The SA Orienteers and the Ukrainian Models

WOC has officially started. We registered last night and received our maps for the model terrain areas. We spent most of today (Friday) visiting these areas.

This morning we travelled slightly out of Kiev to the east to visit Brovary, an area similar to the Middle Distance Qualification race that will take place on Monday. The map is 1:10'000 with 2.5m contours. Weeds, brambles and nettles lurked everywhere under the forest, but the most startling part of the map a very green area circled in pink, with an annotation indicating that this would be the standard on the Qualification map!


We travelled immediately from Brovary, back into Kiev to the other side of the Dnieper River. The Feofaniya map is south and west of the city, showing terrain that is similar to the Sprint and Long Distance Qualification races. We didn't do too much out in the forest here, only a few controls covering about 2km just to get used to the map interpretation and terrain.


We've seen two glorious Orthodox churches near each area today. The first, smaller church was in Brovary, pictured below with Team Manager Ian and Team Member Richard caught posing.


The other is a Monastry / Church on the Feofaniya map. The parkland where we orienteered in front appeared to be a botanical garden in development (there was an ongoing battle between the organisers and the security guards whether we were allowed to walk on the grass). Flower beds were shown as out of bounds on the Sprint Specification map, including a few beds of Cosmos flowers.


The Dniper River is big. Real big. Our best estimates are that it is probably about 2km wide, with many islands in midstream. The old town is on the west bank, whilst the 'Hotel Tourist' where we are staying, is on the flatter east bank. The river eventually empties out into the Black Sea approx. 300km south of here, near the Crimean peninsula. The river in Kiev is still about 100m above sea level.


Tomorrow (Saturday), is the Sprint Qualification race, to be run in the mid-afternoon. Nicholas is running early, Richard middle and Jeremy late in the 3 different heats. Top 15 in each heat go through to the final. No one is placing bets on us getting in, but we'll try. It will be interesting to see how much of a role the tracks laid down by earlier orienteers in the forest will have for later runners. WOCs normally try to avoid areas where grass / weeds allow easy tracking, giving later runners an advantage. This would be impossible in Ukraine however, given the terrain.

In the meantime, some of the team members are getting some rest...