WOC Sprints - Athlete's Perspective

You've seen the results, the maps, the GPS tracking, and this blog (of course), but what was this year's World Championships Sprint & Sprint Relay experience for the athletes like? Here's a bit of an update from Canada's athletes.

The Sprint

British housing estates. A community of houses that look exactly the same, designed in mildly illogical ways with pathways, passageways, parks, playgrounds and.... postboxes? The sprint qualifier was held in one such housing estate on the west side of the town of Forres. It was expected to be a very fast but potentially tricky sprint, given the similarity of the features and the multiple route choices for almost every leg. Throw in the variable of some wet grass and things were surprisingly tricky, particularly for a sprint qualifier.

Speaking about the qualifier Tori said, "It was a memorable occasion. As I lie awake at night, the visions of my race dance vividly in my mind like it was yesterday. Come to think of it, it was yesterday."

- Editor's note: The above quote was entirely fabricated as an incentive to receive real quotes from the athletes.

"There was a couple of route choice legs that you needed to decide on ahead of time, which proved to sometimes be difficult due to the intensity of the navigation and the speed at which the features came up while running. It was really important to stay on top of where you were because of how similar the buildings were. Unlike in North America, these neighborhoods are certainly not on a grid system, so it is a major adjustment from what we are used to."

Robbie added that "I wore my new wellies during the race today, and, in addition to being a great performance enhancer, they also looked way stylish. Everyone thinks I'm local"

- Editor's note: Possibly also not a true statement.

Robbie dominated the vaulting of the sketchy hay bale fence stairs that were featured in the sprint qualifier.

Every year, getting to the final of the sprint at the World Championships gets tougher and tougher. The caliber of the competition is getting so high that one has to be at the top of their game and be almost flawless in their execution. Although the team may not have had their best results this year, they plan on taking what they learned this year to try and improve for the future.

Emma made a solid WOC sprint debut!

Sprint Relay

Redemption time. After a less than optimal sprint the day before, the sprint relay was an opportunity for the team to try to improve on last year's result, with the same order as in Italy - Louise, Will, Damian, and Tori as anchor. The team is now significantly more experienced at Sprint Relays since 2014, having increased their international race experience from 0 to 1.

The sprint relay was held on the seaside town of Nairn. The start sent the runners straight out onto the beach for a quick and intense jaunt onto some mini sand-dunes before a complex town network with a few artificial fences in the mix. Another jump into the dunes and a bit of park as well made it a surprisingly varied sprint challenge.

Louise went first, and post-race said "I would have had a great start to the race, but the idyllic waterfront setting and my love of the movie 'Chariots of Fire' forced me to run in slow motion for the entire beach leg."

- Editor's note: This one is plausible, but also not true.

[D-flat major] Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun (Photo by Ethan Childs)

"It was really cool to see how many people were out spectating, even in the random parts of the town. I did make a mistake in the first part of the course, where the intensity of the race and the forking made for some really difficult navigational challenges."

Damian, the team's third runner, had an especially strong leg, clawing back time on both the Australian and British teams, enough to make the stadium announcer refer to a "battle of the commonwealth".

"It was fun running with the Aussies and the Brits, and running with such strong teams is a great motivator to push that extra bit harder. The fake fences also added some interesting route choice options and I was pleased that made smart choices when they came up. It was a good mix of terrain between the dunes along the ocean to the tricky streets and the open parkland."

In the end, the team jumped four places from their 2014 result and were two minutes closer to the winner. This is an resounding improvement over last year and after the race enthusiasm was high for continuing to work hard to get better for next year. The sprint relay in Nairn was definitely an exciting event with great enthusiasm from all the spectators, a fun and interesting course, and fantastic scenery.

Damian and Will hammering. (photos by Ethan Childs)

Also, it didn't rain. Except for a bit in the warm-up. And for about three hours before the race. And after the race. But for that brief, shining hour....

Photo from WOC2015 Facebook Page

WOC Sprint Relay

It was an exciting day in Nairn! For the sprint relay, each team has 4 runners (2 male and 2 female). The map was a combination of tricky sand dunes, lots of parallel streets, some added fences, and important route choice legs.

Team Canada improved upon their 26th placing last year to come in 22nd! There was a particularly exciting finish with Tori Owen outsprinting the German team by one second. Full results can be found here and here.

Leg	Place	Name	Country	Time (Total)	Time Behind 1st	Individual leg placing
1	1	Emma Klingenberg	DEN	15:15
	22	Louise Oram	CAN	18:13	2:58	22
2	1	Tue Lassen	DEN	30:38
	21	Will Critchley	CAN	34:22	3:44	16
3	1	Soren Bobach	DEN	46:12
	21	Damian Konotopetz	CAN	50:45	4:33	17
4	1	Maja Alm	DEN	60:54
	22	Tori Owen	CAN	70:04	9:10	25

The Sprint Final is tomorrow. The next race the Canadians are in is the Middle Final on Tuesday, August 8th. Start times are between 11:54-16:15 BST (3:54am - 8:15am PST; 8:54-1:15pm EST). Emily Kemp, Louise Oram, Brian May, and Damian Konotopetz are racing. Let's go Canada! 

WOC Sprint Qualifier

Today, our team raced in the sprint qualifier at Forres. There were a couple of tough route choices, and lots of opportunities to lose track of where you were in tiny alleys. The top 15th from each heat on to the Sprint Final, which is on Sunday. The results for our athletes are below. Notably, Emma Waddington had a solid WOC debut, and Will Critchley was 20 seconds out of the final.

Heat	Place	Name	Country	Time	Time Behind 1st	Time Behind 15th
Men 1	1	Yannick Michiels	BEL	11:48
	15	Hakon Jarvis Westergard	NOR	12:41	00:53
	25	Damian Konotopetz	CAN	13:43	01:55	01:02
Men 2	1	Kristian Jones	GBR	11:44
	15	Helmut Gremmel	AUT	12:38	00:54
	24	Will Critchley	CAN	12:58	01:14	00:20
Men 3	1	Jerker Lysell	SWE	12:28
	15	Tomas Hendrickx	BEL	13:17	00:49
	31	Robbie Anderson	CAN	15:37	3:09	02:20
Women 1	1	Maja Alm	DEN	12:44
	15	Imogene Scott	NZL	14:29	01:45
	26	Emma Waddington	CAN	15:45	3:01	01:16
Women 2	1	Tove Alexandersson	SWE	13:31
	15	Mariana Moreira		15:15	01:44
	30	Tori Owen	CAN	17:05	03:34	01:50

More detailed results, including splits, can be found at the WOC website, along with the men's map and the women's map.

The Canadians are not done sprinting yet though! Will Critchley, Louise Oram, Damian Konotopetz, and Tori Owen are racing in the mixed sprint relay, which starts tomorrow at 18:05 BST (10:05 PST, 11:05 EST). 

WOC Preview

The World Orienteering Championships in Inverness, Scotland start tomorrow (Friday)! Here's what you need to know about the Canadian athletes, schedule and how to watch.

Day	Race	Start Times
Friday, July 31	Sprint Qualifier	18:00 – 19:55
Saturday, August 1	Sprint Relay	18:05-19:15
Sunday, August 2	Sprint Final	16:51-19:00
Monday,  August 3	Rest day & Medal Ceremony
Tuesday, August 4	Middle	11:54-17:00
Wednesday, August 5	Relay	14:00-18:00
Thursday, August 6	Rest day & Medal Ceremony
Firday, August 7	Long	10:00-15:51

* Start times are in British Summer Time (BST). This is 5 hours ahead of EST (i.e. Ottawa), and 8 hours ahead of PST (i.e. Vancouver).

Meghan Rance is the team leader and Raphael Ferrand is the coach. The following athletes are racing for Canada*:

Sprint Qualifier	Robbie Anderson, Will Critchley, Damian Konotopetz
	Tori Owen, Emma Waddington
Sprint Relay	Will Critchley, Damian Konotopetz, Louise Oram, Tori Owen
Sprint Final	TBD based on qualification heats
Middle Final	Brian May, Damian Konotopetz
	Emily Kemp, Louise Oram
Relay	Robbie Anderson, Will Critchley, Damian Konotopetz
	Emily Kemp, Louise Oram, Tori Owen
Long	Will Critchley, Robbie Anderson
	Emily Kemp, Louise Oram

* Some changes to the team could happen (e.g. in the case of injuries), in which case the National Team Coach and Selection Committee will determine these spots.

The official event website is: http://www.woc2015.org/. There will be live pages for each event as well as athlete profiles, spectator information for each day, race previews, start lists and post-race reporting.

You can buy an IOF LiveCenter Portal pass to watch live TV, commentary and live GPS for all the races. It costs 18 euros for the week or 5-10 euros per individual race.

The WorldofO also tends to have good coverage (including in-depth race analysis) and an active Twitter.

BBC Alba will be broadcoasting live coverage of the Sprint Relay, Sprint Final, and Relay Races. You may be able to access it via their iPlayer shortly after broadcast.

We will be posting updates on the blog and Orienteering Canada's Facebook (with as many updates as possible from the team on the ground), so be sure to check back. There are also many other Canadians racing in the public Scottish 6 Days, so you can follow them too! Go Canada go!

Terrain, maps and courses at O-Ringen 2015

    O-Ringen was my first big orienteering event in Sweden and it certaintly lived up to the great orienteering that Scandinavia is famous for. 

        For most of the days, the terrain was composed of fairly runnable, forested hills. Mossy rocks and blueberry bushes covered the ground. The hills were divided by marshes which required much physical strength to run through as they could be deep, muddy, and filled with vegetation. There were also some greener sections that were very challenging to navigate within due to their limited visibility. Because of the massive number of participants at O-Ringen (see Tori's post about the spectacle that is O-Ringen), many elephant tracks existed on almost every route choice. This could be a good thing because it packed down the moss on the hills, making it easier to run along and also caused there to be less other vegetation in the way; however, in the swamps this worsened the runability because it would churn up the muck, making for some particularily mushy sections that orienteers could easily get stuck in or fall down into. There were also lots of rock features scattered about the hills.

        Some of the days also included a wide range of paths from large gravel roads to small single tracks, as well as meadows, cut lines, small areas of private property, clearcut areas, small lakes or larger hillsides. 

        The format of the event for most classes involved two longs, a rest day, another long, a middle, and a final long in the format of a chase start. In my category (D18E), alll maps were 1:15,000, with the exception of the middle at 1:10,000. This was challenging because I train and race much less frequently on 1:15000 maps then any other scale and also becasue the terrain was very detailed. Relocation, if needed, also presented a challenge because many of the hills, surrounded by marshes and dotted with rocks, looked quite similar. 

        The first race was probably the most technical of any of the long races, and maybe even the middle. It was very, very challenging. There were fewer trails then the other stages, and also very complex contour details involving many knolls and small form-line hills. Additionally, fallen trees, marked as a green line (half of the distinct tree 'X' symbol) were scattered across the map. 

        The second race had mostly larger, broader contour features, and more trails, especially in certain areas where indistinct cutline-like trails criss-crossed all over the hillsides. The vegetation was quite distinct and useful for navigation.

        The third race started off in similar terrain to the previous days, but continued gradually into areas with steeper hillsides and finished wth a couple controls in a dark green area with plenty of rocks. 

      The fourth race finished similarly to the third, since they were at the same arena, but started off with some particularly fun navigation, running between especially complex contour areas surrounded by featureless marshes. 

        The final stage started with some very tough physical climb (that could partially be avoided depending on route choice), ran through a technical area, and finished with many controls on a large, fairly featureless hillside before crossing over a river, then quickly along a paved area and into the arena. 

      All and all, O-Ringen provided challenging terrain that common themes between the maps but was still diverse enough to be quite interesting. The courses were quite difficult but lots of fun anyways. I look forward to racing O-Ringen again someday!

Emma S.

The Oringen Experience

I would say, most North Americans attending a big Nordic multi-day orienteering competition are struck by the enormous scale.  This year at Oringen, there were 18 058 runners (including a whopping 40 Canadians)…we were joking that if that many people singed up for an event at home we would probably have to cancel it. The logistics surrounding an event this large are crazy! First, there is the camping city that springs up around the Oringen event centre (and the fact that there are cell phone charging stations and a tent that had a wall of washing machines, talk about camping with all the amenities!). Then of course there are all the people that decide not to “rough it” - like us :) and rented houses in the surrounding town.

Anyone got any laundry!?

All these people then get transported to the areas in very organized buses every day. Oringen has loading buses down to an art. As people arrive at the bus stop they are counted and directed into fenced areas so that 3 buses can be loaded simultaneously while the organizers organize people for the next set of buses.

My first five controls on day one

THEN once you get to the area you have a sea of club flags and people to contend with to try and remember where you said your meeting point would be and find someone you know. If that takes too long you will just have to put your stuff among the masses and head off towards your start. It might be a bit of a hike (over 4km…) so allowing yourself 30 mins to the start would be a bit of a brisk and stressful warm up.. AND make sure you go to the right start … there are nine. Thankfully they have idiot proofed the process and it is well signed and all you have to do is look at your bib and follow the signs that are the same sponsor as your bib. Once you actually get out in the forest its time to really concentrate, with fine contour features and bogs that will suck your entire leg in (which explains why they provide washing machines to campers. There is no way you will be dry at the end of this, it's time to be vigilant!

Pick the right finish chute!

Then when the race is almost over and you are getting closer to the area, people are everywhere. Literally everywhere. Running around asking you where there are. If you can ignore the chaos, punch the go control and start your sprint, the last amount of mental energy is dedicated to making sure you run down the right finish chute (again thankfully they are visually coded for our benefits:). The last bit of your race is to compare your finish run-in time with your coach. Ask Brent who one won at the end of the five days… :D And then its time to start the process all over again for the next day 

The arena on the last day, in the Borås football stadium!