Final day of WOC 2010

Today is the final day of the World Orienteering Championships - 2010 Norway.

It is the relay event, but as mentioned, South Africa won't be participating as it only has 2 men at the champs. Instead, it's time to get out there and join the crowds of spectators. There are no clear favourites, other than maybe Norway who will have a strong home ground advantage as well as the popular support.

You can follow the full action which is about to start on the WOC live feed at http://live.woc2010.com/

It's been nice and peaceful here in the last few days since the last qualification race (no South African made a final - not a big surprise). It's given us time to be tourists, both recreationally as well as sportingly.

Apart from participating in the public 'WOC Tour' races, the SA Team also managed to round up some of its travelling supporters brigade and head out for a bit of sight seeing on one of the rest days. The destination was Røros, a quaint historical mining village about 1 hour away in the Norweigian highlands that is now a World Heritage Site.

Pic: The town of Røros from the nearby slag dump.

Pic: Jenny Bradshaw, Richard Lange, Jeremy and Kirsty Green. Four orienteers with 1 map between them.

Røros is a beautiful town, with plenty of historical building and some interesting mining works. It was formerly a copper mining town, with the mine dumps, smelter and associated workings still dominating the town. The SA team had great fun. Jeremy almost took a memento back home to South Africa (don't know where the air hostesses would have put it on the flight).

Pic: Jeremy - begging his wife for some money...

Great day out. Norway is a beautiful country. Pity is so bloody expensive!

Pic: The copper works in Røros.

Well, that's is from WOC 2010. The South African national squad will be in action later this year, when 3 orienteers travel to a Training camp in France in October as preparation for WOC 2011, which will be in the Alpine east of the country (the Savoie Grand Revard region). We'll try to get some reports from them of their experiences, which will include World Cup races in Geneva, Switzerland as well.