JWOC training

With so much action at WOC last week, we know you must be experiencing orienteering-competition withdrawl symptoms. Have no fear! The Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) starts next week in Bulgaria!

Team Canada, left to right, Pia Blake, Alex Bergstrom, Emma Sherwood, Michael Svoboda, Robbie Graham, Trevor Bray, Adam Woods, Timothy Chambers (representing South Africa), Raphael Ferrand, and Stefan Bergstrom

 Our junior athletes, joined by coach Raphael Ferrand and team leader Stefan Bergstrom, arrived in Bulgaria earlier this week to begin their final training preparations for JWOC. Athletes Emma Sherwood and Michael Svoboda actually flew in a couple of weeks ago and have been training with the US junior athletes since the beginning of July (you can read all about that training on Michael's blog post).

Emma Sherwood and Pia Blake

Here's the updates I've received so far from the team:

Adam Woods & Raphael

"The team has arrived in Borovets, Bulgaria and had the first full training day on middle distance terrain. It is very steep and full of deep re-entrants, but open forest will good visibility. In the afternoon the heavens opened up after only a few minutes in the forest, we were thoroughly drenched in a thunderstorm! You never know what can happen in competition, so it's good to train for all eventualities! After dinner we had a discussion about the terrain and the experience from today.

 

Middle distance model map

Discussing the events of the day

Training with Raphael

On the second morning, the athletes made another visit in the really detailed middle distance terrain, and today the rain held off although the forest was still damp. After lunch we had a well deserved nap then a visit in the nearby town of Samokov for a sprint training. Below are some photos from the sprint in a town park and adjacent streets.

What a good looking team!