Kiev, Ukraine. Excellent WOC performance has though brought Minna Kauppi and Heli Jukkola a lot closer to Niggli-Luder in the womens class - and in the World of O Ranking over long distance, there is even a shared first place between Jukkola and Niggli-Luder. In the mens class, Matthias Merz has secured his second place in the overall ranking after his silver medal in sprint distance - in addition to the gold at long distance

• World of O Ranking - click the tabs to get to the womens ranking and rankings for long, middle and sprint.
• Discussion about point calculations in World of O Ranking - please join in on the discussion about point calculation for the World of O Ranking. Based on comments, an evaluation will be made after this World Cup season, and the ranking formulas will be changed if this seems appropriate.
• Extra bonus for the specially interested: Ranking with different calculation scheme which gives more credit to previous years results. 2007: 100%, 2006: 90%, 2005: 80%, and so on until 1999: 20%, 1998-1996: 10%. 10 Best races are listed, but still only best 5/4 races count.

Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli-Luder are still on top of the World of O Ranking after the first two WOC finals - long and middle. Excellent WOC performance with one gold and one silver has though brought Heli Jukkola a lot closer to Niggli-Luder in the womens class - and in the World of O Ranking over long distance, there is even a shared first place between Jukkola and Niggli-Luder. In the mens class, Matthias Merz has jumped up to second place in the total ranking after his impressive performance over the long distance on thursday - but due to his bronze over WOC long distance in 2006 and gold in 2005, Andrey Khramov has taken over the lead in the long distance ranking.

• World of O Ranking - click the tabs to get to the womens ranking and rankings for long, middle and sprint.
• Discussion about point calculations in World of O Ranking - please join in on the discussion about point calculation for the World of O Ranking. Based on comments, an evaluation will be made after this World Cup season, and the ranking formulas will be changed if this seems appropriate.

The WOC 2007 top-of-page at World of O is saved here for future reference.

WOC 2007 woO-TV Video material

Videos from the WOC Finals » Report from WOC Long distance - including winners comments. » Long interview with Thierry Gueorgiou after his WOC Middle Gold medal. » Interview with Simone Niggli (4 minutes long) after her 11th individual WOC gold medal at the World Orienteering Championships » Interview with the biggest surprise in the WOC 2007 middle distance in Kiev, Ukraine - Jonn Are Myhren.

woO-TV: WOC 2007 Relay Video from WOC 2007 relay in Kiev, Ukraine including winner comments. Finlands Minna Kauppi decided the WOC Relay 2007 for Finland on the last leg in the womens class with exactly the same team as in 2006 - and Valentin Novikov did the same for Russia. Press play on the left to start video. Feel free to embed the video on any webpage. woO-TV WOC coverage: » Outlook: WOC 2007 Middle Final » WOC 2007 middle qualifier including video of heat winners and headcam. » The WOC Long Qual summarized by head of media services, Jorn Sundby. » Impressions from WOC 2007 Sprint Qualifier - including video from forest. » Interview with Alexandru Perstnev - first Moldavian orienteer to reach a WOC final

Three woO-TV production from the Middle Final in WOC 2007 are now available below. Hear Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli tell about their races, and how they prepared for them in long interviews - 8 and 4 minutes long, respectively. Also, see a very happy Jonn Are Myhren after his fantastic 6th place - the first ever orienteer from the Netherlands on the podium in a World Orienteering Championships!

If there are problems viewing videos inline above, please use these links,

• Thierry Guergiou
• Simone Niggli
• Jonn Are Myhren

Thierry Gueorgiou

Simone Niggli

Jonn Are Myhren

Note that video quality in these productions is not as high as usual on woO-TV, due to slow internet connections available here in Kiev, Ukraine. The material will be reuploaded in the usual high quality which allows for full-screen viewing after the WOC.

Just in time for the start of WOC in Ukraine the coming Saturday, World of O today launches its new ranking scheme for the worlds orienteering elite. The World of O Ranking is designed to tell who is the best orienteer - both in each discipline and overall - when it really counts! Points for different results are set based on a type of “The WOC winner takes it all”-scheme - giving a lot more credit for a gold medal compared to a silver medal - and very little points when you are out of the top 10.

Niggli and Gueorgiou/Wingstedt on top
The World of O Ranking is designed to tell who is the best orienteer when it really counts! Points for different results are set based on this - giving a lot more credit for a gold medal compared to silver medal - and very little points when you are out of the top 10. As expected, Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli top the rankings, but Gueorgiou has to split his lead with Emil Wingstedt due to his “failure” at WOC last year. Simone Niggli is unbeatable on the ranking in all disciplines - whereas Gueorgiou, Wingstedt and Jani Lakanen each have the lead in one ranking - middle, spring and long respectively.

Supplement to the IOF World Ranking
The World of O Ranking is seen as a supplement to the IOF World Ranking. The main difference is that only the important races count in the World of O Ranking, and that there is a big difference between good and not that good results. If a runner is 4 times number 4 - always close to the winner - it would give the runner a good position on the IOF World Ranking, but both the history books and the World of O Ranking would be less kind to the runner.

Furthermore, the World of O Ranking ranks the runners in each discipline - giving separate sprint, middle and long distance rankings. Due to the specialization evident in orienteering these days, separate rankings in the different disciplines makes a lot of sense. And lastly - and not least - the World of O Ranking is coupled to pictures, short biographies and video clips of the runners - letting the reader get all they need to know in one place.

In addition to being a supplement to the IOF World Ranking, the World of O Ranking will also be a very good supplement to the World of O Runners database, which was previously only sorted on country and alphabet - making it difficult to pinpoint the most interesting runners from each country.

Point calculations
Details on the calculation scheme for the World of O Ranking are given at the about World of O Ranking page.

Suggestions?
All ranking schemes can be discussed - and there may be some unwanted effects, especially when going down from the top 20 on the list. This is to be expected, as the ranking is made with emphasis on the ones who can get on the podium in the World Champs. However, all comments, suggestions are corrections are as always very welcome. Please post them at the About World of O Ranking page.

The Ranking
Follow the links below to get to the ranking! The ranking also features updated information on many of the runners, pictures from the first two World Cup rounds this year, and about 30 new video interviews taken at World Cup round 2 which have not been published previously. Browse around, and get to know the World Elite better - enjoy!

• Men Overall
• Men sprint
• Men middle
• Men long
• Women Overall
• Women sprint
• Women middle
• Women long

The terrain from today’s JWOC long distance looks very challenging with very stony ground. As you can see from the winner Olav Lundanes’ route choice (excerpt from the first part of the course to the right), the trick was to avoid the stony areas as much as possible, and only visit them just around the controls if possible.

This map sample is taken from the official JWOC page. You find all of the course, including winners route choices here:

• Maps JWOC Long distance with route choices

Below: The tricky last part where Lundanes was really impressive - and increased his lead from seconds to minutes:

After silver on yesterdays sprint, Olav Lundanes won a magnificent gold medal on today’s long distance at the Junior World Championships in Dubbo, Australia. Lundanes goal for the JWOC this year was a medal on all distances - and with one gold and one silver after two of four distances, he is right on track. However, if you think this is easy for Lundanes - you should think again. - I was really nervous last evening and this morning. When I took a bite of the slice of bread for breakfast this morning, everything came up again. The speed was not the best in the forest, but I am extremely happy to manage this, was Lundanes comment after his victory.

The splits tell a completely different story: Lundanes’ speed at the last part of the course was fantastic - it seemed like he had a lot of energy left when the others slowed down. Lundanes won 7 of the 9 last legs - increasing his 13 seconds lead to nearly 4 minutes during the last part 15 minutes of running. Lundanes was really in his own class in this last part of the course. According to the Norwegian trainers, an energy bar and lots of stamina is what saved Lundanes today! Lundanes again - one hour after coming to the finish: - Now I have got something to eat, but I am still freezing..

Lundanes won the long distance in the JWOC two years ago - and took his second JWOC long distance gold medal today. Magne Dæhlie secured a double for Norway with his silver medal: - This is the best race I have made ever, and everything worked extremely well from the first step. In the end, I got tired, and I had not managed Olav no matter what, Dæhlie said after the race. Magne Dæhlie has used one year to come back to the orienteering junior elite after a severe injury last year - and admits that the silver medal is very inspiring.

Double Double by Ulvestad and Hallan Steiwer
The Norwegian junior women secured a double double by Siri Ulvestad and Kine Hallan Steiwer. While Lundanes was more than 3 minutes ahead of Dæhlie - with nearly 5 minutes down to the best non-Norwegian, it was tighter in the womens class. - I understood while running that this was a good race, but I did not think it would be good enough for victory. I did not feel that the run was that good, said Siri Ulvestad after the race. - But I only had some small mistakes on the controls.

The question now: Are any of the juniors good enough for the Norwegian WOC team? The Norwegians have not impressed a lot internationally this year, and there might be an opening for some of the juniors, even if the Norwegian WOC selection races are held the coming weekend, when the juniors are still down under…

Pre-JWOC Interviews with the Norwegians
Below you find some pre-JWOC interviews with the double double winners (in Norwegian, partly woO-TV - partly NOF-TV):

Siri Ulvestad (gold):

Kine Hallan Steiwer (silver):

Olav Lundanes (gold) - from Spring Cup:

Magne Dæhlie (silver):

Source: Press Release from the Norwegian O-Federation. Picture: Official JWOC Page