WOC - Middle Distance Qualification

The Middle Distance Qualification at the 2013 World Orienteering Championships was tricky. Most of the runners left at least a few small squiggles in their gps tracks, some ran off the map and several strong orienteers did not manage to qualify for the final.

Men's Qualification Heat 1 

All of the Canadian women managed to get through their courses without too many mistakes, although they all admit that they had some tense moments. Despite the distraction of another competitor asking her where she was, Louise qualified for the final in 11th place.
Emily had a solid race, finished with a smile on her face and qualified for the final in 8th place, only 3:22 behind the leader in her heat.
Kerstin made a few small mistakes but was only 3 spots out of qualifying in her heat!

The Canadian men did not have as much success as the women in the Middle Qualifier, but the men have to contend with tighter qualification windows and a larger start field. Serghei found the slash on the ground a little too pointy for his liking and was not able to run at full speed through it.

Will had some good sections of his race and some not so good sections as well. At control number two he picked up a shadow who followed him for the rest of the race mistakes and all.

Eric felt prepared on the start line but did not have a clear plan for the end of the first leg and turned too early before the control. He was not able to recover quickly and took 28 minutes to find the first control. Instead of giving up and heading home, Eric soldiered on and finished the rest of the course. That is gumption!

After the competition, Louise, Kerstin and Meghan relaxed with a little bit of Trail-O. They borrowed a couple of maps from the trail-oers down the hall and headed out for a new experience.

Louise tries to determine the correct control

It was tougher than expected and they still aren't entirely sure what the correct answers are but it was an interesting exercise.

Tomorrow, Louise and Emily race the last individual race of WOC 2013, the middle final. The terrain is technical so anything could happen!