Update #3: WOC impressions by Alix, Darya and Emma

Emma, Alix, and Darya are juniors from the Foothill Wanderers Orienteering Club in Calgary, AB. They are participating in the WOC public races as well as watching the WOC races and cheering on Team Canada. It’s their first time orienteering in Europe. Tagging along with them are former national team members Magali Robert and Pam James. We asked Darya, Emma and Alix to provide us with their impressions of WOC 2012 and of orienteering at a big European event.

July 18, the 4th public race and a rest day on the WOC program...

Day 5:

Today was the long course, it was a very tiring. We were all extremely tired when we got to the finish, which included a very long and steep uphill finish shoot. We all had a couple of mistakes but we all made it to the finish alive. The course was physically challenging, the terrain was really hilly, with lots of knolls, depressions and many cliffs. The weather was deadly (it was over 30 degrees celsius), it just drains the energy out of you. We all stopped multiple times at some water controls. On the whole course today there were 6 water stations that we all used to our advantages (sometimes they had chocolate there too :). During Magali's course, she fell into a pit today that went over her head and was also stung by a wasp at the same time, so she was on edge for the rest of her course. The maps here, along with the difficulty of the courses are very different then the ones in Canada making it more difficult in general. 

Emma finishing her course

Alix and Darya at the finish waiting for Emma to encourage Emma

July 19, no public race today and it was the long distance final...
Day 6

Today was the rest day for us, so we decided to be tourists. We slept in, which was great. Then we drove around lake Geneva and took some stops at points of interest. It was really fun and at the end we stopped for gelato (very healthy athlete food). It was also the long final for W.O.C. and Louise raced. She placed 33rd which is amazing, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

 July 19, last public race today, rest day on the WOC program...
Day 7

Today was our last race day, it is sad but we are also happy to be done racing and to go explore Europe. We all believe that it is the best race that we have done this week. The race was a gunderson/chasing start/pursuit (depending on what you call it), Darya started 59 minutes behind the leader of our category, Alix 96 minutes behind and Emma 100 minutes behind. It was a really fast and nice course of  5.4 km. Almost all of us had a clean race. It was a great way to finish the Swiss 5 days!

Afterwards, we decided to walk around Vevey to see what we could see, we stopped at a massive fork sculpture and also at heaven (Nestle headquarters). 

Posing with a sculpture of Charlie Chaplin in Vevey

This trip to Switzerland was a great success and we have learnt a lot.  Hope to see you at W.C.O.C. and C.O.C.

Thanks
Darya, Emma and Alix :)