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 ~ 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.

Update #3: WOC impressions by Alix, Darya and Emma

Emma, Alix, and Darya are juniors from the Foothill Wanderers Orienteering Club in Calgary, AB. They are participating in the WOC public races as well as watching the WOC races and cheering on Team Canada. It’s their first time orienteering in Europe. Tagging along with them are former national team members Magali Robert and Pam James. We asked Darya, Emma and Alix to provide us with their impressions of WOC 2012 and of orienteering at a big European event.

July 18, the 4th public race and a rest day on the WOC program...

Day 5:

Today was the long course, it was a very tiring. We were all extremely tired when we got to the finish, which included a very long and steep uphill finish shoot. We all had a couple of mistakes but we all made it to the finish alive. The course was physically challenging, the terrain was really hilly, with lots of knolls, depressions and many cliffs. The weather was deadly (it was over 30 degrees celsius), it just drains the energy out of you. We all stopped multiple times at some water controls. On the whole course today there were 6 water stations that we all used to our advantages (sometimes they had chocolate there too :). During Magali's course, she fell into a pit today that went over her head and was also stung by a wasp at the same time, so she was on edge for the rest of her course. The maps here, along with the difficulty of the courses are very different then the ones in Canada making it more difficult in general. 

Emma finishing her course

Alix and Darya at the finish waiting for Emma to encourage Emma

July 19, no public race today and it was the long distance final...
Day 6

Today was the rest day for us, so we decided to be tourists. We slept in, which was great. Then we drove around lake Geneva and took some stops at points of interest. It was really fun and at the end we stopped for gelato (very healthy athlete food). It was also the long final for W.O.C. and Louise raced. She placed 33rd which is amazing, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!

 July 19, last public race today, rest day on the WOC program...
Day 7

Today was our last race day, it is sad but we are also happy to be done racing and to go explore Europe. We all believe that it is the best race that we have done this week. The race was a gunderson/chasing start/pursuit (depending on what you call it), Darya started 59 minutes behind the leader of our category, Alix 96 minutes behind and Emma 100 minutes behind. It was a really fast and nice course of  5.4 km. Almost all of us had a clean race. It was a great way to finish the Swiss 5 days!

Afterwards, we decided to walk around Vevey to see what we could see, we stopped at a massive fork sculpture and also at heaven (Nestle headquarters). 

Posing with a sculpture of Charlie Chaplin in Vevey

This trip to Switzerland was a great success and we have learnt a lot.  Hope to see you at W.C.O.C. and C.O.C.

Thanks
Darya, Emma and Alix :)  

Update #1: WOC impressions by Alix, Darya and Emma

Emma, Alix, and Darya are juniors from the Foothill Wanderers Orienteering Club in Calgary, AB. They are participating in the WOC public races as well as watching the WOC races and cheering on Team Canada. It’s their first time orienteering in Europe. Tagging along with them are former national team members Magali Robert and Pam James. We asked Darya, Emma and Alix to provide us with their impressions of WOC 2012 and of orienteering at a big European event.

July 14, it's the WOC sprint final day and Emma, Alex and Darya has just arrived in Lausanne...

Day 1
 

Today we arrived in Switzerland after an 11 hour flight, via Toronto. At Lausanne, we went straight to the W.O.C. sprint final. While watching, we saw one of our coaches, Patrick, racing. We got to see him bolt through the spectator control and the finish chute. It was very exciting and fascinating. He came in 36th, he was 2min 22sec behind the winner. We were all astounded at how many loud fans from all the world were here to see this race. There is nothing like this in Canada. We learnt that if you want to win a medal in the male sprint, your name should be "Matthias", because that was the first name of all the male medalists today.
We hope that our jet leg doesn't negatively influence us tomorrow during our sprint. We are so excited to be here and for this great opportunity!!!!!
 

Darya, Alix and Emma :)

July 15, it's the first day of the public races and the WOC long distance qualification

Day 2
 

Today we went to the sprint (1st public race), it was at the university of Lausanne. We all had very good runs with a few mistakes, but we were all extremely happy with our races. In our category (Damen 16) of 42 girls, Darya came in 22nd, Emma in 33rd and Alix in 34th. After our races we watched the W.O.C. long qualifier, everyone looked REALLY tired when they were coming down the finish shoot. We would be too after running around 12ish Km. We think that it is safe to say that we are glad that we don't have to qualify for our races!
 

Darya, Alix and Emma :)