2010 High Performance Program

The Canadian Orienteering Federation has re-established the High Performance Program, or HPP in short, starting this year. 24 athletes, junior and senior, have joined the group with a focus to improve Team Canada results at international orienteering events in the coming years. The athletes' names are listed below on the left.

The program is trying to create a team spirit, despite athletes being spread geographically. Everyone is encouraged to share training logs online, to take part in online meetings and to join training camps and races. Major international events that Team Canada athletes are preparing for this year include, World University Championships, Junior World Championships and World Championships.

A goal of the program is to raise the profile of elite orienteering in Canada and one communication channel is this blog. The HPP will work towards an active posting schedule throughout the year, with training updates and reports from big races. Hope you will enjoy to follow the progress of our elite athletes!

Viszont látásra Miskolc

The World Championships are now over for this time. We spent the last two days running the spectator races and enjoying the Hungarian cuisine. Today was the Long Final, next to the Slovakian border in the north. The terrain was karst with big depressions and rocky ground, but mostly very open forests. The Swiss dominated with wins both in the men's and women's by Daniel Hubmann and Simone Niggli.

We are now getting ready for the banquet and party tonight and packing our bags to come home for the Canadian Championships in Manitoba next weekend.

Thanks for following our racing in Hungary!

Dramatic Relay

38 nations started the men's relay at 11 am this morning close to the village of Bankut. Patrick Goeres opened for Canada, but struggled a bit on the first leg. After a small mistake on the first control he lost the train of the leading pack and then had to fight the rest of the way without the help of the speed of the fastest teams. Patrick changed over to Mike Smith in 27th position, 9:25 behind Russia. Mike had the best run of the day on the Canadian team and picked up to 24th, passing Team USA out in the forest. Jon Torrance ran the last leg, but was not able to hold off the Americans and dropped down to 29th.

In the fight for the medals, there was a very dramatic finish. France, Sweden and Norway had pulled away in the lead when the Swede Martin Johansson got a stick of wood in the leg, causing a deep cut and a lot of bleeding. The French Thierry Gueorgiou and the Norwegian Anders Nordberg stopped to help Johansson and were soon joined by the Czech Michal Smola. Nordberg ran for help while Gueorgiou and Smola stayed with the Swede to stop the bleeding. Meanwhile, the chasing teams passed through the forest without noticing what had happened and the Swiss ran in as gold medalists, unaware of the drama. Johansson was eventually taken to hospital in stable condition and will recover. The rescue team of Smola, Gueorgiou and Norberg then decided to jog the rest of the course together to complete the race and was greeted at the finish as heroes with applause.

The women's relay was also very exciting with changes in the lead as mistakes were made in the tricky and difficult terrain. In the end it turned out to be an all Scandinavian affair with Norway taking the gold before Sweden and Finland.

To the Relay!

The final event of the week is only hours away! Since no Canadians made the Long Final this year, the relay is our grand finale of WOC. We are aiming to improve upon our #23 bib! And of course, beat the Americans. There should be good online coverage with TV, audio and radio controls. The 3rd leg runners will carry GPS for live tracking online as well.

Here's how you can follow along:

1. Banter on the WorldofO Blog (in previous days there were also some links to live videos)
2. More North American-specific chatter on the discussions at Attackpoint
3. Live video and GPS at WOC Live

Top 40

Patrick improved his result from the Sprint Final last year in Czech Republic, breaking into the top 40, finishing in 38th position. He felt a little bit tired after the qualifier in the morning, but the race was basically clean apart from a few hesitations and map stops. Behind the amazing winning time of the Russian Andrey Khramov the field was very close. "Only" 50 seconds faster would have moved Patrick all the way up to the top 20. Silver and bronze went to Switzerland again for Fabian Hertner and Daniel Hubmann.

For the women it was a great day for Sweden with gold and silver to Helena Jansson and Linnea Gustafsson respectively. Simone Niggle got the bronze for Switzerland. The courses went through the beech forest again, but also into the Miskolc Zoo for some very tricky controls. The arena production was impressive with two big screens and several cameras on the course.

Tomorrow is the relay, where the Canadian men will run with Patrick Goeres, Mike Smith and Jon Torrance.

Patrick is in!

Patrick Goeres made it into the Sprint Final with a hard run without much time lost on mistakes. 11th position with 13 seconds to spare! The terrain was not quite as tricky as the model map indicated, but still required intense navigation. Controls were placed very close and there was an unusually large number of runners disqualified for punching the wrong control. Patrick's exact start time in the final is 4:36 pm local time in Hungary (e.g 7:36 am in Vancouver, 11:36 am in Halifax). Make sure to follow the on-line coverage!

Will Critchley also had very fast running speed. 2/3 into the course he had a clean run, but then lost time on a mistake as the course entered into an area of buildings and fences. Jon Torrance had good speed as well, but too many mistakes pushed him down the result list. Louise Oram and Carol Ross were both about 45 seconds on the outside after good runs technically. Just need a little bit more speed!

Men's sprint results

Congrats to Patrick who appears to have qualified in 11th position in the 3rd men's heat. Unfortunately Will and Jon are outside of the top 15. The women's race is currently underway!