2014 JWOC Team Announced!

Orienteering Canada is pleased to announce that the following athletes have been preliminarily selected to represent Canada at the 2014 Junior World Orienteering Championships, or JWOC. This championship will be held in Borovets, Bulgaria from July 21-27, 2014 (website: http://jwoc2014.bg).

Team Canada

Pia Blake (Whitehorse, YT)

Emma Sherwood (Calgary, AB)

Alexander Bergstrom (Ottawa, ON)

Trevor Bray (Whitehorse, YT)

Robbie Graham (Ottawa, ON)

Michael Svoboda (Calgary, AB)

Adam Woods (Coquitlam, BC)

Athlete profiles are available by clicking on the name of each athlete above.

At JWOC, there is a sprint, a middle, and a long distance race, as well as a 3-person team relay. Each athlete will run in the sprint, middle, and long races. The relay team will be announced at a later date.

“We’re very excited to be sending our young, up and coming athletes to Europe to compete at JWOC”, said Alison Price, chairperson of the High Performance Committee. “These athletes have all worked hard to earn their spot on the team, and we are looking forward to supporting them in competition this summer.”

“This team is a mix of new and returning Team Canada athletes,” said Charlotte MacNaughton, Executive Director of Orienteering Canada. “It’s very exciting for the future of elite orienteering to have such an eager team representing Canada in Europe this year.”

Orienteering Canada would like to acknowledge and thank Team Leader Stefan Bergstrom, who will accompany the athletes to JWOC.

Mark your calendars, and let's cheer for Canada's up and coming athletes at JWOC! GO CANADA GO!

JWOC ~ Sprinting!

If there's one event that's a whole pile of fun in old European cities, it's the sprint. Trying to navigate little passageways, stairs, crazy dead-ends, and multiple levels at top speed will keep even the best orienteers on their toes! Today's sprint did not disappoint!

Adam after the finish!

The courses started in a park area, then climbed up in the old town with legs up and down lots of stairs and terraces on the steep slope of the old fortifications.

This is the men's course ~ check out 11 to 12. You need to know your sprint symbols to help with this one!

On the men's side, Adam Woods had the best result of the day, 3mins 37secs back from the winner in 130th place. Training on all those sprint maps in Vancouver has obviously been paying off (Sprint Camp in February, everyone!!) Alex did a great job in 139th; Trevor was 147th, and Robbie finished in 160th.

Alex in the finish chute.

On the women's side, Kendra ran a solid race to finish 3mins 10 secs back from the winner in 88th place. Pia was in 113th, and Jen finished in 135th.

Kendra looking very strong in the finish chute.

Here's what the athletes, coach, and team leader had to say about the race:

"Stairs are friend, not your enemy! --Jen

Jen at the finish, happy with her race!

"I was glad to have started early and avoided running in the rain shower. The cobble stones seemed quite treacherous when wet. I was trying for a war of 18:12 re-enactment but the Americans weren't accommodating." --Adam (Ethan Childs and Will Hubsch both beat Adam....)

Robbie sprinting to the finish.

"Too many map details, I need glasses" --Robbie

"Our team raced hard without too many mistakes, but we need more training in urban European type sprint-Orienteering, and the results shows how fast the best orienteers really are." -- Coach Brian

"We need more medieval cities in Canada to hone our sprint skills" -- Team Leader Stefan

Trevor running so fast, the camera couldn't catch him in focus!

Team Canada's results:
Place   Name      Time    Time behind winner
 88       Kendra    17:43      3:10   
113      Pia           18:44      4:11
135     Jen            21:01     6:28

130      Adam      18:12      3:37
139      Alex         18:48      4:13
147      Trevor     19:15      4:40
160      Robbie    21:26      6:51

Pia punching the spectator control

You can view the full results, splits, maps, and GPS tracks for the women at http://www.jwoc2013.cz/  The GPS tracks are always fun to play with - you can select which runners you want to see, do a mass start to see which routes were faster, and so on. 

Team meeting for the relay tomorrow.

Tomorrow  (Saturday) is the last race of JWOC, the relay. At JWOC, participation is the focus for the races. This means that, unlike the World Orienteering Championships (WOC), countries can enter multiple teams, and mixed gender or mixed country teams are allowed (but are not eligible for medals). Our Team Canada athletes will run as follows:

Women
Leg 1: Kendra
Leg 2: Pia
Leg 3: Jen

Men
Leg 1: Adam
Leg 2: Trevor
Leg 3: Alex

Robbie is running leg 3 with Rafael Miguel (Portugal) and Niall McCarthey (Ireland). All teams should have GPS tracking, so make sure you tuned in for the women's race at 4am EDT (that's 1am PDT), and the men start at 6am EDT (or 3am PDT).

JWOC ~ Middle Final

Today at the Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC), Team Canada participated in the middle final. The middle distance is the only race at JWOC that has a qualification race. All the runners are split into 3 groups for the qualifications. Within each group, those who place between 1st and 20th go on to the A Final, those who place 20th - 40th go into the B Final, and the rest go into the C Final. Alex, Jen, and Kendra raced in the B Final, with Adam, Robbie, Trevor, and Pia racing in the C Final.

Today was a mixed bag for the Canadians, some had their best race of the week and others had problems and mistakes in the rocky and very difficult slope. Alex did a great job, finishing 49th in the B final for the men. In the C Final, Robbie finished 24th, Adam finished 37th, and Trevor finished 41st.

Adam finishing strongly!

"The race went great after I got across the boulder fields, but boulders were big and they tripped me up." --Adam

Alex in the finish chute

Robbie bringing it home in 24th!

 "I was a lot more focused today and it really paid off."  --Robbie

Trevor killing that finish chute!

On the women's side, Kendra ran a fantastic race to finish 19th in the B Final. Jen finished 52nd, and Pia finished 13th in the C Final.

Pia looking fast!

Kendra ran a great race today!

Go Jen Go!

"Rocks are mean! " --Jen
 
Please join us in congratulating our athletes on their races today!

Spectator arena!

It was a beautiful day where a large crowd followed the Women's and Men's finals on the big screen in the arena, complete with GPS tracking and TV controls in the terrain. The race will be broadcast on Czech TV tomorrow Thursday.

You can view the full results, maps, GPS tracking (for A Final only), and check out the photos on the JWOC website. 

Tomorrow, Thursday, is a rest day. There will be a prize giving ceremony for the middle and long distance races, as well as a chance for the athletes to practice on the sprint and relay model maps. The next race is the sprint on Friday. All the women will wear GPS trackers, so you can follow along online, or re-watch the action if you don't want to get up early!

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

JWOC ~ The Long Distance

The long distance was a tough challenge with route choice orienteering and lots of climb. No one had major mistakes, but the physical challenge was too tough for our team and we are not really used to the extreme route choice orienteering we were exposed to today.

With 169 starters on the men's course the start window was more than 5 hours making it a very long day.

The best performance today was Adam's 115 place in 92min15s, 22min54s behind the winner.

Adam pleased with his performance!

Adam -- "It felt less than 92min running because I was so focused. It was a battle against the course and the climb. Other competitors helped me to push the speed."

Pia --It was interesting to really compare route choice, and then to see how your chosen route could make or break your time."

Trevor -- "Distinct tree in the green! Again!"

Here are the final placings, with the running time (brackets denote time behind the winner).
115 - Adam Woods  92:15 (22:54)
148 - Alex Bergstrom  107:18 (37:57)
153 - Trevor Bray   112:25 (43:04)
162 - Robbie Graham  124:12 (54:51)

99 - Kendra Murray  85:40 (24:58)
120 - Pia Blake  92:15 (31:33)
139 - Jen MacKeigan  125:00 (64:18)

You can view the maps, final results, GPS tracks, a teaser video, photos, and more at the JWOC website.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is the middle qualifier. For both men and women, there are 3 qualification groups. Those who place 20th or higher from each group go into the A final, those who place 21-40 go in to the B final, and the rest in the C final. The middle final takes place on Wednesday.

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

Quarantine before the start ~ a long wait for some! 

All the boys were fitted with a  GPS transmitter before start.

2-3 - which route would you choose?!

Alexander in the finish chute

Trevor in the finish chute

Jen finishing strongly!

Adam looking strong after his good performance.

JWOC ~ Sprint Training in Kutna Hora

JWOC is not all play! Here the team is studying the event bulletin on Friday night. Lots of details to go through!

Saturday morning we drove to Kutna Hora, about an hour's drive from Hradec Kralove, for a bit of sprint training and sightseeing. Kutna Hora is a UNESCO World Heritage site and an old city with narrow cobble stone streets and massive cathedrals and buildings.

The official JWOC Opening Ceremony is also scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

From 2-3 ~ left or right??

I think the right route from 7-8 is faster ~ do you agree?

The sprint training gave some tricky route choices on the winding cobblestone streets.

 "Thank God the sprint has only 15m climb and not 60m because that is hard running up cobble stone streets"

--Jen

 "There was one giant hill in today's sprint. Thank God there isn't a hill that big in the JWOC sprint"--Trevor

"I just wish we had some maps like this in Canada!" --Kendra

After the sprint we walked up to the cathedral and then had lunch and another bit of wandering around the streets to get a closer look at the places we had run by earlier.

Tomorrow is a rest day for everyone to recharge their batteries before the long distance on Monday.

JWOC ~ More Long & Middle Training!

I'm told this is a well known technique for helping with all that hill climbing....

This morning (Friday), Team Canada went back to the Long training area and did the second half of the course in a hilly, hilly terrain. The leg 9-10 route alternatives were discussed at length over lunch (see map below - which way would you go? Leave your answer in the comment section!)

Robbie looking strong!

In the afternoon, the Team headed on over to the second middle training map, Chvalecsky Les, and run a short course. The end of the course went through a very rocky area with giant boulders and cliffs. Very tricky!

The tunnel under a railway led to the middle terrain!

Lots of rocky detail!

Everyone had a good day of training. The long training was an opportunity to practice good route choice analysis and learning, while the middle terrain was a reminder of how careful you have to be among all the details on the map!

Trevor Bray!

Back at the hotel in Hradec Kralove, the JWOC event centre is now open, with flags and posters all over the hotel lobby! The Team picked up their accreditation badges and bags of information. 

The next two days will be mostly rest before the first race on Monday. Tomorrow will start with a short sprint practice in the morning, and then some sightseeing.

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action, as our Canadian athletes count down to the first race on Monday - the long distance! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

JWOC ~ Long & Middle Training

Today, the JWOC team concentrated on Long and Middle distance model training. 

First up was the long distance map, at a 1:15,000 scale. The group started at a restaurant and viewing tower on a hill top, Jiraskova Chata.

Start of the long training.

Coach Brian reports that everyone looks good in the forest, and seem to learn the tricks of the terrain quickly. Below is a map snippet with a couple of long route choice legs that made everyone think hard. Which way would you have chosen between 8 and 9 (leave your answers in the comments below!)

Tough route choice legs. Which way would you have chosen from 8 to 9?

 

The ladies discuss route choice after the training session

Afterwards the team had a packed lunch and time for some relaxation before moving on to the afternoon session on middle distance map.

 

Nice view for lunch!

Relaxation time!

Jennifer tackling a steep hill!

Map sample from the middle distance training

Here are some athlete quotes after the training today:

Today's training for the long is physically really challenging. I think it came as a bit of a surprise to everyone that the running in the white forest was faster than running in yellow, due to long grass. Also, the woods were more tick free!
--Pia

The mental approach to the middle and long terrain is quite different. In the long, one must struggle to read through closely packed contours to plan ahead. In contrast, the middle involved intense concentration on the terrain underfoot. It was easy to ignore the "rocky ground" on the map but unwise to forget the mossy mess attempting to trip you up. Crossing the Polish border on both maps was really fun.
--Adam

Man I am going to have a great bum after all this hill climbing!
--Jen

The long will involve climb. I plan to RISE to the challenge.
--Adam

I have never seen such clean forest under my feet.
--Jen

The Polish border looked a lot more open than the Czech side. Of course, that may have been because it wasn't mapped.
--Trevor

The difference between a distinct tree and a non-distinct tree here is that one is a bit bigger than the other but that doesn't make a world of difference in dark green vegetation.
--Jen

It's like learning to orienteer all over again in these areas and the way they're mapped.
--Robbie

Where is this vegetation boundary they speak of?
--Robbie

The long terrain is very hilly making route choice very important, trying to get a balance of as little climb and distance as possible.
--Alex

Les terrains de la longue distance resemblent un peut aux terrains de Saint-Etienne ou Emily s'entraine. Les terrains de la moyenne sont vraiment sympas, c'est tres agreable de courir sur des terrains difficile techniquement avec de nombreux rochers. Le temps etait ensoleile, en esperant que cela continue.
--Remi

Looking forward to the long and all that climb, well not the climb exactly, but I seem to be dealing with the route choice and long terrain better than the rocks, rocks, rocks and individual trees (which one are they!?) of the middle.
--Kendra

Today I got a lesson on how to descend quickly from a herd of wild goats.
--Alex

Sounds like they're having a good time, at least!

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action, as our Canadian athletes prepare for competition next week! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.


Go Canada Go!

JWOC ~ Team arrives in Hradec Kralove

Team Canada after a short jog through the city

The Junior World Orienteering Championships (JWOC) start this weekend in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. All the Team Canada athletes and support crew arrived by Tuesday evening, ready for a week of preparation training and acclimatization.

Our athletes this year are a mix of first-time and seasoned JWOC athletes. Our athletes this year are Adam Woods, Trevor Bray, Alex Bergstrom, Robbie Graham, Pia Blake, Kendra Murray, and Jennifer MacKeigan.

Injuries have plagued the junior team this year. Molly Kemp was offered a spot on the team, but she declined due to ongoing injury. National Junior HPP Coach, Brent Langbakk is currently injured, and was unable to accompany the team to Europe. Brian Graham stepped up last minute to fill the coaching role ~ thanks Brian! Brent and Molly, get well soon. We hope to see you both in Europe next year!


Today, Wednesday, the team went out for a short jog around the city to shake out their traveling legs. This afternoon, the team did some training on the model map for the relay. With them was guest member Remi Baudot from St.Etienne in France (pictured in blue below).

The training was in a flat area with lots of trails, ditches and vegetation features. When asked what she took away from this training, Pia said, "We have to learn what is mapped as distinct trees in the middle of a green area. It was usually large oak trees in otherwise coniferous forest."

Adam found it to be a challenge with the shades of green and vegetation boundaries, but had lots of fun. The forest was wet, and ditches filled with water after several days of rain. The team is hoping for drier weather in the coming days.

Here the team is ready for training. What do you think of the new Team Canada outfits??

A snippet from the model training map

Stay tuned to the Team Canada blog for all the behind-the-scenes action, as our Canadian athletes prepare for competition next week! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can catch all the JWOC action on their website, and also on Facebook.

Go Canada Go!

JWOC Relay and WOC Sprint Preview

The relay was the last race of JWOC 2012. The women's race started at 10 am. Running first for Canada was Emily Kemp. After realizing the lead girls were taking an inferior route, Emily broke off from the pack and jumped into first, just in time for the first radio control. "The first girls have arrived at the radio and it's Emily Kemp from Canada in the lead!!!" cried the announcer. "I saw they were running too low and I said, 'I think I'll go this way!'" explained Emily. 

The top pack recovered and Emily handed off to Molly in 15th place, just 2 minutes behind the lead teams of Norway and France.

 Molly had a solid run and handed off to Kendra in 22nd position. Kendra had a great run and finished in 19th. When removing second teams and mixed teams Canada came 14th of official teams! Denmark beat Sweden by just 15 seconds to win the women's relay. Switzerland was 3rd.

Kerstin Burnett raced second on a mixed team of Delphine Poirot of France and Brenda Chan Hau Chan Wah of Hong Kong. 

In the men's race, Russia won by a minute over Denmark and Norway.

 The Canadian boys had solid runs, and with help of Emily Ross, got an official finish in the Men's relay. 

Thank you to Brent, Stefan, and Eric Kemp for all of your great updates and pictures for the blog (and of course all of your hard work with the athletes).


Congratulations to all of the JWOC athletes. We look forward to following your progress in the future!


This ends our JWOC 2012 coverage. The Canadian team is off to the banquet this evening but apparently we will not be getting any updates ;-)

Don't worry about going into orienteering withdrawal because the World Championships kick off in Lausanne, Switzerland Saturday morning with the sprint.


The women's qualification starts at 9am and the men start at10 am. The top 15 from each heat will go on to the sprint final in the afternoon. There are lots of options to follow along with the races including live radio, live results,  live blog, GPS tracking, and a tv broadcast with 38 camera positions for the finals!  The live site can be found here


 Louise Oram has decided to sit out the sprint to focus on the forest events so no Canadian women will be running the sprint. 
Robbie Anderson, Will Critchley, and Patrick Goeres will run for the men. 
Here is what they had to say about the upcoming race:

Patrick: "Feeling fit and fast and confident, can't wait!"

Robbie: "Its going to be super tight, and so I'll just have to give it my all and hope for the best."

Will: "After investigation of the likely qualification terrain, it’s hard to know what to expect. The university campus is very complex, almost too complex. How will the mappers map it? Will they generally avoid the super complex terrain to prevent inevitable complaints about the mapping, or throw us headlong into some massively confusing, multi-layer insanity? Either way, there will likely be mistakes, and safe routes on the tricky legs while opening up on the easier short legs will be key to getting through. And, as it stands, getting into the final is my only goal. We'll worry about the rest later."


Watch a video of what coach Magnus has to say about the WOC 2012 sprint

Start Times

Patrick Goeres - 10:07
Will Critchley - 10-13
Robbie Anderson - 10:39

The WorldofO website has an amazingly complete and detailed summary of everything you could ever want to know about the upcoming sprint in their all you need to know about WOC 2012 article. Here is a short snippet:

"Both the sprint qualification and final are city sprints. The WOC sprint this year is special in that none of the gold medalists from 2011 are on start this year. The sprint distance is the most open race with 10-15 possible gold medalists in the mens class and 5-8 possible gold medalists in the womens class. The biggest favourite in the mens class are the Swiss and Swedish men – all 6 Swiss and Swedish men on start are potential gold medalists – Matthias Merz, Matthias Kyburz, Matthias Müller, Jerker Lysell, Anders Holmberg, Jonas Lenadersson. There are actually Swiss runners which would have been clear favourites for gold which are not on the start list! Outsiders in the mens class are EOC sprint silver medalist Kiril Nikolov, WOC bronze medalist from WOC 2010 Frederic Tranchand (although he has not been in sprint form so far this season), 5th on EOC sprint Scott Fraser and previous sprint World Champion Andrey Khramov (although not been in shape this season).

In the womens class, home star Simone Niggli is the big favourite – as in all the races she starts in at this World Championships. However, the sprint is still very open as a small mistake can be enough for the others to pass her on the results list. Along with Niggli, all Swedish women are among the  gold favourites – Sweden took the Triple in the womens class at last years WOC sprint! And although Gustafsson is out, both Helena Jansson and Lena Eliasson are on the start with reigning long distance world champion Annika Billstam finalizing the team. Denmark’s Maja Alm is also a gold favourite after her 3nd place at EOC sprint earlier this year, 2nd place at the sprint World Cup in St Gallen in June and 4th place at last year’s WOC sprint. A gold favourite who is easily overlooked when looking at previous results is Norwegian Anne Margrethe Hausken. Just as Niggli she is back on the scene after childbirth – and at European Champs she was disqualified away from a bronze medal. Also count in the other Swiss women among the favourites – along with Finnish Venla Niemi who took the fourth spot in the St Gallen World Cup sprint."

We are looking forward to it! Good luck to all of the athletes.