Sprint and Long Qualifications

Saturday 18th - Sprint Qualification

Saturday was hot and muggy. Temperatures were in the mid to low 30's and the sun shone down mercilessly. The men's sprint qualification race was set for mid-afternoon. Lovely.

Then the organisers threw in problems to add to everyone's woes... After a 30 min metro trip, early starters arrived at the bus station to find no buses available for them. After 40 mins of waiting in the hot car park, a non-airconditioned, non-windowed bus took them a further 20 minutes to the start check-in.

Team Member Nic was first off. He had 20 minutes to get changed and warm-up (well... lets just call it jogging and stretching... you couldn't get any warmer) before his start. Other countries had competitors with even less time. Thankfully, the rest went according to plan and the team was able to settle down and focus on their races.


Team Member Richard posted the best result of the day in the B heat, finishing 32nd (out of 39) in a time of 16:07 for the 2.9km course. Team Member Nic was 33rd in A heat in 16:20 and Team Member Jeremy 36th in C heat in 16:47. All the winning times were about 12 - 13 minutes. Rich felt that he suffered on the last big hill with a few controls to go, Nic was quite happy with his whole run, whilst Jerm said he felt sluggish and tired, his only mistake of the day taking place right in front of all the spectators at the mid-way viewing control. The team was surprised to find that the training areas and model area were not fully indicative of the terrain on the course, with virtually no undergrowth in existence.


Team South Africa Supporters Club Chairperson Jenny was in vocal attendance amongst the spectators. Somehow in all the hoo-haa, she managed to find 2 other S.A. expats in the crowd, living in Kiev on a year's contract.

Photo - Team Members Nic and Richard looking at the results board.


Sunday 19th - Long Qualification

The team woke up very early on Sunday morning to the beautiful sight of cloud cover and much cooler weather that lasted through to the afternoon. Transport to the start was much better (at least for the S.A. contingent), leaving the three competitors with nothing on their minds apart from orienteering.

Team Photo: (clockwise, from the tubby guy...) Team Member Nic, Team Member Richard, Team Manager Ian, and Team Member Jeremy.


Once again the forest was different from the expected. Very little undergrowth and almost no nettles were in evidence, although good tracking was found for the late runners (Jeremy and Nic) in the river valleys. The big surprise was the high percentage of semi-open and open areas on the map.

The course tooks its toll on quite a few competitors. Many seemed to have made very big errors at various points. Team Member Nic ran most of the way from his #6 to #8 before realising his mistake, whilst Team Member Jeremy spent 15 minutes looking for one control. Team Member Richard mentioned something about being b******* (see typical photo below... photo courtesy of Team Princess Jenny).


Team Member Nic produced the best result of the day, finishing 24th out of 36 participants in Heat B (1:15:44). This was still 12 minutes away from qualification however (15th place). Team Member Richard finished 34th, in a time of 1:33:57 in Heat C whilst Team Member Jeremy finished 35th, in a time of 1:36:07 in Heat A.

More results online at:
http://woc2007.org.ua/live/results-online.html

For some great O' news:
http://worldofo.com/news/L_ENG.html

Tomorrow

Monday morning sees the last of the qualifiers, the Middle Distance. Jeremy is off early, Richard in the middle bunch and Nic will start late.

Keep posted for tomorrow's blog highlights including:

• Maps with the SA route choices for the last 2 days.
• Photos.
  
• More photos.
• And even more photos.