Canada Goes With Youth for NAOC Relay Teams!

At the North American Orienteering Championships (NAOC's) this weekend, both our younger and our more experienced runners have been helping Team Canada to gain valuable points in this year’s BK Cup. Several of Canada’s runners from previous WOC teams (including Mike Smith, Pam James, Wil Smith, Brian May, Hans Fransson) came up big in the middle and long races. Our young Future Champions (FC) Cup team is also doing very well against the older and more experienced U.S. team.  With an eye to the future WOC sprint-relay event, the NAOC relay provides an excellent opportunity for Canada’s younger team members to gain valuable race experience. Here are Canada’s teams (in the running order) for tomorrow’s relay:

Junior Women 1  

 1.        Kerstin Burnett  

 2.        Molly Kemp  

 3.       Kendra Murray

Junior Women 2

1.       Darya Senpanj

2.       Jennifer MacKeigan

3.       Emma Waddington

Junior Men 1

1.       Alex Bergstrom

2.       Adam Woods

3.       Trevor Bray

Junior Men 2

1.       Gavin Tasker

2.       Roan McMillan

3.       Michael Svoboda

Senior Women 1

1.       Carol Ross

2.       Pam James

3.       Louise Oram

Senior Women 2

1.       Meghan Rance

2.       Jennie Anderson

3.       Charlotte MacNaughton

Senior Men 1

1.       Graeme Rennie

2.       Will Critchley

3.       Serghei Logvin

Senior Men 2

1.       Damian Konotopetz

2.       Jeff Teutsch

3.       Eric Kemp

There may be some last minute changes to the team due to injuries. You can follow along online by tuning in to the live video feed and live results!

A big thanks to Mike Waddington for handling the team selection!

Louise qualifies for middle final!

By only 3 seconds, Louise won herself a place in tomorrow's middle final. Andrea interviewed Louise directly after her race.

After a 'jerky' race, Louise finished in a time of 44:17. Here are the results, and the maps for heat A (Louise ran in this heat), heat B, and heat C.

In the men's race, Damian, Eric, and Jeff all had good races, but not enough to make top 15 in their heats. Here are some comments from each of the guys:

Jeff: "Today’s course relied a lot on compass bearings, which aren’t my biggest strength. The first 3 controls were great, but big mistakes on 4 and 5. I didn’t refocus well after that, and just stumbled along...The race reinforced the things that I really need to work on."

Eric: "I was as ready as I could have been at the start of the race. I did tons of preparation to be ready for this race, but right after starting there were a couple things that happened that I hadn’t prepared for, so I was off my game quite soon into race. I did the best that I could have done today."

Damian: "I made some mistakes in this race. I found it tricky to find the controls in the dark green. You could be very close to a control yet still miss it. I had some good legs; first 3 controls were good, but had problems with my forth control."

Map from men's heat B

Here are the results and map for heat A (Eric ran in this heat), results and map for heat B (Damian ran this heat), and results and map for heat C (Jeff ran this heat). 

Thierry Gueorgiou, current world champion and middle master, won his heat. Only 3 days ago did he decide he was fit enough to race in the middle distance, as he's been fighting an injury. Since he's current world champion he automatically got a spot in the qualifications, so didn't take away the chance from a team mate. When interviewed after the race, he explained that even though he was injured, he wasn't concerned about his fitness, because he's been pool running ~ 78 times in the last 45 days! As a side note, Emily Kemp joined Thierry for some pool running sessions as she battled tendinitis over the past few weeks. Note to all up and coming orienteers ~ no excuses not to train when you're injured... try pool running!


In the women's race, Simone Niggli won her heat, and is favourite to take the middle gold. These will be exciting races to watch!

The middle final takes place tomorrow, Tuesday. Louise is starting at 12:01 Swiss time. (that's 6am EST and 3am PST). You can follow online with GPS tracking, TV coverage (cost ~$4), and results at the official live site, or follow discussions on the World of O and Attackpoint. So set your alarms and prepare to watch some of the best orienteers in the world battle out for gold!

Wednesday is a rest day, then Thursday is the long distance final, where Louise will once again be running for Canada. We'll bring you the details soon.

Go Canada Go!

WOC Sprint Final & Long Qualification

This evening saw the sprint final close to Lake Genova; consisting of city and park terrain. Patrick Goeres was the only Canadian to qualify for the final, and started 8th. He had a solid run to finish tied in 36th place, which is his best WOC result to date. Congratulations to Patrick!

Results:
1. Matthias Kyburz: 15:32
36. Patrick Goeres: 17:54 (+ 2:22)

Check out the new Orienteering Canada YouTube channel, where you can view Patrick talking about his race!

Patrick starting the final

Overall, it was a Swiss sweep in the men's race. Matthias Kyburz finished 17 seconds ahead of Matthias Merz, with Matthias Mueller in third place (how confusing must those team meetings be?!). In the women's race, Simone Niggli came back from a 2 year WOC absence to clinch the women's gold, with Maja Alm of Denmark in second, and Annika Billstam on Sweden in third. Special mention to Ali Crocker of Team USA, who finished 20th in the women's final ~ great job Ali!

Crowds watching the final

WOC is much more online-spectator friendly than JWOC and WUOC. Head on over to the live page, where you can check out results, splits, and the GPS tracks (all runners in the sprint final wore a GPS unit, so you can watch them race ~ very cool!) There is also live TV coverage and GPS tracking during the finals, which we recommend you check out. It's just over $4 per race for the live TV, or around $16 for the package of all the races!

Tomorrow is the qualification race for the long distance. There will be 3 heats for men, and 3 heats for women, with the top 15 from each heat going through to the final on Thursday. The courses tomorrow are 12.2km with 280m of climb for the men, and 8.2 or 8.3km with 160m of climb for the women. The terrain is described as "typical Swiss Mittleland (translated directly as 'middleland')", Wondering what "typical Swiss Mittleland terrain" is? We asked Coach Magnus to explain: "Swiss Mittleland terrain is bland contour detail, with some ravines, and a LOT of roads and trails. The big areas of white are very nice open forest, but the green and yellow is really bad in the summertime."

Running for Canada is Louise Oram, Jeff Teutsch, Robbie Anderson, and Will Critchley. We asked Louise and Jeff to share some thoughts before the race tomorrow:

Louise - "There will be quite a bit of running on trails and trying to keep a high speed there, so the problem will be to stay focused and exit at the right point to transition into navigating smoothly in the forest. Additionally, if the controls are on vegetation features, or there are many blobs of vegetation around, it can be quite vague and the vegetation can obscure the visibility."

Jeff – "I'm definitely nervous to be running my first WOC race, but also very excited.  I've done all the prep I can at this point so it's all about controlling the nerves.  We've been out training on neighbouring maps and similar terrain a few times this week.  The terrain is a mix of quite open and runnable forest with very thick woods and uncrossable raspberry infestations wherever the sun gets in. All of this is crossed huge network of small slow trails and super fast large trails.  The trick is going to be finding those routes where you can run really fast and attack the controls from a safe direction.  I think compass bearings off of trails and not being afraid to attack controls from behind will play key roles."

You can also view Coach Magnus give his views on the race tomorrow on the Orienteering Canada YouTube Channel!

Let's hear your cheers; GO CANADA GO!

WUOC ~ Long Race Report & looking forward to the sprint.

The long distance race was held in Alicante, Spain today (Tuesday). Damian, Will, Robbie, Eric, and Louise were running for Team Canada.

Will's map - check out all those contours!

Will was fairly happy with his race, saying "It looks like there was some fitness there today because I gained places near the end but it would be nice to be faster on the shorter navigation legs." Robbie said "The first two thirds were good but the race fell apart in the end. Was surprised to find myself running through a gas station at an international race" (leg 20 - 21 with route choice by the highway). Louise reported that the terrain was tricky, saying that "all the shrubs were so close together that you trip on small tufts of grass - even the open was lumpy.  Some of the forest was actually better running than the open / semi-open areas." Damian said "The 27C heat combined with 9.8km and 690m climb made today's long distance the toughest race I have ever competed in." You can read more of Damian's race report on his blog. 


Watch to see what Eric Kemp had to say on his race:

So with those reports, what of the results? Of the 86 men who completed the course, Will placed 33rd, Robbie placed 54th, Eric placed 72nd, and Damian placed 78th. You can view a full list of results and the split times. Louise placed 48th out of 65 runners; here are the full results and splits for the women. 

Here's Eric finishing up his race ~ he looks kinda tired!

Tomorrow is the sprint race. Again, there is no qualification, so there's only 1 race. Starts are from 4-6:30pm local time, so hopefully it'll be a little cooler! The map is on the hillside of a mountain with steep slopes, with a mixture of urban areas and parks. The roads and paths are a network of city roads and pedestrian areas. Sounds like it'll be fun! Running for Canada are Damian, Jeff, Robbie, Will, and Louise. Here's what they have to say about tomorrow:

Louise: "Excited for the cool castle, and the underpasses and such in the terrain surrounding it."

Jeff: "I've spent a number of hours on google maps looking at the area. It looks like a unique area with the possibility for some tricky legs. Looking forward to seeing what they throw at us!"

Damian: "Will be my first time taking an elevator to the start of a race, as well as finishing by a beach on the Mediterranean."

Will: "I think it's going to be both rocket fast downhill and leg burning uphill. The guys that do well are the ones who can stay in control on the downhills and have the legs to hammer back up."

Tune in tomorrow for athlete feedback on the race and more race analysis!

Team Selection Races

The past two weekends saw the two "especially important" priority selection races for the senior Canadian orienteering team; one in eastern and one in western Canada. The selection for the senior WOC team is an involved process. Team Canada wannabes must attend at least two of five priority races, and at least one of the two "especially important" priority races, listed below (the "especially important" races are bolded). The selection committee then makes their decision based on results of these races, as well as other factors such as training quality and consistency and other significant event results. You can find more info about the selection process in the athlete handbook. 

The five priority races for the 2012 selection were:

● US Champs and Team Trials, April 13-15, Carrollton, GA

● West Point, May 5-6, Highland Falls, NY

● Ottawa O-Fest, May 19 - 21, Ottawa, ON

● Sage Stomp, May 19-21, Kamloops, BC

● Barebones, May 26-27, Calgary/Canmore, AB

The selection committee, comprising of Magnus Johansson, Brian May, and  Magali Robert, are now in top secret talks to decide which 6 men will represent Canada at the World Orienteering Championships, scheduled July 14-21, 2012 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Due to scheduling conflicts and illness, Louise Oram is the only woman set to represent Canada. She is currently sidelined with a bad ankle sprain, so send her your healing thoughts. We hope that she'll be fit to run in Lausanne! 

Louise sprinting at Sage Stomp, just after she sprained her ankle. She managed to finish the race, even with a double sized ankle. What a trooper! Get better soon, Louise! Photo kudos to Murray Foubister

The eastern selection races were held in Ottawa, as part of Ottawa O-Fest. By all accounts it was an amazing weekend of racing under 30 degree skies! The first race of the weekend was a fun middle course held at the March Highlands. Eric Kemp of Ottawa had a fantastic race, with Sergei Zhyk in second place. Andrew Childs of GMOC had a great run coming in third, with Team Canada hopeful Serghei Logvin in fourth place. 


Patrick Goeres had a great race, but missed control #5 by reading ahead. There was an incident involving one control (control #7 on the men's course) where Wil Smith and James Connell both came back not too far apart from each other claiming the battery on that control was dead. The organizers had decided not to attach manual punches to the SI stands (note to all meet directors, when you cut corners, the unexpected always happens!). The meet directors took their word and re-instated both runners, but discovered later that other people punched the control between the two runners and after them too. Was the battery on the blink switching on and off? It's a mystery! You can find the full results list and for the men's elite race here!


Saturday afternoon saw the sprint race at Tunney's Pastures; a fast paced urban sprint. Patrick Goeres kept up his reputation of sprint guru, beating second place Serghei Logvin by a minute! Eric Kemp did a great job to hang on to third place, but had a 30 second error running past a control then having to run back because he wasn't sure he'd punched it! When you're running right on the edge of technical and physical ability, it's tough to also find the mental energy to remember those little details (but that's why we love orienteering, right?!) Check out the full results and split times.

Eric Kemp on the long course. Photo kudos to Bill Anderson!

The long distance race was held on Sunday. Due to the high temperatures, a number of runners did not complete the course. Eric Kemp held it together and crushed the competition with a time of 1:39:39, nearly 10 minutes over second place Wil Smith! Team Canada hopefuls Nick Duca and Jon Torrance finished 4th and 5th respectively. 

Patrick Goeres was having a great race, until control #15 where a branch in the eye took out his contact lens! Unable to see, he had to bow out gracefully, even though he was leading by over 4 minutes (note - bring spare contact lenses on course!). One of the top US runners, Sergei Zhyk, pulled out after control #7, claiming he'd "run out of gas". He was leading until that point, so maybe went out too quickly? In 30 degree heat you've got to pace yourself! You can view the first and second maps, and see the full results.

Pretty much sums up how runners were feeling after the long! Photo kudos to Stefan Bergstrom

Special mention to Team Canada hopeful Jeff Teutsch, who took on the mighty role of meet director for the Ottawa O-Fest weekend. Great job, Jeff! We've heard nothing but positive feedback from the event (although maybe next time order the weather a little cooler!)

Thanks for all your hard work, Jeff! Photo kudos to Eric Kemp

From May 22-25, junior HPP coach Brent Langbakk held an HPP training camp in Canmore. It was well attended by 9 enthusiastic HPP members. We recommend you check out Brent's blog, as he's going to be posting details of some exercises he offered. You can also read Kerstin Burnett's account of the training camp (sounds like it was a tiring week!) Thanks to Brent and Larry Konotopetz for their hard work to put this camp together!


Last weekend, May 26-27, saw Canmore and Barebones hosting the western selection races. It wasn't quite as warm there; around freezing overnight, getting up to the mid teens during the day. Those who camped definitely had a chilly night!


The first race of the weekend was a downhill sprint at the Canmore Nordic Centre (isn't downhill sprint everyone's favourite sprint?!), with a fun mixture of forest, complex trails, and urban terrain! Patrick Goeres proved for the second weekend that he's a sprint demon, pipping out second place Eric Kemp. Graeme Rennie of GVOC ran a great race and came in third. Other Team Canada hopefuls were Damian Konotopetz in fifth and Jeff Teutsch in ninth. Will Critchley was having a stellar race before he mis-punched; he got caught by an early control on a different feature and mis-read the control number (it happens to the best of us!) 


I love this quote from Eric Kemp "Feels good to be alive when you're bombing down a mountain and spiking your controls". Pretty much sums the race up!

Does it get much better than this? Answer; no! Finish chute for the Sprint. Photo kudo to Graeme Rennie!

Saturday afternoon saw the long distance event, again at Canmore Nordic Centre. This race boasted a variety of terrain, long route choices, and, of course, just a little climb! Check out the route gadget for the courses! Coach Brent Langbakk doled out some great advice ahead of the race - look for wide, safer route choices that avoid all the wiggly little mountain bike trails and minimize the climb! And man were there a lot of wiggly little mountain bike trails! And lots of climb (especially for the last few controls!)


Will Critchley pushed his hamstring injury aside to take the win, just ahead of Patrick Goeres. Jeff Teutsch had a strong race to come in third, with Mike Smith and Damian Konotopetz in fourth and fifth. Due to on-coming illness, Eric Kemp decided to save himself for the middle event the next day! 


The middle distance race at Mount Laurier was held on Sunday morning. This tricky area of incredible contour detail and fabulous open running makes for a true test of fine navigation at high speed. Will Critchley proved again that he's a force to be reckoned with, winning the elite category. Sitting out the long was obviously a good choice for Eric, who came in second. Patrick Goeres showed he's still got it, coming in third. Mike Smith had a strong race in fourth place.


Around control #16 on the elite course, some runners came across two bear cubs! The word quickly spread, and suddenly runners were having to orienteer and shout out to scare the bears away! Running + navigating + shouting = tiring! An orienteer also came across the mother bear standing on her hind legs, sniffing the air ~ we were all pretty sweaty, so I'm sure she smelt us all from miles away (although we were also right beside the landfill, so maybe we weren't that smelly!) To top off a fun weekend, the junior from Calgary had set up a micro-O as a fundraiser. I know I certainly was confused for the first control, having to convert from a 1:10000 map to a 1:2500! Great job kids, it was a blast!


A huge thank you to Adrian Zissos and the Barebone's team for a fantastic weekend of races! Barebones managed to get some local press coverage in the The Rocky Mountain Outlook and the Canmore Leader. The caption on the front page photo is particularly cute! Ottawa O-Fest also managed to get on CBC news! Check out the clip below ~ nice work guys!

Stay tuned for the team selection announcement ~ we have it on good authority that an announcement is coming in the next few days! You'll hear it here first! 

Musings on Elite Orienteering in Canada

I was sitting in the Vancouver airport last Thursday waiting for my flight home from Sprint Camp when I saw one of the other high performance program members had posted this online: “off to portugal in 3hrs!!!!!!!!! eheheheh!!!!!!!!” It was at that point that I thought, for the briefest of moments, of getting out of my chair, walking back through security, cancelling my flight to Ottawa, and boarding a plane to Portugal to join Emily Kemp (for who else could have posted that message?) at the Portugal O-Meeting.

As a bit of background, Emily Kemp, is a fellow orienteer from Ottawa, now studying and training in St. Etienne, France, with the French national team, who, with one year of JWOC left has already to 13^th places at JWOC and competed at WOC last year.

It makes me wonder though… does one have to spend the money and effort to travel to / live in Europe to reach that level in orienteering? Emily after all, was 13^th in the JWOC middle in Denmark in 2010, before having moved to France. Granted she had already spent a few summers training and competing in Europe but still… she was a very good orienteer long before having moved to France to train with the best. And while in Ottawa she would regularly run in the men’s elite classes while a female junior! She could run those courses because she was good but she was also good because she ran them. This allowed her to compare herself to tougher competition and push herself harder.

Robbie Anderson, again from Ottawa, recently moved to Sweden to enrol in a master’s program, and train. Again he was good before he started but it seems he’s been improving quickly thanks to more regular chances to get onto new maps and train with and race against tougher competition. Several of the top American orienteers have also moved to Europe to train.

There’s nothing wrong with that from a personal perspective – it helps them improve and reach their goals so power to them. On the other hand it further lowers the competition at North American events for those of us that have, for whatever reasons, chosen to stay on the continent.

The West coast, having just come from a training camp there, is lucky. They regularly get overseas students studying in Vancouver that train with GVOC and provide high level competition to local orienteers on a regular basis.

Thanks to Margo and Chris for the photo from the Sprint Camp Farsta.

I was truly looking for a photo from intervals the day before where a large group of elites (5+ Canadians, 2 Americans, 1 Norwegian, 1 Italian) were running head to head but this will do :) It`s not everyday you get competition like that!

So here’s my question for you all: What is it the rest of us can do to help develop strong competitive programs in North America?

Here’s a few ideas to get you started:

• Provide incentives for Elites (HPP / US Standing Team) to travel to your events
• More regular cheap training camps hosted in a variety of areas (there’s only so many times we can get benefit from running on the same maps all the time)
• Attract overseas orienteers to our clubs and events (how?? via university and off-season events?)
• Have regional training centres

Jeff Teutsch