WOC Long

The WOC Long took place at the remote Glen Affric. The forest was a mix of runnable areas and fallen trees, with some complex contours and few paths. People likened it to some Scandinavian terrain. The men's map is here and the women's map is here. And, as is the case with most longs, it was physically very tough and athletes did not seem confident that they were picking the best route choices.

Team Canada had a good day of racing today. On the women's side, Louise Oram steadily pick up places throughout the race to finish 33rd (which I believe is tied with her best WOC long result from 2012 in Switzerland). Emily Kemp came in 20th, an improvement on her previous best of 25th in the long. This is also the best Canadian result since the long format was introduced (previously it was a classic race). Based on their strong performances today, both are pre-selected to the Long for next year's race (any Canadian athlete in the top 40 is pre-selected).

For the men, Will Critchley had a top 50 result coming in 49th. Robbie Anderson improved upon last year's placing of 64th by finishing in 54th. Well done! Official results are here and live results can be found here.  

	Place	Name	Country	Time	Time Behind
Women	1	Ida Bobach	SWE	75:35
	20	Emily Kemp	CAN	87:45	12:10
	33	Louise Oram	CAN	94:58	19:23
Men	1	Thierry Gueorgiou	FRA	99:46
	49	Will Critchley	CAN	129:40	29:54
	54	Robbie Anderson	CAN	139:33	39:47

Canada should remain in the same divisions for next year's WOC which means 2 female spots for the individual forest races, and 1 male spot. This year there were two males because Robbie and Brian won individual spots as regional champions at the North Americans.

That's a wrap on WOC 2015. Congratulations to our athletes for a solid week of WOC racing and thanks to the team leader Meghan Rance, coaches (Raphael Ferrand was on the ground, but athletes may have other coaches throughout the year), and supporters. We look forward to cheering you all on again next year in Sweden, and we'll see some of you soon at the Canadian Orienteering Championships!