SA Team ready for WOC '09

The South African team is all ready and prepared for the 2009 World Orienteering Championships, held this year in Miskolc, Hungary. The first race of the Champs is the Middle Qualification which takes place on Sunday 16 August.

For this year's WOC, the SA team is quite small, comprising of 3 male athletes (Eugene Botha, Cobus Van Zyl and Nicholas Mulder) and 1 team manager (Pieter Mulder). Unfortunately we were unable to entice any of the selected SA ladies out to Hungary. Most of the team arrived via Budapest on Wednesday, whilst Eugene took a more leasurely approach and sneaked into camp on Friday afternoon. The drive from Budapest to Miskolc, approximately 2.5 hours to the north-east, was fast and without incident. The last part of the drive gave us a good view of the limestone hills of the Bükk Mountains, on the west side of Miskolc, where the majority of the competitions will take place (Bükk means 'Beech' in Hungarian - as in the tree type, not the seaside). The team has spent the subsequent few days in final training in the forests and acclimatising.

Pic: Cobus biting into a local delicacy after one of the team training sessions

Despite the relatively short time we've had in the country, we've already had a few great experiences. The drives through the Bükk National Park have been inspiring... very fast white forests on tough hilly terrain. After one of out training sessions, we also stopped at a 'fast food' kiosk to sample the local tourist fare. This can only be likened to a sort of deep-fried pizza dough with cheese sprinkled over the top. It took about 30 minutes to receive our 'fast' food, a good indication that the pace of life in these mountains is quite unhurried.

Our accommodation, based in the Univesity of Miskolc's 'Uni-Hotel' has been excellent. The food has also been quite decent, with the expected East European emphasis on hearty meals generally featuring soups, meat, potatoes, goulash, etc. The translations to English leave much to be desired though...

Pic: Lunch time! The English translation of the meal creates some amusement.

Meanwhile, the orienteering has been enjoyable as well... if only there weren't so many nettles all over the place! Most of the forest is white and very fast. The region however is mountainous and karst, meaning we'll be expecting some good climb during the races and encountering lots of sinkholes and pits. On Saturday we had our final preparation, the Model area for the Middle Qualification race. All went well, so now we just await our start signals. Cobus is first off of the South Africans at 10h10, then follows Eugene at 10h46 and Nicholas right behind at 10h50. All very good times, not too early or too late. We're all holding thumbs for Cobus, hoping that he'll overcome the nerves of his first WOC appearance and have a good run. Eugene is competing in his 2nd WOC whilst Nicholas is on number 8, so no need to worry about them.

Pic: Map of the Model area for the Middle Qualification. Nic's GPS course is partly overlaid (until it went bezerk).