Here only one of the legs is provided – but below I also provide links to the complete courses and analysis.
The puzzle is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think about how you would solve it (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 it, and draw the route you would have made. Some comments about why you would choose a certain choice are always nice for the other readers.

Then you can take a look at the routes of the runners analysis provided by Radek Novotny. As you can see, running the direct/right variant is the fastest here.

Here are full courses and analysis (in Czech). A lot of interesting legs here – definitely worth taking a look at if you are interested in some theoretical sprint training.

• Sprint course 1 with analysis
• Sprint course 2 with analysis

World of O turns 17 today! The Internet is 20 years old, Google is 14 years old, Facebook is 7 years old. Thus 17 years is quite an age in the Internet world. 17 years ago World of O among other things offered “a slideshow through all o-pages” – that wouldn’t be too easy today..

From the first small trials until today: World of O has all the time been driven by my personal interest to know about what happens in the orienteering world. And that is the way I plan to continue it – explore new ideas and have fun along the way!

“Mother” of World of O

World of O started as a collection of links. The first orienteering webpage I built up – the “mother” of World of O – was live in 1994 on the server brems.ii.uib.no.

What is now known as World of O was live from January 24th 1995. The original version of World of O was a linkdatabase, orienteering map database and email address database which was updated “by hand”. In 1996 some forms were added to make it possible for people to add links and email addresses by themselves. This is the announcement of the revised version of World of O from the good old orienteering mailinglist in May 1996 – this is when it went from updating by hand to “automatic updating” and World of O started growing fast:

Hi.
The last few days I have been updating my orienteering pages a lot. People can now easily add their results, invitations, orienteering-pages and email-addresses to the pages using forms. The submitted information is sorted in various ways, and is also searchable. Please submit your orienteering pages, results, invitations, etc. to the page. Everything isn’t thorougly tested yet, but I think most of it should work by now. The page can still be accessed by the old URL
http://www.fi.uib.no/~jankoc/orientering/orientering.html,
But the real location of it is:

Fancy version: http://www.fi.uib.no/~jankoc/worldo/worldo.html
“Plain” version: http://www.fi.uib.no/~jankoc/worldo/worldoo.html

Jan.

The worlds most linked-to and visited orienteering web-page

In the second half of the 90’s “World of O” was probably the worlds most linked-to and visited orienteering web-page. In 1995, it had approximately 5000 visitors, summing up to 25.000 visitors in 1996, and 80.000 visitors in 1997. The domain worldofo.com was purchased in 1997.

I will not repeat all of the history here – but you can see some snapshots through the history of World of O from 1995 until today here.

A long road with a lot of joy! I hope you have enjoyed the travel – and will continue it with me!

• Why not wish World of O Happy Birthday over at the World of O Facebook page?
• Some snapshots through the history of World of O
• A working version of World of O from around 1995-1997 (Note! Most links are dead!)
• A working version of World of O from around as it was between 1998-2005 (Note! Most links are dead!)

- A preliminary draft of the new standard has been published, and is open for review, Troeng continues. – It is not a final version – it is now undergoing a review and we need your input to finalize it.

Draft version published

A draft version of the new data standard, including documentation, has been published as a XML schema file (XSD file) to be found here.

The draft includes many of the suggestions given at the project’s website. Some characteristics:

• The schema file has been designed with code-generation simplicity in mind, for example no use of elements and few restrictions about what elements are required in the schema. Also, the amount of required information about a person might differ in various situations – a competitor’s birth date is required, while a course setter’s is not. This implies that we can’t use a generic
  element for validation in both cases.
• Focus on data exchange in favour of presentation, even though XSLT transformations in many cases may be used to create reports.

Some commented example files have also been published. See examples here. A key to wide usage of the standard is to provide real-world examples, and it is hope that more example files can be added later on.

Feedback by February 29th

Troeng would be happy to receive feedback on this draft February 29th 2012 at latest. A final standard should hopefully be published soon after this deadline. Comments should be entered in the “Issues” forum at the Google Code site. Based on feedback, updated drafts are planned released approximately every two weeks until the deadline.

This is one step further than the message given on the IOF webpage on Friday from which it was not clear whether the WOC in the Future project would continue to explore further changes in today’s WOC program. In the Friday article it was stated that “at this point of time it is more important not to split the IOF family than to make the changes” and that this “is why we have decided to continue with the current programme” with regards to the upcoming General Assembly in Lausanne.

No further action from the IOF Council

In the joint meeting of the IOF Council and Commissions on Saturday, it was made clear that there will be no further action from the IOF Council related to the WOC in the Future project.

- The decision [to stop the project] was made not to bring conflict between federations. The federations must initiate something if they want change.

Three things in the IOF Council’s suggested program were focused on as problematic in the feedback from many of the federations: The removal of the individual start middle distance, the addition of the mixed relay and the new suggested qualification rules (especially for the long distance among the smaller nations).

You can see the response from the 19 federations in this PDF document – see also a summary of some of the nation’s responses in this World of O article (the federations which posted their response ahead of Friday).

Full win for the elite athletes

Eva Jurenikova – part of the Czech silver medal team from the relay at the World Championships in France last year – took the initiative to get the IOF to understand how the top runners feel about the suggested WOC program last autumn.

– The great majority of us runners are not happy with the proposal for the new WOC-program. This is why we decided to show our discontent and organized a petition during the World Cup weekend in Liberec, Jurenikova explained to World of O at that time.

Thus the IOF Council’s decision must be looked upon as a full win for the elite athletes – who have been working to forward their opinions to their respective federations.

No word on split WOC into sprint and forest WOC

When looking at the responses from the federations (PDF document), 12 of 19 federations wanted the IOF to evaluate the idea to split the WOC into a sprint WOC and a forest WOC to be organized in alternating year. This is quite a big number, considering that there was no mention of the split WOC alternative in the proposal the federations were asked to comment on. Of the 19 federations, 6 federations did not mention this (Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa, Ireland, France and Switzerland) while one nation was against the split WOC idea (Italy).

The IOF Council did not mention the split WOC alternative suggested by the NORD countries at all in their summary. It is an open question whether the NORD countries or any other federations want to pursue this idea further at the General Assembly in Lausanne in July this year. Any final decision for a modified WOC program does however not seem like a probable outcome for the General Assembly in Lausanne as the situation stands now – a request for a thorough  evaluation of the split WOC proposal might be a possible outcome though.

Update 20.01.2012 15:00: The IOF Council just decided that it will not propose changes to the current World Championships programme at the upcoming General Assembly in Lausanne. “There is a significant difference of opinion between our bigger and smaller federations. At this point of time it is more important not to split the IOF family than to make the changes that received support in Trondheim in 2010”, IOF President Åke Jacobson said, and continued: “That is why we have decided to continue with the current programme.” Read more here.

Of the 8 federations who have posted their response online so far, only one (Ireland) is happy with the overall structure of the WOC program suggested by the IOF. All of the other 7 federations are strongly in favor of keeping the individual start middle distance race. There is also no big support for the mixed relay – although there seems to be support for a sprint relay. There is also strong support from most federations for developing the idea of splitting the WOC into a Forest WOC and Sprint WOC organized alternating every second year.

The best solution

- The best future WOC concept so far

- The best future WOC concept so far, Carl Waaler Kaas, comments the suggestions by the NORD countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) to split the WOC into Forest WOC and Sprint WOC. - By the arguments used, splitting WOC seems like the best solution to me, Waaler Kaas continues.

Based on informal conversations with some of the other members of the “World Champions group” who were behind the petition against the suggested WOC program in September last year, this type of splitting of the WOC is an alternative many elite orienteers think is an interesting alternative which they want to get evaluated further.

Current status

The current status in defining a new program for future WOCs is that the IOF Council prepared a proposal for a new WOC program in October/November 2011 based on the work of the WOC in the future work group and feedback from the member federations (see the letter sent to the federations for feedback here). The federations were asked to consult all interested parties in their country, and provide feedback to the IOF by January 15th 2012 (last Sunday). When the IOF Council has received and discussed the feedback, the final proposal for a new WOC programme will be prepared and presented for the IOF General Assembly 2012 to be held in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The story about the future WOC program is getting long: see e.g. a background article from August 2010 here, news from the WOC in the Future work group in January 2011 here and here, WOC in the Future work group discussions in February 2011 here, the final recommendations of the WOC in the Future work group from March 2011 here, the IOF Council’s suggested program from September 2011 here, the protest of the Elite orienteers against IOF’s suggested program in September 2011 here, Sweden’s suggestion of splitting WOC into alternating Forest and Sprint WOCs in November 2011 here, or IOF’s summary of the process here.

Responses from Federations

Update 20.01.2012 15:00: Responses from all 19 federations who have answered are now published at the IOF website.

So far the following countries have posted their responses to IOF on the Internet (will be updated – please notify me if you know about responses from other federations):

• The NORD countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark) – have agreed on a common statement.
  • Summarized: Split WOC into Forest WOC and Sprint WOC organized alternating every second year. Forest WOC: Interval start long + middle. Mass start middle (opens up for chasing start with prologue as an alternative). Traditional Relay. Sprint WOC: Sprint as today, KnockOut sprint, Sprint relay (2 runners of same gender with 2 legs each on each team).
  • Compared to the IOF suggestion: Split WOC instead of the same WOC every year. Wants to keep the individual start middle distance and not remove it like the IOF suggestion. Do not introduce mixed relay like the IOF suggestion – but instead same gender sprint relay.
• British Orienteering
  • Summarized: Keep all current WOC disciplines, including the Relay and the interval-start Middle. Addition of separate Men’s and Women’s Sprint Relays to the WOC program. Adjustment to the proposed schedule for the WOC competition week, so that athletes are not forced to choose between events in their preferred discipline. Further development of the Nordic proposal for alternating Sprint and Forest WOCs
  • Compared to the IOF suggestion: Wants to keep the individual start middle distance and not remove it like the IOF suggestion. Do not introduce mixed relay like the IOF suggestion – but instead same gender sprint relay.
• Czech Republic
  • Summarized: Strongly disagree with the transformation of middle distance into a chasing-start race. Need specification of allocation of places for the long final. Don’t introduce any hasty changes to the current program. Would also recommend the biennal “forest WOC” and biennal “sprint WOC” to be considered.
  • Compared to the IOF suggestion: Wants to keep the individual start middle distance instead of removing it like the IOF suggests. No comments regarding mixed relay.
• France
  • No full reponse has been posted – only a short statement saying that the French Federation follows the advice of the elite runners and coaches against the “reform” proposed by the IOF. An important rationale being that they want to keep the individual middle distance discipline.
• Ireland
  • Summarized: The new Middle distance race format was most favoured, whilst the long distance qualification criteria caused the most concern. The high percentage of sprint/middle orienteering in the world champs programme may have a long term effect on more ‘classic’ orienteering. Overtime, a new elite type of orienteer who is focused more on shorter, urban sprint orienteering may eventually develop.
  • Compared to the IOF suggestion: Generally happy with the suggested program, except for strong concern regarding the qualification for the long distance.
• Switzerland
  • No full response has been posted, but a summary has been posted on a private webpage o-zeugs.blogspot.com (thus this information should not be treated as official information). According to the summary, Switzerland do not want an extra final added to the WOC program. The program of today’s WOC should not be changed. WOC should be organized only every second year instead of every year as today.
  • Compared to the IOF suggestion: Keep the individual middle distance. No mixed relay.

Updated after original article published:

• Estonia (see comment below)
• Against new disciplines first-to-finish and mixed sprint relay until it is proved that it is better with respect tot he goals of the IOF. Must be better explained why. The idea of “forest WOC” and “sprint WOC” alternating is worth considering.
• Compared to the IOF suggestion: Keep the individual middle distance. No mixed relay.
• Orienteering USA (received by e-mail)
  • Summarized: In general they like IOF’s most recent proposal. Concerns about how regional spaces for the Long Final are to be determined. If an alternating year schedule of sprint-WOC then forest-WOC were proposed, Orienteering USA would also be happy with such a proposal.
  • Compared to the IOF suggestion: Generally happy with the suggested program, except for concern regarding the qualification for the long distance.

What now?

With the responses coming from the member federations so far, it looks improbable that the final proposal for a new WOC programme that the IOF Council will prepare will have the same main characteristics as the one presented in October/November last year. There will of course be responses from other federations as well, but it must be difficult to ignore the responses of the strong federations cited above who took 24 of the 24 medals at the World Championships in France last year (Note that the Swiss took 3 of these 24 medals – their position has not been fully confirmed as of now). Of these federations,

• None are in favor of removing the individual start middle distance
• None are in favor of the mixed relay
• There is strong interest among these “medal countries” to look into changes of the WOC structure we have today with a WOC every year with the same WOC program

Changing the WOC structure from an annual event with the same program every year is a big choice to make – which requires a thorough analysis of all possible consequences. Time might be running out for making a qualified choice of this type already in Lausanne in July this year…

Update 20.01.2012 15:00: The IOF Council came to the same conclusion: It makes no sense to make a choice in Lausanne in July this year based on the feedback from the federations. But as Jørn Sundby comments on Twitter: – Then remains the question if NORD-countries will try to get enough country support for their propsal to the Congress.

WOC in the Future might still be an item on the agenda in Lausanne…

The course has a special spreading method in the course: Instead of a butterfly or phi-loop, runners are to choose 5 out of 7 controls within the ring between control number 2 and 3. What would be your choice?

The puzzle is as usually first provided without routes – you may take a look at it and think about how you would solve it (if the image is too small, you may click on it to get it larger). Note that the control to the northwest of the 2nd control is at the house corner.

Webroute

Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think through how you would attack it, and draw the route you would have made. Some comments about why you would choose a certain choice are always nice for the other readers.

Then you can take a look at how the runners solved the “puzzle” – below the tracked runners are sorted in order based on the GPS tracking times. As you can see, the main problem for several runners who lost time (especially Fabian Hertner) was that they had not checked the control description of the control northwest of the 2nd control.

Did you choose a good order? What do you think of this kind of spreading method?

Wrong choice to first control

From this race, it is also interesting to see how Fabian Hertner is much faster than the other tracked runners to the first control by taking a northern route choice. Everybody is probably too busy reading which 5 of 7 controls to choose after the second control….

Complete map in Omaps.worldofo.com

You find the complete map and GPS-tracking in omaps.worldofo.com at this location or in 2DRerun here.

Pictured on the calendar are the Top 6 men and women in “The Orienteering Achievement of 2011″. Thierry Gueorgiou, Ida Bobach, Ionut Zinca, Helena Jansson, Daniel Hubmann and Tove Alexandersson are six of the twelve runners featured.

Events from World of O Calendar

All events are taken from the World of O Calendar – thanks to all the readers of World of O who have added and updated information the last week to make the calendar more complete.

• Download World of O Wall Calendar 2012 here (Note! Large 20 Mb download!)
• Alternative download link

Below you see each month in the final version of the World of O Wall Calendar 2012 as an image-file. All World Cup events are colored red, World Ranking events blue and National championships purple. JWOC, EYOC and JEC are also colored red.

Thierry Gueorgiou, Ida Bobach, Ionut Zinca, Helena Jansson, Daniel Hubmann and Tove Alexandersson have all two things in common: They were behind some of the greatest orienteering achievements of 2012 2011 – and they are featured on the World of O Wall Calendar 2012.

The World of O Wall Calendar 2012 gives you all the WRE races of 2012 along with other important races in 2012 from the World of O Calendar. Pictured on the calendar are the Top 6 men and women in “The Orienteering Achievement of 2011″.

The version you can see and download here is a preliminary version of the calendar – for the final version of the calendar event organizers will get the possibility to add their events to World of O Calendar. If you know about any important events in 2012 which are not yet in World of O Calendar, please ask the organizers to add the event to get better visibility!

The final version of the calendar is available here.

Below you see each month in the preliminary version of the World of O Wall Calendar 2012. Downloadable PDF-version will be available early next week.

Thierry Gueorgiou’s story after his successful WOC is the most popular story of the year – and also the only story Gueorgiou posted this year.  With 2011 being history, it is time to take a look back at the stories which interested the orienteering community the most in 2011 – many of them are worth to be reminded about again!

Another good year!

2011 was another great year for World of O – several millon pageviews, and a lot of good feedback from the readers. The WorldofO Facebook page has now nearly 2000 fans and the WorldofO Twitter account has nearly 1000 followers. A lot of other stuff has also happened at WorldofO.com – most fun for me personally has been the development of 3DRerun and 2DRerun – I’ll try to cover other news in 2011 in a separate post later on.

Below you first find an overview of the most popular sites in World of O in 2011 (calculated by a popularity factor utilizing a combination of clicks/votes) – and thereafter you find the 100 most read stories in 2011 (”All you need to know”-articles at WorldofO.com are not included as they are not very interesting anymore). Note that not all outgoing clicks are logged (due to technical reasons) – but the numbers below give a good indication. See the corresponding post for 2010 here.

Most popular sites (average reads per post)

Sites posting most stories

Thierry Gueorgiou: The more you miss, the more you win ?!

“Ive missed more than 9000 shots in my career. Ive lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times Ive been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. Ive failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. was what Michael Jordan said to explain his brilliant career.Since the WOC is over, many journalists have come up with the same question: “why this WOC has been so successful for you?” And it has always been hard to give a clear answer but I could have almost the same as Jordan. …

» Read complete story (Main page only)

World of O: Lundanes: – Looks like I am supporting the destruction of orienteering

Olav Lundanes is not happy to be on the front page of  IOF’s latest update on the WOC in the future project – the Power Point presentation which was presented at the IOF Presidents Conference in France in August this year. On his Twitter-account Lundanes Tweets “Looks like I am supporting the destruction of orienteering”. The background for Lundanes’s indignation is the suggestion for the WOC in the future program made by the IOF Council: No more individual middle distance in the WOC in the future (instead prologue + chasing start) Traditional relay replaced by mixed sprint relay if 4 medal disciplines in the future WOC – alternatively mixed sprint relay + traditional relay if 5 medal disciplines. Basis for the proposed WOC program The Council has suggested the WOC program for the future based on the input from the WOC in the future group (which suggested to keep both the middle distance and the traditional relay, but to introduce chasing start and mixed relay as additional disciplines) and based on input from the federations (a lot of different input from 14 federations pointing in many different directions – see summary of the opinions at the WOC in the future page). The presentation can be downloaded here – or you can alternatively view screenshots of the presentation below. See also the WOC in the future webpage for more background information about the process and an article in O-zine 02-2011 about the project. Gueorgiou: &#…

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World of O: Le Revard loooong distance: Gueorgiou 9 minutes ahead

[Updated with results/analysis!] Thierry Gueorgiou crushed the competitors and took a 9(!) minute win in today’s tough long distance race on the Le Revard map – the neighbour map of the World Championships. The start field was very strong – so the French runner really set the standard today. 9 minutes down from Gueorgiou in second spot was Anders Holmberg (Sweden) ; Daniel Hubmann (Switzerland) was 12 minutes behind. In the women’s class Annika Billstam (Sweden) took a 5 minute victory ahead of Helena Jansson (also Sweden). Vincent Coupat wrote the following about Gueorgiou’s race at Twitter today: – Tough race today. My feet are destroyed : huge blisters. Thierry is impressive! Ran 4 controls with him and was unable to read my map. Webroute One of the interesting legs is this leg from number 4 to number 5. I have set up a webroute so you can try to figure out how you would solve the leg. Remember: Runnability is not too good – so compass course along the line would not be your best option. On the other hand, you should not go too far away either. The article continues below the Webroute. Without any splits/routes of runners I can’t say what is the best option – but please add a comment if you have any thoughts about it. For now I have just drawn the routes in 3DRerun, and looked at the lengths of three different options (the leftmost option in red – 2258 meter, direct right route in green is 1495 meters and the r…

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Minna Kauppi: Classic

Itsa classic to run a little too much downhill when you should run more on the hillside…and when you can get the map to match almost everywhere a huge mistake is knocking on the door. Or was. GAME OVER. http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/(GPS) Pasis silver tasted, for me too, almost like gold. Its been long time since. And as he was able to get himself back on track after middle Q distaster, Ill be able to do that as well. No, heading towards the model for relay and forgetting to be miserable. read more…

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World of O: The Orienteering Elite Unite against WOC program

More than 100 of the participants in the World Cup races in Liberec last weekend signed a petition against the suggested WOC in the future program. The petition is very clear on the opinion of the runners. – We do not like the Council’s proposal on the WOC program, and we do not want to participate in such a WOC. – The great majority of us runners are not happy with the proposal for the new WOC-program Eva Jurenikova – part of the Czech silver medal team from the relay at the World Championships in France earlier this year – has taken the initiative to get the IOF to understand how the top runners feel about the suggested WOC program. – The great majority of us runners are not happy with the proposal for the new WOC-program. This is why we decided to show our discontent and organized a petition during the World Cup weekend in Liberec, Jurenikova explains. – I was surprised how readily the runners signed the petition, and how forcefully some of the runners commented on the proposal. 9 World Champions During the World Cup weekend in Liberec, Jurenikova organized a meeting including 9 World Champions to discuss the WOC program in the future – Thierry Gueorgiou, Helena Jansson, Annika Billstam, Olav Lundanes, Carl Waaler Kaas, Minna Kauppi, Dana Brozkova, Daniel Hubmann, Matthias Merz and Fabian Hertner. The runners are very clear on that their motivation for the petition is that they are very much interested in the development of…

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World of O: Jukola 2011 – Decisive moments from the GPS

Thierry Gueorgiou won the first duel for Kalevan Rasti at the long night of Jukola against Anders Nordberg, but Olav Lundanes won the second and more important duel for Halden against Fabian Hertner and Kalevan Rasti. Replay all of the excitement in the LiveBlog at the bottom of this page. Including a lot of map extracts from all the important moments in the relay! Olav Lundanes put up an impressive show on the last leg – running faster and more securely than Hertner. In the end Hertner was caught by the group behind after several smaller and bigger mistakes, and Olav Lundanes could cruise alone to victory more than 4 minutes ahead of number two. Note! This report is based on GPS-data from the TV broadcast only! Full GPS-data will be released during Sunday. Leg 1 There were some mistakes by both Kalevan Rasti and Halden, but they were not decisive as both Halden and Kalevan Rasti were close to the lead. 1 63 Göteborg Majorna OK 2 SWE 1:09:44 Saga Vegard Brun 1:09:44 2 1 Halden SK NOR +3 Sören Bobach 1:09:47 3 55 Pan-Kristianstad SWE +3 Adam Kovacs 1:09:47 4 30 Ikaalisten Nouseva-Voima FIN +8 Vesa Taanila 1:09:52 5 9 OK Linne SWE +11 Josef Nordlund 1:09:55 6 22 MS Parma FIN +18 Peeter Pihl 1:10:02 7 31 Södertälje Nykvarn Orienter SWE +33 Erik Liljekvist 1:10:17 8 3 Vaajakosken Terä FIN +35 Antti Anttonen 1:10:19 9 108 Söders SOL-Tyresö SWE +43 Tomas Dlabaja 1:10:27 10 10 Angelniemen Ankkuri FIN +45 Kari Tuomas 1:10:29 21 2…

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World of O: Thierry Gueorgiou: The interview!

– Don’t look for success, only a race without mistakes, Thierry had written on the note in his control description holder for the last preparations. And that is just what he went out and did. The note continues with “Enjoy: You versus You” and “It is for you, 110%”. And for sure he did enjoy – at least after the race… Read the interview with Thierry Gueorgiou – The King of Middle – made after his gold medal in Middle distance at WOC 2011. – The race is over up there This was Gueorgiou’s 9th individual World Champs gold medal, but it didn’t come easy even if it was a very expected gold medal from both media and fans. It was really hard to recover from the long distance – It wasn’t the easiest gold medal. It was really hard to recover from the long distance. I was really tired, so all the long way up to the 7th control I had to struggle and push myself hard. I told myself “- OK, the race is over up there, so give everything you have up to control number 7″. Looking at what many of the other competitors did on the way to number 7 (see also this video with the biggest mistakes) – this was not excactly an easy control – but still Gueorgiou pushed hard. Recover ahead of the last part – I forced myself to not start walking up that long hill. I lost control for some second on the way, but I regained control quite fast. In many ways this terrain reminded my of the terrain from the WOC s…

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World of O: WC Liberec Chasing start: Map and Results

Marc Lauenstein took a surprise victory for Switzerland and Minna Kauppi is finally back on the top with another World Cup victory. The long distance chasing start in Liberec was a tough one – with more than 1:40 running time in the mens class and 80 minutes in the women’s class.

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World of O: Course of the Year 2011: Submit your suggestions!

What was the best orienteering course of 2011? Last year’s winner was Jukola with great courses in fantastic terrain. Which course will take the prestigious top spot this year? The search for the course of the year  will be fun, for sure as it was last year! The rules are simple: Suggest a course from a competition or training in 2011, and state the reason why you think this course deserves to be “The course of the Year 2011″. The best among all the suggestions will be chosen – and there will be a voting process among the readers of “World of O” in order to name “The course of the year 2011″. Prizes from sponsors make it more fun to be in on the suggestions and voting – Croatia Open, Lipica Open, Fjord-O and EOC Tour are sponsoring “The course of the year 2011″ with starts (see below). Note! There is still an opening for more sponsors if you are interested in getting publicity for your event. Use the comments below, and submit either The course which in your opinion is the best course you run in 2011 yourself! The best course you set this year as a course-setter. The overall best course you have seen/heard about in 2011 Most course-setters surely have to make some compromises, so finding the perfect one is probably not possible. Still, it is interesting to see which is the best course you run or set in 2011! Here are my choices for last year. Starting point To provide you with a starting point, I’ve …

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World of O: WOC Selection Races Annecy, France May 28th

Several nations had WOC selection races in the Annecy area today on a technically challenging middle distance course today. Swedish runners took the top 3 places both in the mens and the womens class – with Olle Boström and Helena Jansson on top, respectively. In the mens class, the young Johan Runesson and Gustav Bergman followed right behind Boström in second and third spot – very impressive by the young Swedish runners. Helena Janssons victory was with more than 2 minutes ahead of Emma Claesson. Tomorrow the scene is set for a real challenge – a long distance race on the Le Revard map. Maps Map Men 21 (with Gustav Bergman’s route) – see also routes of Tomas Dlabaja, David Andersson and Erik Rost. Results Results were not available at the organizers webpage Saturday evening. However, the Swedish orienteering federation have reported on the results for the Swedish runners. Men – Top 3 1 Olle Boström, Järla Orientering 28.09 2 Johan Runesson, Göteborg-Majorna 29.16 3 Gustav Bergman, OK Ravinen 29.39 Women – Top 3 1 Helena Jansson, Leksands OK 26.53 2 Emma Claesson, Stora Tuna OK 29.00 3 Annika Billstam, IFK Lidingö SOK 30.27 New map for model event For the runners training for WOC 2011, it may be interesting to note that a new map adjacent to the WOC area has been made official for the model event (see above). This looks like another very technical terrain – somewhere between the Montagne de Bange and Le Revard in di…

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World of O: Jukola 2011 Forking Error!

Small scandal in Finland [Updated with full analysis and map samples]: All teams did not run the same total course in Jukola 2011. The problem occured on the 1st and 2nd leg, where 100 out of 1500 starting teams had wrong forking. The best placed team with wrong forking seems to be IFK Moras in 14th spot. Above you see an example for OK Hällen and Moras. None of Mora’s runners had the western -variant – none of Hällen’s runners had the eastern variant. The organizers have put up a message on the Jukola page (in Finnish) confirming the mistake: – Jukola error has been detected scatter diagram. [...] The organizers regret what happened. The forking error explained On the 1st and 2nd leg one runner should have 150-100-146 and the other 150-177-146 (controls 4-6 on the map below). For some teams both runners had either 150-100-146 or 150-177-146. The same problem also later on in the leg. Instead of one runner having 160-152-156-55 and the other 160-198-102-55 (controls 19-22 on the map below), both the 1st and 2nd leg runner in the teams had one of the variants. Time losses? So the question is – did this cost the affected teams time? Looking at the 5th control, it looks like the eastern one is more tricky than the western one, but we can’t know for sure. So instead of speculating, I calculated the mean time for all of the splits, and looked at the difference for the different control pairs. Note (1) that this will not give a correct answer at a…

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World of O: Replay the 10Mila excitement here!

– I said to my team mates ahead of the race that only 6 teams have won 10Mila 2 years in a row, and I wanted to be one of them, Thierry Gueorgiou commented after taking Kalevan Rasti to victory in 10Mila just as last year. His team mates made it easy for Gueoriou this year.- I thought I had just a perfect starting position for the last leg. It is very comfortable to have such a big lead, because you can choose which speed you want to use and where. Exactly like last year, Fabian Hertner set the table for Thierry Gueorgiou on the 9th leg, running away from the other teams on shear running speed. Gueorgiou continued with great speed and excellent orienteering. A recap of the relay (scroll down to the bottom for the LiveBlog): Kiril Nikolov (Kalevan Rasti) took the first leg – putting KR where they wanted already from the start. All top teams were still in the fight. 1 Kiril Nikolov Kalevan Rasti 1 01:11:26 00:00:00 2 Rickard Ohlsson Södertälje-Nykvarn OF 1 01:11:29 00:00:03 3 Sigge Lundedal Jensen OK Denseln 1 01:11:32 00:00:06 4 Vytautas Beliunas Hellas Orientering 1 01:11:33 00:00:07 5 Kristoffer Fiane Pedersen Ã…s-UMB Orientering 1 01:11:36 00:00:10 6 Henrik Väisänen Hiisirasti 1 01:11:39 00:00:13 7 Christian Bøen Kristiansand OK 1 01:11:45 00:00:19 8 Erik Öhlund Ulricehamns OK 1 01:11:55 00:00:29 9 Jan-Baptiste Bourrin OK Hällen 1 01:12:01 00:00:35 10 Antti Anttonen Vaajakosken Terä 1 01:12:02 00:00:36 Jostein Andersen (Kristiansan…

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World of O: 10Mila GPS Tracking finally live! See analysis here!

Many interesting long legs in this years 10Mila means a lot of interesting analysis using the GPS data! Now the GPS Tracking is online – get ready for some fun understanding the best options. Why not use the opportunity to learn something as well – draw your suggested best route on each leg before reading the analysis. Adding a comment makes it easier for other to understand why you choose a certain route. The 10Mila relay had very nice courses this year – a “Jukola-like” gaffling system – i.e. more gaffling than we’ve seen the last years – along with many long legs made it really interesting for the runners. Disclaimer for all my analysis/comments: I have not been in the forest – analysis and comments is done based on GPS data only – thus conclusions might not always be 100% correct. But PLEASE correct me in a comment if I’m wrong – that would make everybody happy, especially me. Link to GPS tracking Here you find links to the GPS tracking (will be updated with more legs): Men’s relay, leg 3 Men’s relay, leg 4 Men’s relay, leg 6 Men’s relay, leg 7 Women’s relay, leg 3 Analysis – 6th leg, control 10-11 We’ll start with a webroute to get your thoughts going – below is analysis of both this leg and other legs. This is control number 10-11 on the 6th leg of the men’s relay – a night leg. The leg is as usually first provided without routes –…

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World of O: The Orienteering Achievement of 2011

Read about the fantastic achievements of the 2 French, 1 Norwegian, 4 Swedes, 1 Czech, 4 Swiss, 1 Romanian, 2 Finns and one Dane who are nominated for The Orienteering Achievement of 2012. Then post your vote for your favourites, and be part of the drawing for prizes worth nearly 2000 Euros! 2011 has been yet another year full of great orienteering achievements – and as we now are moving towards 2012, we follow the tradition and decide the greatest of achievements of the year. The annual poll to find the best Orienteering Achievements of the year is organized by the major source for international orienteering news on the Internet – World of O. In the vote for “The Orienteering Achievement of 2011″, the best achievement of the year is to be named – and not necessarily the best orienteer of 2011. Prizes for “Lucky voters” Prizes valued to nearly 2000 Euro are drawn among lucky voters. The rules are as follows: A person can only vote once in each of the categories (if several people share one internet connection, only one can vote, as the IP address is used to identify the voter along with the email-address of the voter). Prizes from our sponsors will be drawn among all people voting. The winners will be made public after the poll closes at World of O. Main sponsors for the Orienteering Achievement of 2011 are Prague Easter/Sandstones.cz and Crosoe 2012 – each offering transferable prizes valued to 400-500 Euros consisting of …

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World of O: Separate Sprint and Forest WOCs: The way to go?

WOC in the Future: A suggestion to split the World Orienteering Championships into a separate sprint WOC and traditional WOC – organized alternating years – is finally on the table. Splitting into two different WOCs has been dismissed by the IOF in earlier discussions, but with the Swedish Orienteering Federation officially announcing a splitting into two different WOCs today, this will definetely be a topic going forwards. – We have been contacted by WOC runners from other countries who have asked what we as a big orienteering country can do to push an alternative suggestion to a WOC program, Tom Hollowell, head of the Swedish Orienteering Federation says to Skogssport. Here is the suggested new program: Sprint WOC: (1) Sprint Qual + Final, (2) KnockOut sprint, (3) Mixed sprint relay Forest WOC: (1) Long distance final, individual start, (2) Middle distance final, individual start, (3) Prologue + chasing start, (4) Relay – men and women separately Here is the suggested program by the IOF: Alternative A: (1) Sprint Qual + Final, (2) Mixed sprint relay, (3) Prologue + chasing start (middle), (4) Long distance final, individual start. Alternative B: The above alternative with the addition of a traditional relay (men / women separately) What is your opinion on the suggested WOC program? Either vote now – or read my list with Pros and Cons below before deciding. Which WOC program do you prefer? Pros and Cons: Splitting WOC into two parts I was recen…

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Jan Kocbach: JWOC 2011 Relay forking mistake :

JWOC 2011 Relay forking mistake: Worse than the Jukola 2011 forking mistake? It sure looks like it, although time differences were probably smaller.I finally had time to study this tonight – thanks a lot to one of the readers for the tip and for sending me map and forking information (attached below). You can also see a discussion about it at Attackpoint.org: http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/message_560349#message565476I made illustrations showing the mistake for both men and women below, so you can see what it really means for the courses. In the illustration for women, leg 1 is in red and leg 2/3 is in blue. In the illustration for men leg 1 is in red, leg 2 is in blue and leg 3 is in green.WomenThe problem is the forking control 107-108-125. The runners come from 124 for the first leg and for 120 for the 2nd and 3rd leg. Thus some teams run e.g. 124-107 and 120-125 while others instead run 124-125 and 120-107. Due to the difference in route choice for these variants, it may actually influence the result. An example:Czech Rep 1: 124-107-101 + 120-108-101 + 120-125-101Denmark 1: 124-108-101 + 120-125-101 + 120-107-101Thus Czech Republic 1 has 124-107 and 120-108 while Denmark 1 has 120-107 and 124-108. In the end Czech Republic took the silver medal – only 6 seconds ahead of Denmark. From the map it might very well look like 120-108 and 124-107 is the fastest variant because of the route choices you take (left for 120-108 while you might run an S for 120-107)….

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World of O: Course of the Year 2011: The winner is …

… a very technical course which gave the runners a lot of interesting challenges. Read the interview with the course setters and see four different versions of the courses – from the early version to the final version. Course setters Tip: Don’t forget to offer the most pleasure to the runners. The fight for the victory in “Course of the Year 2011″ was very tight – just a few hours before the voting closed at midnight there were only 10 points between the two top placed courses – the third stage of Swiss O-Week and the WOC middle final. The last hours the WOC middle final in France increased the lead to a “comfortable” 810 points victory. Congratulations to the course setters Benoît and Elodie Cochey! Last year the Course of the Year 2010 – Jukola – won with more than double the points of number two – a much closer race this year. Results – Top 10 Last year there were three tough long distance races in top of “Course of the Year 2010″ – this year we have several different formats; a middle distance on top, a long distance in second spot, a long street orienteering race in third, a sprint race in fourth and a tough, Scandinavian long distance in 5th. Congratulations to all course setters and courses. As course setter of the year, Benoît and Elodie Cochey were allowed to choose among the sponsor prizes offered. They choose OOCup 2011 – in terrain which has many of the same ch…

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World of O: France – finally!

– I said before this World Championships that if I would get only one gold medal, it would be the relay, an extremely happy Thierry Gueorgiou said after securing the gold medal for France in todays WOC relay. This was the fourth time in a row that Gueorgiou has been in the lead at the last leg in a WOC relay for France – but the first time he succeeded. This is the race I have prepared most for this season – I felt very guilty for Francois and Philippe – and also Damien – because I have destroyed so many opportunities. Especially for Francois as he is getting older – Philippe is still young. – This is the race I have prepared most for this season. I think I prepared well, because I felt more relaxed for the relay than for the individual races. Run like a middle distance Gueorgiou started out together with Olav Lundanes of Norway, David Andersson of Sweden and Mamleev of Italy – but was soon alone in the tricky French terrain. – When I saw that I would run out in front, I knew I had to run just like if it was a middle distance race and not care about the others, and hope the forking would help me. I had the same forking as Olav Lundanes to the first two controls, but to number three I did not see him anymore. Tero show – Then I had a small 15 second mistake on number 4. I then said to myself that this had to be my last mistake today. If I will continue, I need to find some new challenges From there and in it was a pure Tero-show – slowly i…

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Matthias Müller: never trust the GPS-Tracking!

Darf man dem GPS auf dem Grossbildschirm trauen? NEIN. seht selber….

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World of O: Finally! 3DRerun open to everyone!

3DRerun: Orienteering Analysis the Fun way. And cool visualization! And a lot more than that as well! After more than a year of development 3DRerun is now open for YOU to use! Thanks to elite orienteers, national teams and others who have given valuable feedback, 3DRerun has now entered open beta testing. Open beta testing means that there is still some development to be done, but 3DRerun is now considered to be up to a standard which makes it usable and ready for a larger user base. Please provide feedback as a comment below if you have problems using 3DRerun, or if you have suggestions for improvements. Below is an example of what you can easily do in 3DRerun (example from 10Mila 2010 – open it in 3DRerun here). After setting up a user in 3DRerun, you can make similar analysis with your own GPS data. Several national teams have used 3DRerun this way to analyze their training camps. 3DRerun example from 10Mila 2010. Click here to replay in 3DRerun yourself. This post will be followed up by articles at World of O and o-training.net on how to use 3DRerun for analysis and other purposes the coming weeks. Head over to the 3DRerun start page Videos with instructions on how to use 3DRerun (see a few of them below) 3DRerun demo videos Note! You need to register with email-address/password in order to upload maps/routes to 3DRerun – this is a anti-spam measure. Please check your spam-folder if you don’t receive an email after registering. As of now there are 2…

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O-training.net: Video: Follow Gueorgiou in Portugal – and draw his route

You don’t often get to see Thierry Gueorigou in action for 15 minutes – followed by a camera. Quite shaky – and not the best video quality admittedly – but still a nice one to watch in order to see how the master does it. And if that’s not enough to get some o-technical learning from it: Draw his route on the map in the Webroutes below (forest orienteering + sprint) and compare yourself with others to see how well you hit! Can you spot the error in the end before Thierry? Video and maps were posted at the Facebook page of I Meeting de Orientação de Gouveia. Thanks to Miguel Reis e Silva for updates about the competitions. Video Below you find the video and two Webroutes – one for the first part of the course and one for the second part. Take a look at the map below while watching the video, and try to draw along. In the last part Thierry makes a mistake and has to make a few seconds stop to read the map – can you spot the error before Thierry? Tip: The second map is easier to follow, and a lot more interesting – so I would start with that one. That starts about 6 minutes into the video. Good luck! Open second map in separate browser window to draw along. And don’t fool yourself by rewinding the video to look a second time – draw based on what you see the first time. Map – first part of video Tip: Open the webroute in a second browser window so you can draw while you watch the video. Use a straight line bet…

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World of O: WOC selection races: Maps and Results

The Swiss, Czech and German had WOC selection races in France this weekend – and the French in Slovenia. Some of the maps and results are available online: A lot of challenging orienteering, and quite a few interesting results which made the job interesting for the selection of the respective teams. Most impressive this weekend: Thierry Gueorgiou in the French selection races in Slovenia – very clear victories both in middle and long (official results not seen online yet for long) – and Daniel Hubmann in the Swiss selection race sprint in Annecy. Maps Swiss/German selection middle (see also women course) Czech selection middle (separate from Swiss/German selection) Swiss/German/Czech selection sprint (and here) – only women course available for now Swiss/German/Czech selection long part 1 – part 2 French selection middle Results Men Long – SUI/GER/CZE 1. Baptiste Rollier 82 SUI 1:35:43 2. Daniel Hubmann 83 SUI 1:36:42 3. Matthias Merz 84 SUI 1:40:15 4. Matthias Kyburz 90 SUI 1:43:42 5. Marc Lauenstein 80 SUI 1:43:43 6. Andreas Rüedlinger 85 SUI 1:45:17 7. Andreas Kyburz 88 SUI 1:47:41 8. Stepan Kodeda 88 CZE …

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World of O: NORT final: Maps, GPS analysis and results

Daniel Hubmann and Annika Billstam won the exciting last stage of the Nordic Orienteering Tour south of Oslo today. It was a big day for Swiss and Swedish orienteering with 3 Swiss men on top and 3 Swedish women among the top 4. Both Hubmann and Billstam decided the victory in the very end of the course – making it very exciting for the spectators and all the ones following the race over the Internet. The course invited the runners to take different route choices – the route choices being very important in the decision of the overall Nordic Orienteering Tour 2011. GPS autOanalysis Some GPS analysis of type “autOanalysis” between top runners have been made to understand what decided the race. These are given below. Hubmann versus Merz – part 1 Matthias Merz started 44 seconds behind Daniel Hubmann, and caught his team colleague at the 3rd control after a non-optimal route choice by Hubmann to the 3rd control. From then on the two run together for significant parts of the race. In the above illustration you see that they are together for significant parts from there on. Matthias Merz was pushing hard in this first part of the course. – I had problems keeping up the speed of Matthias in the first part of the course, Daniel said after the race. In the last part I was stronger though. Hubmann versus Merz – part 2 In the last part of the course, however, they took different route choices two times – Merz loosing around 12-15 seco…

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World of O: Portugal O-meeting WRE: Maps and Results

Yet another victory for Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli in technical Portuguese terrain! This third day of the Portugal O-meeting was the highlight of the races – a fast paced middle distance race with World Ranking status. 6.1 km in 28:41 means that you have to keep full focus all the way.  Gueorgiou and Niggli both won the Portugal O-meeting last year as well. – Altough some health problems ruining his training week and making him rest on POM’s first day, he started strongly winning yesterday and on today’s WRE he left second place Oleksandr Kratov 1:55 behind. Jonas Gvildys surprisingly took 3rd place leaving behind Adamski in 4th and Fohr in 5th,  the organizers report. In the womens class, Niggli got a very tough fight for the victory today. Five women within 1 minute – closest to Niggli was Maja Møller Alm, 39 seconds down. Young Tove Alexandersson and Venla Niemi followed one second behind Møller Alm. Tomorrow is the closing day of Portugal’OMeeting using the same Arena and a wider map for a closing long distance event. Results Men – POM Day 3 Photo: Freestyle-spirit.com 1 100 Thierry Gueorgiou [4671] Kalevan Rasti 28:41 2 107 Oleksandr Kratov 85 [1999] OK Orion 30:36 3 126 Jonas Vytautas Gvildys 87 [4489] Rehns Bk 31:51 4 109 Philippe Adamski [4671] Kalevan Rasti 32:02 5 106 Tero…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 1 2011

Todays leg in Route to Christmas takes us to beautiful Austrian terrain – to the JEC 2011 in Arnoldstein, Austria. In the Bulletin the runners were met with the following warning: – You are on the way to the largest rock fallen area in the Alps. So be careful in stony areas. The chosen leg is the first leg in the M20 course. What would you do on the way to the first control in one of the most important races of the year with this terrain description? Leg without routes 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. “Solution” Then you can take a look at how the runners who have drawn their route choice solved this leg below. Note that only a few of the runners have drawn their routes, but Andreas Boesen going left had the overall third best split on this leg. The winner Marius Thrane Ødum was fastest on this split, but did not draw his route in Routegadget. Florian Schneider has the 6th best time overall on this split with his routechoice to the right. Thus there is not enough data to fully conclude, but it may seem like right an…

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World of O: Swiss Team having fun with Gueorgiou & VJ commercial

No comments needed. First watch the two commercials for the new VJ shoes – then the Swiss Team video starring Baptiste Rollier. Camera man: Martin Hubmann. Update: Comment from Thierry Gueorgiou: “- I like this one :)” … I guess VJ sends big thanks to the Swiss Team for some extra publicity for their new shoes… …

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World of O: Gueorgiou: – It is still a long way to the World Championships

– I know that some people who don’t have a single idea of what is involved to win a WOC gold medal are already speculating with how many minutes I can win at the WOC, but I hope I have enough experience to deal with it, Thierry Gueorgiou says after his formidable win in the long distance race at Le Revard on Sunday. – When I woke up this morning, I didn’t feel especially proud of yesterday’s performance. I still have in mind my (very) incomplete run in Prépoulain, the French o-technical specialist explains the day after his “WOC long distance simulation” (Editors remark: Selection race, May 14th were Gueorgiou lost 10 minutes at one control were a small lead at the 15th control turned into a 13th place in the finish for Gueorgiou – 9 minutes behind Olle Boström). – I know that all the runners who beat me in the last WOC were not in the start list, and most of the others are just starting to train on these terrains. So, I don’t change a single word of what I said before the race: “it is still a long way to the World Championships”. In WOC 2010 long distance the “King of Middle” was beaten by the two Norwegians Olav Lundanes and Anders Nordberg. In the WOC 2010 middle distance Carl Waaler Kaas and Peter Öberg were ahead on the results list. Öberg is out with injury, whereas Lundanes, Nordberg and Kaas all finished ahead of Gueorgiou on the WOC selection races on May 14th – but all three were beaten by Gueorgiou …

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OPN.no: Kauppi mer crazy og sexy enn noensinne

Mandag ble Minna Kauppi kÃ¥ret til Ã…rets Idrettsutøver i Finland. Etter prisutdelingen showet hun foran kamera. …

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Øystein Kvaal Østerbø: WOC selection races in France

Last weekend the Norwegian team was running two selection races for the World Orienteering Championship in France together with the French team and some runners from Sweden. The first race was a shortened Long distance in a very challenging slope called Prepoulain, and the map was really difficult to read in scale 1:15000. The start of my race was OK, before I did several smaller mistakes, and I ended my race missing more then 15 minutes on the 16th control. Most of the time I was inside the control circle, but I was not able to find the control. Thierry also lost 10 minutes on the same place, and according to our coach the map was totally wrong in that area. Olle Boström was fastest, followed by Audun Weltzien who was the best Norwegian in front of Anders Nordberg and Olav Lundanes. The second race was a Long distance on Herbouilly. It went much better for me, and I did only some smaller mistakes in the end of my race. Thierry passed me on the long leg to the 9th control, and I had contact with him for half the race. Thierry won the race with more then 6 minutes, so it was interesting for me to watch how he is able to orienteer so fast in this challenging type of terrain. My result was a 4th place, less than one minute behind Audun Weltzien and Anders Nordberg.Some more info and results: Orientering.no from Saturday and SundayOPN from Saturday and Sunday…

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World of O: Routechoice analysis WOC Long Men

Finally the routechoice analysis for WOC Long Men is up! There were not many long and decisive routechoices in the WOC Long distance for men this year were top runners choose different routes – from an orienteering point of view it was more of an orienteering technical challenge. And of course a real physical challenge with the long winning time and the heat. Below you find a brief analysis leg by leg for most of the mens course. Sorry for some delay in publishing this – I had to do some changes to my software due to the new buffering feature in the GPSSeuranta units (which on the other hand gives us a lot more data). Note that in the illustrations, the first time given is the “GPS time” – i.e. taken from the GPS data – whereas the split time from the timing system is written in paranthesis – and also in the table provided for each split. For the controls in the forked part there was not good GPS coverage – in addition I do not provide the split time tables. See also the HeadCam video from the first 6 controls and the GPS illustrations from the WOC Long distance. I hope to update this article with some more comments from routeplanners before the WOC is over. Start-1 Split times Start-1 1. 07:35 Thierry GUEORGIOU (1.) 2. 07:55 Baptiste ROLLIER (4.) 3. 08:07 Gernot KERSCHBAUMER (17.) 4. 08:14 Olav LUNDANES (10.) 5. 08:17 Oleksandr KRATOV (11.) 6. 08:18 François GONON (3.) 9. 08:23 Daniel HUBMANN (5.) 12. 08:33 Olle BOSTRÖM (6….

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World of O: WOC Sprint: Map and Results

Linnea Gustafsson and Daniel Hubmann took the victories in the WOC sprint final in a Swiss and Swedish day here in Chamberly, France. In the womens class three Swedish women topped the results list – Helena Jansson and Lena Eliasson followed on the next places. In the mens class Anders Holmberg (SWE) was closest to Hubmann, with Matthias Müller (SUI) in third. Daniel Hubmann was very happy with another gold medal. – I feel great, I had really good race. It was a very nice sprint, and it was a very nice feeling for me to run this competition. – Sprint was the first discipline I was successfull in when I was young. I am happy to take the gold medal again, and I hope I will be ready to win again tomorrow. – Of course the sprint took some energy, but I think winning the gold medal gave me the extra energy I need to fight for the victory tomorrow. Map women (with GPS tracking) Map men (with GPS tracking) Results Women Results Men …

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Minna Kauppi: The best of the best, they said

The Finnish sportsreports voted the athlete of the year again and the big prize giving event was held last Monday. As I wrote before (and I wrote even more in Finnish) I was quite sure that my golds in the middle and in the relay wouldnt be enough for the titel. I even criticized the nature of the titel in public before the event as I really think that its not possible to compare for instance figure skating with orienteering. Anyway, when they announced my name in the gala, I couldnt believe it. My head was just empty and I didnt know what to say or do. Well, afterwards I even got a little bit crazy when the reporters were taking pics of me with the pokal. My wildish behaviour and my critisism towards the prize I won, got me in the middle of big media kaos. I got so much bull shit from many places that I couldnt see the fact that most of the messages were, in fact, positive. I was even a bit scared. However, after many busy days of interviews, it was a relief to get back on track again. And track it was already on Friday when the new sprint national teams training camp started in Vantaa. I was very motivated and the discussions were interesting and trainings hard. Next week, Ill be starting with some new methods in running on track and in strength trainings as well. In between, Ill also continue my teacher studies. The one thing that I wont do is answering my phone or taking some interviews. I want to take some nice and quiet time for a while and leave the yellow press w…

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World of O: WOC 2011 Long Qual: Maps and Results

Thierry Gueorgiou and the other French men set the standard with extremely strong races in the long distance qualification today. Three French heat winners among the men of three possible – Gueorgiou, Philippe Adamski and Francois Gonon. In the womens class Dana Brozkova, Minna Kauppi and Signe Søes won their heats. The runners were met by tricky orienteering – and longer winning times than expected – especially among the men. Gueorgiou was the only one close to the expected time with 63 minutes – winning his heat with 6 minutes. – One minut lost on one control in a slope…  Iwas passing a bit too high in the slope. My goal is to be full speed for the final wednesday, so i tried today to save some energy, the king of middle distance said after his great run. – Being 4 minutes ahead today doesn’t mean much because runners are not pushing maximum speed. – Which opponent for the final ? French runners are ready but it can be at least 10 other runners fighting for the podium so it will be an exicting battle to come. Tomorrow i’ll try to go faster in the begining of the Middle qualification, to get good speed feeling in the forest, and taking it easy in the end if everything goes well. Olav Lundanes – the reigning world champion – finished second in his heat. – It went well, but it was a though race,  Lundanes said after his second place – 55 seconds behind Francois Gonon. Maps Maps from WOC Long Qual Results Below …

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World of O: Top WOC 2011 moments in pictures

The strongest moments occur just the second when an athlete understands that he reached his big goal – after countless hours of training. Experiencing the World Champs close to the action was fantastic as always – here are some of the top WOC 2011 moments in pictures as seen from just behind the finish line. It is the sixth year in a row I have been present at the World Championships in Orienteering – this time as an volunteer as part of the organizers’ technology team and in addition as a journalist/photographer. If you have never witnessed a World Championships in Orienteering from close up, I can recommend it highly. Why not see it all for yourself next year when the World Champs is organized in Switzerland? See also all WOC 2011 pictures sorted by country. WOC Relay – Gold for French men The relay is always the race with the strongest feelings -as the runners work together towards a common goal. For the French men it was very special – after failing three times in a row under dramatic consequences. Strong feelings – great happiness for Thierry Gueorgiou, Francois Gonon and Philippe Adamski! Read the interview here. WOC Relay – Bronze for Swedish men Nearly as happy as the French men were for their gold medal, the Swedish men were for their bronze medal – especially Olle Boström (read on his blog in Swedish here) who was close to strangling last leg runner David Andersson after he run Sweden in to a bronze medal (s…

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World of O: Season opening Portugal: Gueorgiou ahead of Lundanes, Adamski

– Very good map, with details in the right places. And always great to race in Portugal, were the words of Thierry Gueorgiou after winning the season opening at the I Meeting de Orientação de Gouveia in Portugal today. Gueorgiou won with nearly 2:30 down to reigning World Champion on the long distance – Olav Lundanes. Philippe Adamski finished third – nearly 6 minutes down from Gueorgiou Map M21E Map W21E …

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World of O: GPS illustrations WOC Long distance

We have seldom seen this kind of spreading of chosen routes on the way to the first control in a World Championships. Many seemed to be tricked into taking a more risky direct route than the optimal one due to the good runnabillity in the forest to the first control – but most lost a lot of time on it. Below some illustrations and an initial analysis for the first part of the course is included from the WOC long distance – I will try to make a more complete analysis this evening. I hope to get both interview with the course setter and correct times from the split-times (times given now are from the GPS-data). Thus this is preliminary data – but it will still interest some of you I am sure. Due to the jumps in GPS data I have only managed to make illustrations for some legs in the start for now – I will try to get something also for the later legs this evening. There will also be a HeadCam video with 3DRerun coupling from the first 6 controls available later today. See also routes of the top 6 runners here: Thierry Gueorgiou, Pasi Ikonen, Francois Gonon, Baptiste Rollier, Daniel Hubmann, Olle Boström Annika Billstam, Dana Brozkova, Helena Jansson, Eva Jurenikova, Heidi Bagstevold, Anni-Maija Fincke Women – Start-1 The best choice was obviously to do like Billstam. Use the path as long as possible, then find the correct place to take the small path down. This part still had very good runnability. Then the key was to know exactly where you were …

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 10 2011

Monsterleg! 4.5 km long! Today’s Route to Christmas is the longest leg in this years travel through the orienteering world. I choose a Saturday for it as I guess you all have some extra time for Route to Christmas in the weekend. Todays leg is leg number 34(!) in the 25 km long H21 course from the Finnish Champs Ultralong, organized on May 21st 2011. The race was organized as a mass start with 3 forked loops of around 4 km first – and afterwards one long loop of 13 km. This 34th leg is towards the last part of the race – a decisive leg in the race! 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 (this is a real monsterleg – so it might be good to open it in a new window for drawing). 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. Remember that this is leg number 34 in a long course (you find the complete course here). Then you can take a look at how the runners who have drawn their route choice solved this leg. Full splits and results are available here. Click here to open to routes in a new window. Note that only a few of the good runners have drawn the…

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Simone Niggli: Willkommen Anja und Lars !!, 28. August 2011

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 24 2011

We have saved the best for last: Today’s Route to Christmas takes us to Sandstone terrain in the Czech Republic. We’ve got a fantastic course with a lot of route choice legs – and a short analysis by Czech National Team trainer Radek Novotny, who was also the course setter. – I have used the same legs for a czech team training race and for the Varsity match (Oxford/Cambridge) one week later, Novotny comments about the course. – 3 km more on the course in total And when you take a look at the routes below, it is actually quite interesting to see the difference in route choice between the Czech runners and the British runners. – Among the Czechs, we have got incredibly interesting comparison, especially between Smola and Sedivy – despite almost the same time in the finnish, they have chosen a totally different tactic. Smola ran mostly straight, while Sedivy took mostly the detours, having run 3 km more on the course in total! There are several interesting legs in this course. We start with the first one today, and take two more legs as bonus legs the next two days. The first leg we consider is the leg from control 4 to control 5 (right to left 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): Webroute Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think …

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World of O: World Cup Final Middle: Gueorgiou and Alexandersson

Tove Alexandersson and Thierry Gueorgiou took the victories in todays middle distance in the World Cup final weekend. In the mens class it was a very tight race between World Cup leader Daniel Hubmann and runner up Thierry Gueorgiou – but in the end Gueorgiou was the strongest. Still the 128 point lead of Hubmann is so large that he has to make big mistakes in the sprint tomorrow in order for Gueorgiou to have a chance. – I have to be really lucky to win the overall World Cup, Gueorgiou said after his race. In the womens class, it is a lot more open in the overall World Cup. Annika Billstam had a quite bad race today – and lost many points to the runner up Annika Billstam. Now Billstam has a lead of only 45 points to Helena Jansson – and Maja Alm i third has only a theoretical chance to win the overall World Cup. First World Cup victory for Alexandersson Tove Alexandersson had a fantastic weekend already in Liberec last weekend – with one third and one fourth place. Now the young Swede took another big step. – I knew after last weekend that I had the chance to win if I did a very good race. I knew that it would be hard, but I knew I had the chance. It was a good race. I have not done any mistakes – just some controls where I did not take the best routechoice. I am very satisfied. Helena Jansson took a second place after problems with sickness since last weekend. In third spot we find a young Norwegian how had her international breakthroug…

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Minna Kauppi: Clothes on

I spent the last two days mostly in front of cameras again as I made a new contract with Puma yesterday considering shoes and freetime. In the orienteering fields and other competitions Ill continue my long partnership with Noname. VJ provides the o-shoes and outside the forrest Ill have Voglia on. Now I got clothes on for every situation as for me the main thing is to look good without feeling bad:) Check out the new promotion picsa which we took yesterday in my photos!…

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Fabian Hertner: Autsch…

This happens when i forget how orienteering works……

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@WorldofO – Twitter: Protest against WOC in the future reaches Norwegian national newspaper – CWK threatening WOC boycot http://t.co/lrRhMbP0 (via @torbensfunk)

Protest against WOC in the future reaches Norwegian national newspaper – CWK threatening WOC boycot http://t.co/lrRhMbP0 (via @torbensfunk)…

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World of O: Pasi Ikonen in 2001: Using compass = Bad development

Q: Do you ever think of going back to using compass? Ikonen: I don’t think so. Going back in this issue would be… yeah, bad development. Ikonen – who took silver at this years World Champs long distance in France – 10 years after his previous individual WOC medal – started using a compass again in 2010. The interview below was published at OrienteeringOnline in 2001 – the international orienteering news website driven by Ivan Nagy some 8-10 years ago which has now turned into OrienteeringOnline Cup (or OOCup). With the silver medal of Ikonen at this years World Championships it was interesting to reread the interview. I therefore decided to republish it here. Thanks to OrienteerignOnline for the original interview. Interview with Pasi Ikonen, OrienteeringOnline.com, 2001 Q: When did you decide to put your compass away and why? You really never use it, no matter what terrain? Running without compass is my way to turn my orienteering into a piece of art It was in 1998. I ran into Eino Havas who is my coach nowadays. He had these crazy thoughts about orienteering and I had the same sickness… I did it because I was unsatisfied with my concentration in orienteering. I found myself TOO often just running with compass and not knowing my location. So I decided to find best treatment and I threw my compass away. I have it sometimes with me, but I don’t have reasons to use it anymore. It’s also a big challenge to run without comp…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 4 2011

For today’s leg in Route to Christmas we are back in Europe – to a long leg in hilly terrain in Switzerland. Todays leg in Route to Christmas is leg 14 in the Men Elite course from the first day of the Swiss O-week 2011, organized at July 31th 2011. 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. Based on the ones drawing their routes, it looks like the best option is to first run down into the valley and then follow the road around the hill (Hägler’s choice). As you can, all of these runners choose to run around the hill on the right side – whereas there is also a possibility to go left. I toook a look at the GPS-routes posted on 3DRerun/Omaps.worldofo.com from the race, and found an interesting comparison of some other runners (see below – you can also open the leg in the alpha-version of 2DRerun here – you need Google Chrome, Firefox or an iPad for that). One of these runners run left around the hil…

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World of O: NORT Stage 2: Victory for Lysell and Vinogradova

Jerker Lysell and Galina Vinogradova both took their first World Cup victories in the KnockOut sprint which was the second stage of the Nordic Orienteering Tour in Göteborg, Sweden today. Both Lysell and Vinogradova must be counted as KnockOut sprint specialists. Their only Top 3 World Cup results are from KnockOut sprints – Lysell with second spot in Stockholm last year and Vinogradova with 3rd spot in Stockholm last year. Maps KnockOut sprint This article will be updated with overall NORT results. Results Final Women final 2040 meter 6 anmälda 1 Galina Vinogradova Russia 10:39 2 Linnea Gustafsson Sweden 10:41 3 Lena Eliasson Sweden 10:47 4 Maja Alm Denmark 10:50 5 Annika Billstam Sweden 11:02 6 Mari Fasting Norway 11:11 Men final 2290 meter 6 anmälda 1 Jerker Lysell Sweden 10:24 2 Daniel Hubmann Switzerland 10:26 3 Matthias Kyburz Switzerland 10:27 4 Scott Fraser Great Britain 10:28 5 Frèdèric Tranchand France 10:32 6 Matthias Merz Switzerland 10:42 Results Semifinal Women semi-A 1780 meter 6 anmälda 1 Linnea Gustafsson Sweden 8:37 2 Annika Billstam Sweden 8:39 3 Mari Fasting Norway 8:43 4 Maja Alm Denmark 8:47 5 Tove Alexandersson Sweden 8:51 6 Emma Claesson Sweden 9:09 Women semi-B 1780 meter 6 anmälda 1 Galina Vinogradova Russia 8:48 2 Lena Eliasson Sweden 8:50 3 Merja Rantanen Finland 8:51 4 Amélie Chataing France 8:54 5 Angela Wild Switzerland 8…

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World of O: WOC 2011 Middle Qual: Maps and Results

Most of  the favourites managed to continue to the final in today’s middle distance qualification in the World Champs in Savoie, France. The courses were less tricky than expected by some – with a lot of running on tracks. Still there were more competitors from “smaller nations” than usually in the finals, and notably top runners like Pasi Ikonen (FIN) and Heidi Bagstevold (NOR) did not make the cut – Audun Weltzien (NOR) was very close with his 14th place. Heat winners were Valentin Novikov, Anders Nordberg, Peter Öberg, Minna Kauppi, Lena Eliasson and Merja Rantanen – all runners who are favourites for the Top 6 in the final on Wednesday. The “King of Middle” Gueorgiou did not win his heat – maybe a small surprise for some. – I planned to run full speed in the beginning and take it more easy in the end, but the course was made in such a way that I had to change my tactic along the course, because it was quite much running on path, Gueorgiou said after his race. – So i decided not to run full speed on tracks to save some energy. I have to recover for the long distance final, so  I am not surprise that Peter (Öberg) is faster than me in the beginning of his race because he is only running the middle so he does not need to recover and can run full speed. – I will now fully focus on Wednesday’s race (Long distance). I have been thinking about this race for a while now, and I am very looking forward to run it. Map…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 3 2011

In today’s Route to Christmas we are traveling all the way to New Zealand – to a very interesting, open terrain south of Auckland on the map Ngapuriri. Todays leg in Route to Christmas is leg 8 in the Red 1 course. 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). Take some time to understand what is up and what is down. 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 two main options – either choosing a direct route like Ogden (dark Blue) or going around on the track to the left like Morrison (light blue). Ogden is a second faster than Morrison – but on the other hand Morrison is a lot faster on the complete course. Without having been there, it is difficult to say what is the best option – but maybe one of the readers has been there and can give a comment? I myself without having been there guess I would have found the direct route to risky with all the cliffs, and would rather have gone around like Morrison. Complete map …

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Øystein Kvaal Østerbø: Norwegian Championship – live GPS tracking

The Norwegian Championship in orienteering is arranged just north of Oslo this week. The first race is arranged today with the Long distance, and the race can now be followed live with results, speaker sound and GPS tracking (from 12.45).I have as I wrote some days ago had problems with my back the last weeks, and I will therefore unfortunately not run today. But my back has been better the last days, and I will hopefully be able to run the Middle distance with qualification on Friday and final on Saturday. I will anyway not run the NM relay for Wing OK on Sunday because I will run the relay for IFK Lidingö in the Swedish Champs next week.Live centre for:Long distance TuesdayMiddle distance Qualification FridayMiddle distance Final SaturdayRelay Sunday…

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World of O: Route to Christmas 2011: Day -104

Still a long way to go until Christmas – but there were so nice, long routechoice legs at today’s Swedish Champs long distance that we make an early start this year – 104 days ahead of December 1st. The leg in question is the leg from control number 10 to 11 (there was actually also a very nice leg from 3 to 4 – I have saved that one for later). 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. When making your choice – remember that this is part of a long distance race. Now you can take a look at a graphical analysis of the leg based on the GPS-data of some of the fastest runners between these controls (click on an image to see a larger version of it). Note that times are off the GPS, so there might be some inaccuracies at the start/end of each route/track. As you can see below there are three main choices – either going direct, going far left or going to the right. Francois Gonon is fastest with a direct variant (15:28 according to the official splits). As you see from the illustration below, the runners which are closest to Gonon…

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Ultimate Orienteering: The essentials of Thierry Gueorgiou

What gear do the world’s best elite orienteers use? In this first edition we asked Thierry Gueorgiou about his essentials. O-Shirt Speed LZR from Trimtex. With some other top orienteers, I have worked on the conception and the fitti……

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 6 2011

Today we travel to Kongsberg, Norway – to a long and interesting leg from the last day of the traditional Kongsberg Pinseløpet. The leg we focus on in today’s Route to Christmas is leg 3 in the H40 course. Thanks to Terje Mathisen for the tip. As a bonus for today, we have got an analysis of the leg by former WOC bronze medalist Kjetil Bjørlo, who is one of the runners who has drawn his route for this particular leg. Thanks a lot to Kjetil for the analysis. If Kongsberg sounds familiar to some of you, the Kongsberg area was also the venue for the World Orienteering Championships in 1978 and CISM 2010. The leg without routes 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). When drawing your route, take note of the fact that this was a very wet day with wet marshes. 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. Today’s analysis: – Normally the Kongsberg-terrain is very fast and a terrain you never loose much time going straight ”on the line”. This of course, if you…

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Marianne Andersen: Hvor lenge kan man tro på julenissen?

Les mer …

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Pasi Ikonen: Finally back on WOC-medals!

Ten years of waiting is now over and big goalreached in the form of WOC-silver medal! WOC long distance in France was not the feared via Dolorosa for me – on the contrary, it was one of the most enjoyable runs I have had.On Monday I was rather disappointment after missing the final in middle distance, but on the starting line – on the western cliffs ofMassif de Bauges – I was already feeling strong, but humble. I got more humble by struggling with the early controls of the race, but it helped me to find the last safety routines needed later on during the course. After that all was easy in my performance, it was in fact like in the sport psychology books ;). Actually, every time I have done a really good performance,the general feeling has been extremely light.All the stars werein right positions today and Imade the right moves. But without friends and co-operators this would not have worked out at all:-Minna and my familyi – great support, in every turn!- Jarmo Heiskanen, Eino Havas ja Juhani Palonen – hey guys, we did it!- Vaajakosken Terä – Teräviiltää!!- Finnish orienteering folks, friends, relatives – thanks for the marvellous spirit!- and finally co-operators Icebug and Anttolanhovi THANKS TO YOU and now the story goes on to further adventures. On Saturdaywell fight for World Champs medals here in France. The results can be found here. Below youll find my exact routes and analysis of yesterdays race.By running a totally perfect run, I had still lost…

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Jan Prochazka: Czech Championship in brainless running (10km on track)

There are some reasons why I was running non-forked legs in last 2 years on 10mila. Our “team supporter” Borje always makes a jokes about some brainless runner from Central Europe. About one month ago I felt really happy when I found out that I am not only one brainless runner. There is Czech Championship in the brainless running. The rules are quite simple: You have to run 25 rounds on the track as fast as you can. What a race!source: behy.czSaturday 14th May was a day of 31min and 45sec running without brain and with huge pain. Before the race I wanted to challenge 31min border, but after 6km I felt totally destroyed and move my aim to 31:50. That was a double time of Czech team track and field time (We have to run 5km in 15:55 for selection to WOC sprint). I manage to do it and I was 7th best brainless runner. Stepan Kodeda finished just behind me as 8th best brainless runner and that results just showed to Finns from KR his real character!Results of 10km Czech Track ChampionshipOn Sunday I was too lazy to travel to Opava for Czech Cup, especially when I was not alone who makes this decision. I run pretty nice national competitions in terrain with many small details and really stony ground. This is one of the best terrains you can find in the Czech Republic. It took me 3 controls to start my brain after Saturday and I was losing bit over one minute after small mistakes in the beginning. Afterwards my performance was pretty good, just speed was bit lower. I finished 2nd…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 5 2011

Today’s Route to Christmas takes us to Ireland to the last race of the 2011 LongO series at Tollymore organized in March this year. Over 80 orienteers enjoyed fair weather and endured tough courses as you can read about here. To set you in the mood for today’s Route to Christmas, here is the terrain description from the event webpage: This area nestles on the northern slopes of the Mourne mountains near Newcastle. Tollymore forest is a mixed forest with many paths. It is disected by the Shimna river and provides some steep climbs towards the Drins. The open areas of Lukes mountain and Meelmore offer fast running and some areas of finer rock and contour detail especially amongst the granite workings of Meelmore. The area was considered for this years JK and a new 1:15000 map was commissioned for this purpose. Following the decision to hold the JK classic race at nearby Slieve Croob this will be the first chance for orienteers to use the combined area for a proper ‘classic’. Today’s leg is leg 6 in the Long course – a tough leg with a lot of climbing. As always it isn’t easy to make a choice without knowing the terrain in detail – especially when weighing green against taking extra climb – but still you’ll have to make a choice… 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 lar…

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World of O: Lundanes: – For me the discussion is about challenges

Olav Lundanes started it with a short Tweet – now he is back with a long explanation about his views about the future WOC program. – Since I was the one that picked up the discussion I should come with my opinion, Lundanes writes in a comment to the article “Lundanes: – Looks like I am supporting the destruction of orienteering” which has stirred a lot of discussion the last days. Read Lundanes’ comment – and join in on the discussions if you have something constructive to say. But remember: If you have an opinion which you think is worth listening to, bring it on to your national federation and put pressure on them to bring it on to the IOF – that’s the best way to influence the future WOC program. Read Lundanes’ full comment and relevant background information: The full comment from Olav Lundanes The article “Lundanes: – Looks like I am supporting the destruction of orienteering” at World of O – join in on the discussion The original Tweet of Olav Lundanes …

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Minna Kauppi: WOC

WOC ended with big smiley after all.Even if Im not too proud of my o-performance in the relay, Im so glad that I was able to fight for the team till the end.WOC was mentally really rough this time. read more…

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World of O: WOC Long: Maps, Results and Interviews

Thierry Gueorgiou and Annika Billstam both won very clear victories in the WOC Long distance today. Gueorgiou was the big favourite before the race – and he also managed to live up to the expectations – now being the first men to win gold medals in all individual disciplines. Billstam has been doing some of the last preparations with the French team – and it did not seem to hurt… Gueorgiou had set enormous pressure on himself ahead of this World Champs – and winning the gold medal took a lot of pressure off his shoulders. – I am very  happy to win this long distance race here at the World Champs on homeground. It was very tough race. Now I am heading to middle and relay with hope to take more gold medals. In the end he was 4:27 ahead of Pasi Ikonen in second spot – and more than 6 minutes ahead of Francois Gonon in third spot. – I am completely wasted, Gueorgiou said after finishing the race of his life. Can “The King of Middle” get down on the ground again ahead of the middle distance on Friday? Even clearer victory Billstam’s victory was even bigger than Gueorgiou’s victory – it was 4:28 down to Dana Brozkova in second spot and another three minutes down to Helena Jansson in third. – I am very happy. My plan today was to take safe route choices all the way, and push the best i could, a smiling Billstam said after the race. – I sometimes thought I maybe run too far around, but it looks like it was the…

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Minna Kauppi: Coming up

…Finlands Sports gala in Helsinki on Monday. Finnish athletes havent been too good this year so Ill probably get some kinda pity points from the voters;)Our golden relay team is also nominated so well get some glory. …

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Minna Kauppi: Bonjour or not…

It goes so well. As if. Check my routes for todays Revard session in heavy rain. Sometimes it seems that I know how to orienteer here, but when it goes wrong, it really does… read more…

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Minna Kauppi: Bad day from Switzerland

Our own long distance competition should have been yesterday but one third of the folks were just wommiting in the bathroom. After laying some two days in the bed, were all feelingbetter nowand maybe even making some kinda walk in the forest tomorrow. Now, were staying in the beautiful city of Baden and almost enjoying the warmth. However, we should take part in the Swiss champs in sprint and middle next weekend and it feels bad just walking the stairs at the moment.Anyway, summer is nice and spirit is good, so its quite nice here. Ill be better, read more…

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Simone Niggli: Titelstory

In dieser Woche sind wir die Titelgeschichte der Schweizer Illustrierte. Mal schauen, was Lars und Anja in ein paar Jahren dazu sagen werden… ;-)) Bei uns läuft immer etwas, der Alltag ist mit drei Kindern und dem wiederbegonnenen Training mehr als gefüllt!Mein Trainingsaufbau verlief soweit sehr gut und ich werde versuchen, die Homepage in Kürze wieder aktuell mit Berichten zu füllen. Geniesst die November-Wärme, bis auf bald! …

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World of O: JWOC Sprint: Maps and Results

The first ever JWOC victory for France by Lucas Basset – and another JWOC victory for Denmark with Ida Bobach. That is the results of Day 1 of the Junior World Championships in orienteering in Poland today. The championships continue with long distance Monday. Maps Map men Map women – (see also map of Maren J. Haverstad with route) Results men 1 143 Basset Lucas France M20 00:15:07,7 2 147 Blanes Andreu Spain M20 00:15:17,4 3 75 Howald Florian Switzerland M20 00:15:19,1 4 140 Merl Robert Austria M20 00:15:20,4 5 128 Olejnik MichaÅ‚ Poland M20 00:15:31,5 6 130 Kinneberg Eskil Norway M20 00:15:33,0 7 59 Kubát Pavel Czech Republic M20 00:15:42,1 8 106 Tikhonov Gleb Russia M20 00:15:44,7 9 60 PodziÅ„ski RafaÅ‚ Poland M20 00:15:53,9 1 143 Basset Lucas France M20 00:15:07,7 2 147 Blanes Andreu Spain M20 00:15:17,4 3 75 Howald Florian Switzerland M20 00:15:19,1 4 140 Merl Robert Austria M20 00:15:20,4 5 128 Olejnik MichaÅ‚ Poland M20 00:15:31,5 6 130 Kinneberg Eskil Norway M20 00:15:33,0 7 59 Kubát Pavel Czech Republic M20 00:15:42,1 8 106 Tikhonov Gleb Russia M20 00:15:44,7 9 60 PodziÅ„ski RafaÅ‚ Poland M20 00:15:53,9 10 42 Vister Martin Norway M20 00:15:54, Results women 1 617 Bobach Ida Denmark W20 00:14:29,5 2 627 Klingenberg Emma Denmark W20 00:14:31,8 3 609 Novotná Tereza Czech Republic W20 00:14:41,5 4 559 Alexandersson Tove Sweden W20 00:14:59,3 5 599 Gross Julia Switzerland W20 00:15:15,7 6 581 Simpson Angela New Zeland W20 00:15:16,2 7 611 Martinsson Li…

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Fabian Hertner: attempt to set a new world record

In our sport we’ll never have the chance to set a world record. To supply this want, an idea grew until it was a concrete plan: we attempt to set a new world record in 24h running on treadmill in a group of 12 athletes… …

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Pasi Ikonen: Finnish selection races

Todays performance on Finnish Teams middle distance selection race wasnt exactly very good. I got lost on the first control (3min) and made another big mistake on easy 4th control (2.40min). Hovever, those mistakesdidnt kill my racing humour and I enjoyed Mr. Salmis excellent course till the end. Lowering of the intensity is one key element for successful performances in these terrains, and I havent yet found enough courage to take it easy enough at those crucial points. On the first control we had a new clearing and I got confused with that. When the map has changed like that, you really have to take it easy and I didnt do that well enough today. Well, I know that I surely can do that and tomorrow is the next chance to find the right rhythm. I will add the long distance map tomorrow as soon as possible and here you can see our course today. I think 33min would be a nice time: In the long distance selection race I chose a safe tactic: do not run too fast ever and have a full contact with the map all the time. I didnt use a magnifying glass today, which forced me to walk in some places, but thiswas only a good thing. I didnt do mistakes over 30s and totally I could have made only about 3-4mins faster. On this course I consider it as a rather excellent performance: …

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 22 2011

Today’s Route to Christmas is staged in Kongsberg, Norway. This is no big competition – but rather a training event in the middle of May at the map Kjennerudvannet. Kongsberg is a Norwegian club with many good youth runners – and several previous World Championships medalists and other top runners as trainers. They focus a lot on technical training, and their RouteGadget site is part of it. A lot of interesting maps to see there. – One of those legs where you don’t see the perfect solution Now over to today’s leg. We are looking at leg number 7 in the 5.4 km course at the map Kjennerudvannet. One of the runners starring here is Damien Renard – former member of the successful French National Team – you will see his route further down. The Kongsberg is very often run-straight terrain, but on this leg there is a lot of up and down along the line – it is one of those legs where you don’t really see a perfect solution at first sight. But maybe you can spot a good one anyway? 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 …

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 14 2011

Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is a long leg up in the northern UK on Holme Fell. The event was used as World Champs selection races, and thus there were a lot of top runners present. The terrain is quite marshy, with a lot of contours to be fought. The leg in question is leg number 10 in the Men 21 Elite course. To get in the mood for the leg, you can read the organizer’s comment after the race (see the full report and results here): – There cannot be a much more rewarding area than Holme Fell to plan on and almost everyone we spoke to after their runs was very complimentary about the courses, even though many of them found the area tough, both physically and technically. It isn’t often that courses can be planned which maintain a TD5 level throughout whilst providing some subtle changes of terrain and several testing long legs as well as a control-picking series of short legs. Here is an image from the area to give you a bit of an impression about what it is like. 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). I suspect that the road is forbidden to run on as you can see on this other competition map from the race (but there is a path beside it). Webroute Next you can draw your own route using the ‘Webroute’ below. Think through how you would attack this leg, and draw the …

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 12 2011

Today we are finally travelling out of Europe again – to some quite intricate terrain in the forests of Whitehorse in Canada! Todays leg is from the Western Canadian Championships Long distance 2011 organized on July 17th 2011. Thanks to Will Critchley for help with terrain description and analysis. 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). When thinking about your route choice, take into account that the forests of Whitehorse are not as fast as the white forest you might find in Europe. Much of the forest is Spruce and Pine trees, both of which can have low branches which obscure running speed and visibility. The area had a fair amount of deadfall as well. Along with the many smaller hills and depressions, it can also be difficult to stay in contact with the map and avoid going off course if one is trying to avoid too much climb. Note also that this was near the end of the course, so fatigue was setting in. 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. Taking a look at the alternatives …

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Gernot Kerschbaumer: Spring Cup Relay – what a drama

After yesterday’s Springcup Relay, some questions, concerning rules, have arisen for me. Background: the first three teams of Men’s Open Relay were in danger to be disqualified: Vaajakosken Terä due to a missing punch on the SI card, IFK Göteborg and our team, Pan Kristianstad, due to crossing an embargoed area. From my point of view, strictly applying every rule, all three teams would have had to be disqualified. VT: in the finish, Jonne’s read out showed a misspunch, but after some……

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World of O: Hubmann: – I choose Czech Republic

Czech Republic on top and Switzerland on the bottom: That is how World Champion Daniel Hubmann (Switzerland) summarizes the best and worst courses of the year. – I have been running some really nice races this year, but I choose the World Cup race in Czech Republic, middle distance, as my candidate for the course of the year, Hubmann says. – In addition to the good courses, the organizer has proven that it is possible to make a good event from all points of view: Challenging orienteering, nice TV pictures from the forest, effective forking system, etc, Hubmann continues about his favourite course in 2011 (see map and GPS-tracking here). Below you see an autOanalysis from Daniel Hubmann versus Thierry Gueorgiou from the middle distance race World Cup race in Czech Republic. If you are adventurous, you can also try out the autOanalysis interactively in the new alpha-version of 2DRerun which gives an even better illustration of how the race developed – see also this route choice comparison for leg 3-4 (Note! 2DRerun does for now not work in Internet Explorer-it does work on the iPad though. There are a lot of bugs to be fixed, so do it for the adventure. Still, from the links given you can continue to explore the race, animate the routes and so on:). Course of the Year 2011 Which course will take the prestigious top spot this year? The search for the course of the year  will be fun, for sure as it was last year! The rules are simple: Suggest a course from a com…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 7 2011

Todays leg in Route to Christmas is one of the nominations for Course of the Year 2011 – featuring Thierry Gueorgiou and Marc Lauenstein – two of the runners nominated for The Orienteering Achievement of 2011. Thanks to Benoit Cochey for the tip. We have headed over to France – to one of the preparation races for the World Orienteering Championships on May 8th. The race was held close to Grenoble, and the terrain has some of the same characteristics as the WOC terrain although the runnability is a bit better. Still, the white areas are not very fast, and paths are absolutely your friend in this area. The chosen leg is leg number 3 in the Men 21E course. 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. As you can see Thierry Gueorgiou crushes the competition on this leg even if there are quite a few good runners present – being nearly 1:30 faster than Marc Lauenstein on this leg. Looking at the route of Gueorgiou – it i…

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Mikkel Lund: The END

Efter 11 Ã¥r og over 100 landsholdsoptrædener vælger jeg at stoppe med min internationale landsholdssatsning! Det skyldes flere ting, men primært er det den mÃ¥de jeg i Ã¥r er blevet behandlet af DOF`s landstræner og eliteudvalg det sidste Ã¥r! Det største jeg har oplevet er at vinde det Norske Mesterskab pÃ¥ mellemdistance. Det var helt vildt at slÃ¥ alle nordmændene pÃ¥ deres egen hjemmebane i et teknisk krævende og stenet terræn. Det glemmer jeg aldrig. Ellers har jeg været i top 6 i world cup 4 gange individuelt, alle gange pÃ¥ sprint. Selvom 2. pladsen fra Dresden er den højeste placering, sÃ¥ er det nok 4. pladsen pÃ¥ EM i Estland som rangerer højest med 5 strækvindere pÃ¥ de sidste 6 poster. Desværre blev det ikke til medalje. Det gjorde det heller ikke to Ã¥r før pÃ¥ hjemmebane i Roskilde. Her mistede jeg bronzen pÃ¥ vej til næstsidste og det er noget der stadig ærgrer mig nÃ¥r jeg tænker tilbage pÃ¥ det. I 2003 var jeg med til at tage bronze i EM stafet sammen med Carsten Jørgensen og Renè Rokkjær. Det var helt vildt og weekenden efter blev vi nr. 2 i en world cup stafet og vi blev ogsÃ¥ nr. 2 samlet i world cup. Det var et fantastisk stafet Ã¥r sammen med fantastiske holdkammerater. Den største nedtur jeg har oplevet er uden tvivl at jeg floppede totalt i VM sprinten pÃ¥ hjemmebane i Ã…rhus. Jeg havde haft et kanon forÃ¥r med blandt andet 4. pladsen i EM og formen var kanon. Desværre lavede jeg en fatal fejl inde i Tivoli Friheden. Jeg oversÃ¥ …

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Minna Kauppi: THE END

One season is over again and despite the smaller outcomes I finished it really nicely winning my very first World cup victory in sprint (if I remember right). Check the GPS here. I was even surprised that the double points got me on the second spot in the overall ranking. read more…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 20 2011

Todays leg in Route to Christmas is from Latvia – from the long distance championships. This is very marshy terrain – as you often meet in Latvia – and a combination of small hills and some paths/roads makes this an interesting area from some route choice leg. The event was held on June 6th 2011. The chosen leg is leg number 2 in the Men 21 Elite course. 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 is run from the top and down on the map. 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, the direct variant which uses the road for a while in the middle of the leg is fastest. None of the runners drawing their route took the rightmost variant which has most path and road – I am quite sure that many of the Route to Christmas visitors have chosen this variant as it has little uphill, a lot of road/path and is not much longer. I suspect that the road is sandy and therefore slow – and also that the semi-open areas have bad runnability &#…

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O-training.net: Theoretical O-exercise: Follow the camera

You have the map with start triangle marked on it. Then you have 3 videos. Your task is to correctly mark the position of Control number 1, Control number 2 and Control number 3. Can you manage? In cooperation with OOCup we are able to deliver this nice theoretical O-exercise from Slovenian forests. If you have more time left after pondering over Route to Christmas, this is an excellent way of training your ability to understand the correspondence between map and terrain. The videos are of good quality (some of the best we have seen from orienteering in the forest), so it should not be as tiring to follow as some of the earlier similar o-technical challenges presented here at o-training.net. Ultimate map To make it a bit more tricky, the map shown is an “Ultimate map”, i.e. a map without paths as used in the special “Ultimate category” in OOCup. The rules are simple: Mark the 3 control points on the map, and submit your solution. OOCup even provides some prizes if you manage to find the correct solution AND are lucky: From all participants who send correct answers by December 31st, 4 prize winners are drawn, winning 1 transferable entry to OOcup, 1 transferable entry to Lipica Open, 1 OOcup T-shirt and 1 OOcup cap. It is recommended to set the resolution from 360 to 720 in the videos for better details. Scroll down inside the video box to see videos number 2 and 3. Note! This isn’t easy – I had to watch the first video three times before I …

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 19 2011

Today’s leg in Route to Christmas is a really long leg on a colorful Hungarian map. This is one of those maps where it is really tough to run on a hot day. No problem with heat this day – the race was run on February 27th. The chosen leg is leg number 6 in the M21A course. 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 right to left. 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 is a big variation in chosen routes. The fastest runner of the day chooses a quite direct route – which is probably a quite good option. Based on the times only it is not easy to be sure what is the best option – it may seem like the most important thing here is to be accurate with the compass and steer away from the green area. The long detour to the right seems too long for this 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 …

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Minna Kauppi: On my own:)

Last weekend I wasthinking that its a bit boring that our team never goes to Tiomila again. My team mates just have too much life on their own that Im more or less on my own training hard. On the otherhand, when the main goals are just individual ones at the moment, you can just train as much as you like and as wicely as possible when it comes to the biggest goals of the season. read more…

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World of O: WOC in the future: WOC Week ideas discussed at IOF Joint Meeting

Day 1 Sprint, Day 2 Sprint mixed relay, Day 4 Chasing start, Day 5 Long Final, Day 7 Middle Final and Day 8 Relay – that is one suggestions about what the future WOC week may look like. The WOC in the future (WIF) project is one of the topics discussed at the IOF Joint Meeting and Map Commission meeting in Helsinki today. All attendees at the meeting in Helsinki were divided into 7 groups, and asked to form an attractive (media, elites…) WOC week. This gave 7 different ideas for the program of the WOC week in the future – the one given above is one of the 4 which “resonated the most” in the discussions, according to reports at the Facebook page of Olles maps. – Leho Haldna and Björn Persson presented the WIF first, especially the constraints set by Trondheim General Assembly (8 days, new mass start event included, new mixed relay included). In the table below, you see 7 different ideas for the program of the WOC week in the future. For suggestion number 7 there is a separate sprint WOC. The suggestions which “resonated the most” are shown in bold. Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 1 Sprint Q/F Sprint Mixed Relay – Chase Start Event Long F – Middle F Relay 2 Sprint Mixed Relay Sprint Q/F – Middle F Chase Start Event – Relay Long F 3 Sprint Q/F Mixed Relay Middle Q – Relay – Middle F – Chase Start Long F 4 Sprint Q/F Mixed Relay Long F – Middle F Relay 5 Sprint Q/F Sprint Mixed Relay – Middle Q Middle…

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Minna Kauppi: FC-long

Damn. The lazy lizzard wasnt doing her job this time either. The Finnish champs in long distance were held in a great terrain. The courses were nice and Im so pissed off that I was being stupid again. The goal was to just orienteer but suddenly I just noticed that I was somewhere just running and hardly having the map with me. read more…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 17 2011

In today’s Route to Christmas we are off to the British Championships long distance organized close to Sheffield in the middle of May this year. Thanks to Dave Schorah for the tip. Course setters on this British Championships long distance were Oli and Jenny Johnson – both elite runners in the British Team. – The challenge of three – for most competitors – very different terrain types and the physical challenge of some typical Yorkshire forest, alongside Oli and Jenny’s well planned courses made for some tired legs, the controller comments the race. Here are some of the course setters comments: – Using Grenoside, Wheata and Wharncliffe Woods together made it possible to plan really varied courses with some great route choice legs and tricky control picks. The goal was to design Classic races which would be won by the best orienteer (regardless of whether or not the area ’suited them’) and to provide a challenge on every leg. We hope we came close to achieving this and the best compliment we could be given was the excellent times set by the winners on all courses. Well done to them all. Under 6 min/km for 14.5 km – We are, of course, both impressed and disappointed that W21E and particularly M21E were faster than expected, having lengthened these courses during the planning stages. Wharncliffe is an area with a fearsome reputation and it is a tribute to Doug Tullie that he managed to dip under 6min/km for his 14.5km course. On W21E mistake…

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World of O: Gold for Finland after a relay thriller!

Minna Kauppi secured the gold medal for Finland after a thriller of a relay! The lead changed a countless number of times during the last leg. At some point it looked like Marianne Andersen had the gold in her pocket for Norway. Estonia was also up there at some time in the lead. Then Switzerland, Czech Republic – and of course Sweden also was on gold course at some point. In the end Minna Kauppi took the gold for Finland ahead of Czech Republic (Dana Brozkova) and Sweden (Annika Billstam). – This was the best gold medal ever, Kauppi said in the interview after the race – even if she already has 7 gold medals – 4 of them from the relay. – It was the same as it always is [in a WOC relay]. I do a big mistake, and then there is big drama, a happy gold medalist Minna Kauppi said after the race. Below you see a snapshot of the tracking towards one of the last controls on the last loop. Finland has just made a mistake along with Switerland – and it (again) looked like the game was lost for Minna and Finland. However, Finland came back in the lead, forming a small group with Sweden and Czech Republic. – It was a mental win. I have just been waiting for this week to end, but we girls agreed that we would finish this one together and win, the very, very happy Finnish star of orienteering said after her race. – I made a big mistake at the 2nd control – and found the 6th control before the 2nd. Then there was a long leg to the 3rd control where I could co…

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World of O: Route to Christmas: Day 13 2011

A long leg and many stones and boulders! Today’s leg in Route to Christmas brings us back to France again – but to very different terrain from what we have visited earlier in the 2011 edition of Route to Christmas. This leg is taken from a national league championship that was the first important race of the season. Thanks to Mathieu Kern-Gillard for information about the terrain. The reason for choosing another leg from France is simple: France is one of the countries (along with Finland, Czech Republic and Great Britain) who uses RouteGadget the most. In addition France has some very interesting terrain – and runners who share their routes with others in RouteGadget. Fontainebleau: choose your route! 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): A terrain description is always nice to have as a background when choosing your route – although it is not like really being there: The race took place in Fontainebleau forest, a very nice place with some hilly slopes full of big boulders, and intricated contours separated by flat “empty” areas. The forest is a mix of decidious and pine trees, with heather on the ground. In some places (some paths and those yellow/orange open area) there is sand which slow you. The running speed, and visibility is mostly very good. Webroute N…

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World of O: WOC proposal ready: Chasing start and sprint relay

The WOC in the future groups suggestions are up: A prologue + chasing start race and a sprint relay is introduced – and all qualifications are removed except for the sprint. – It is proposed that WOC is divided into three blocks, “Sprint”, “Middle” and “Traditional” with a rest day in between each block, to give the organisers, TV, etc. time to re-group equipment and set-up in a new arena, IOF writes on their webpage. What do you think about the new WOC program proposal?Market Research Update! The full proposal from the WIF project group is now available here (via the Norwegian Orienteering Federation). The full proposal includes some interesting detailing not available at the web version of the proposal, e.g. Notably, the proposal means introducing a chasing start rather than a mass start, which was part of the project remits. The reason for this is that in consultations with TV and other media it has been concluded that a chasing start has considerable advantage over a mass start concerning production economy and the possibility for spectators and commentators to understand the development of the race, while still offering the element of first-to-finish . (A mass-start is foreseen to need complicated forking models to make it fair.) The order of events within the Sprint- and Traditional blocks is free to be decided by each organisers, whereas the order of events in the Middle block should be fixed. The project group has found two main alternatives f…

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Can you make a quick choice here?

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. Note that there is a problem with the drawn routes here – just ignore the direct line between the controls and the small loop in the middle of the leg (which actually goes to the finish). No analysis provided – I am still enjoying my holidays…

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 has been 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 2011-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.

- Please note that the area is very complex and might look very different in another competition, since certain gates can be opened or closed arbitrarily, Less continues.

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 I took a leg in the M35 course instead of the suggested one in the M40 course due to more fast runner drawing their routes 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. No time for any big analyses today – I’m enjoying my well deserved Christmas vacations:) I just quickly note that the left variant seems to be significantly slower based on the ones drawing their routes. If you know or see more from the routes – please add a comment!

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 has been 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 2011-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 we consider today is a very short leg from control 1 to control 2 – the shortest leg in this year’s Route to Christmas – but not the least interesting one. 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 analysis by Novotny showing four different routes in the illustration below:

- The red one was probably slightly the fastest. And again, you can see a long detour of Sedivy, just 20″ down.

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 has been 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 2011-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 we consider today is the leg from control 7 to control 8. 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. First the Czech National Team runners – then the Varsity match runners. As yesterday it is interesting to see how a different route is faster among the Varsity match runners than among the Czech National Team runners.

Finally we offer the analysis by Radek Novotny (see illustration below regarding the colors for the routes).

- As you can see, straight (red/yellow) and right (blue) is the same here – you probably spare some strength when running right (blue). This leg offers also left alternative (green), which is quite realistic as well. Ben Stevens from Varsity match did 6:19 there and I am quite convinced that the best Czech men would easily make it under 6min there as well.

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 has been 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 2011-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.

- I have used the same legs for a czech team training race and for the Varsity match (Oxford/Cambridge) one week later, Novotny comments about the course.

- 3 km more on the course in total

And when you take a look at the routes below, it is actually quite interesting to see the difference in route choice between the Czech runners and the British runners.

- Among the Czechs, we have got incredibly interesting comparison, especially between Smola and Sedivy – despite almost the same time in the finnish, they have chosen a totally different tactic. Smola ran mostly straight, while Sedivy took mostly the detours, having run 3 km more on the course in total!

There are several interesting legs in this course. We start with the first one today, and take two more legs as bonus legs the next two days.

The first leg we consider is the leg from control 4 to control 5 (right to left 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):

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. Looking at the Czech runners (first illustration below), you see that the three fastest times are on the direct variant, with Dlabaja running the fastest time.

The analysis by Novotny:

- Straight was best here. We had also Pavel Kubat running the right alternative, where he did 8:00 (check the Hj class, they had same course and Kubat ran excellently on the day).

Looking at the Varsity match runners, it is interesting to note that none of them took the direct route. Note also that one runner takes the right variant (down and up again) which none of the top Czech runners took – only loosing around 20 seconds to the best time. The Czech runners are however nearly two minutes faster.

As a sidenote: Novotny offers training camps in this sandstone area through the webpage sandstones.cz – I have been there several times for Prague Easter and training camps, and the terrain type is one of my favourites.

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 has been 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 2011-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 race was run on October 16th 2011 – close to Sheffield. 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. Here is the analysis provided by Bailey:

- I found it difficult to decide which way to go, and I think the key here is just to make a quick decision and stick to it. I wasn’t sure how easy the climb up along the wall would be, and the open on the top is slow grass and heather. Contouring round seemed like the safest approach, although it still requires some concentration :-) The in-between route was probably the best, if you’re a confident orienteer.

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 has been 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 2011-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.