Relay Tomorrow

The final event of WOC 2011 kicks off tomorrow just after 12 dor the ladies and at 15h15 for the mens relay.
Mike is going to run out first, then Nick and Jeremy will anchor the SA team.
live tracking will be available on the WOC website - but only for 17 teams - and we are unlikely to be one of those 17. Starting as team 36 of 40 we aim to improve on our starting position int he finish chute.

Thank you everybody for the encouragement this year. It has had mixes outcomes, but largely been a successful trip.

Sprint Qualifications - A Dsq Disaster! but SAfricans all safe (maybe)

It's 11pm on Tuesday night - the Sprint Event Day. The Sprint Final has taken place and Linnea Gustafsson (SWE) and Daniel Hubmann (SUI) have been crowned World Champions. The extraordinary part however, is that despite the Finals now being all done and over, there are still no official results from the Qualifications held earlier this morning. We don't know the official final positions of the South African competitors in this earlier event (other than none of us qualified for the Final), nor do we know if any of us have been disqualified!

The DSQ's

The disqualification issue is quite important, as a large percentage of the field were initially disqualified due to issues of crossing uncrossable areas and boundaries. A rough count and unofficial comments suggest that about 11 women and 39 men were originally disqualified. Thankfully, hearsay has none of the South Africans in this list (so far). The primary error seems to be a lot of athletes accidentally or intentionally cutting across some lawns to the last control that had been marked 'out of bounds' (olive green) on the map.

Pic: The finish arena and the 'out of bounds' grass lawns that were marked in olive-green colour.

However, two other 'hot spots' were also noted, where competitors may have crossed an olive green flower garden (west of control 41) and two 'uncrossable' walls (near control 46).

Left: Control # 41 and Right: Control # 46 (images from Men's B heat)

It is unknown weather anyone has been disqualified for mistakes near #41, but the organisers did initially decide not to disqualify runners for crossing the walls near #46 as they said this would have resulted in over 100 disqualifications (over 50% of the field!!!), resulting in a ludicrous situation.

There is no need to point out that there has subsequently been a lot of upset people and heated debate. It has not been a good day for elite international orienteering. Matters were made worse by the imminent Sprint Final in the afternoon. With live TV broadcasts and hundreds of waiting spectators, no delay could be afforded and the organisers had to rush decisions without proper thought and process. At least to some degree, the main favourites and higher ranked athletes had managed to keep most of their noses clean and were all in the finals as expected. There were a few exceptions though, with matters getting more complicated when some runners were 'temporarily' reinstated and added to the final field, whilst others weren't (or perhaps couldn't be notified in time).

From a South African perspective, what is known is the following:
1) The qualification race took place in the town of Aix-les-Bains. Good warm weather, nice crowds and a nice mix of forest and urban.
2) Jeremy ran Heat A, finishing approximately 28th (before Dsq's) in a time of 19:13 (+4:04 to the winner). He is slightly worried in that he doesn't know whether he ran out of bounds near #41. He definitely didn't run across any flower beds, but a poorly drawn part of the map leaves a grassy gap that he thinks he may have run down. Otherwise a good run which he is fairly happy with, loosing some time in a few small places.
3) Nicholas ran in Heat B, originally finishing 31st in 19:32 (+4:30). There is also concern here as he cut down the edge of the cliff / wall to the east of #46. The big question is where is the edge of the crossable part of the wall (solid grey line) next to the road and which part is uncrossable (solid black line). Nicholas had a very good run, only loosing 10-15 seconds in total (controls 4 - indecision and control 6 - not accurate whilst attacking the control) and is very happy with all his route choices.
4) Michael is the only one who has kept his nose very clean. He doesn't have any worries and is confident he avoided all the areas for potential disqualification. However, he had problems early on, loosing time on some early controls in the forest section. This is his first WOC, so it was undoubtedly a big learning curve on his favourite event distance. He originally finished approximately 29th in 20:49, with many minutes of mistakes. All three heats had approximately 45 runners in them.

Here is Nicholas' map:

From Orienteering Maps

So an interesting day for the team. After all the confusion, we took time out to visit the two main control sites that were causing so much trouble to try and make sense of the confusion. To put it bluntly, the map in these areas is sub-standard. When a few orienteers make a mistake, they are probably to blame. However, when such large portions of the field (all elite athletes at the top of the sport and all of whom know the rules very well) make mistakes, there must be some other faults.

Control #41












Most competitors approached control #41 from the north, entering the lawns below it via the passageway near the water fountain. On exiting the tunnel and turning left, you needed to jump the end of a crossable fence and then avoid the olive green flowerbed en route to the control. The map indicates this will require you to run to the right. However...

 Pic: Jeremy points out a grassy area that separates the flowerbed from the adjacent hedge in front of the sidewalk cafe (which is indicated on the map in pink - also out of bounds).

Pic: The gap between the hedge and the flowerbed from the west. Control #41 was placed on the balcony of the casino in the background. Despite the gap between hedge and flowerbed not appearing on the map, also note the missing gap in the hedge!

Control #46

Competitors approached #46 from either the south-west (from the small dashed footpath) or from the south-east (along the larger brown footpath). The control was in the inside corner of the wall, with a significant drop that essentially also made it a cliff. Another nearby wall / cliff runs parallel to the brown footpath. Both walls / cliffs have a black (unpassable) and grey (passable) section to them. In Sprint Orienteering, this dictates whether you are allowed to cross or not.

 Pic: The view from below. The control was above the wall on the far right of the image. Jeremy is standing in a bend of the wall which seperates the uncrossable section to the right and the crossable section to the left. Jeremy and Michael both ran very far around the left (even around the tree) just in case.

  

 Pic: The wall / cliff next to the upper track. Jeremy stands at the point which on the map indicates the break between the crossable section (to our right) and the uncrossable section (to our left, going past the tree).

Pic: Just past the tree, in the 'uncrossable section' of the wall, there are two embankments where it is very easy to run down and up without realising you are crossing an uncrossable wall / cliff. At speed, most athletes would assume one of these two gaps is the break point between the crossable and uncrossable sections. The cliff / wall further to our left starts to get quite big and uncrossable from this left-hand gap.

A look back to yesterday

Monday was a public holiday in France, and was also the Opening Ceremony of the World Championships. It was a very good affair, with a few highlights like 100/200m French track athlete Christoph Lemaitre being present to unfurl the French flag. He jetted off the his own World Champs in Korea the next morning! The highlight for the South African team was walking into the arena first!!! 'South Africa' in French is 'Afrique du Sud', so we got the privledge to enter first just ahead of Germany (Allemagne) and Australia (Australie).

We'll get back to you on the official results of the Sprint Qualification... when they're finally available. At least the jury will get a good day to decide on things.

Long and Middle Distance

On the day of the long Jeremy and I dropped off Nic at the quarantine area and drove to the arena (with a slight detour for Jeremy's daily coffee run). Reading that Thierry would be in Nic's heat we knew that he wouldn't be happy (skewing of world ranking points). We were right when Nic came in and complained that he could have been a few places up if he had just run a bit faster.

The middle was a bit more exciting when we left the car at the quarantine area. Both Jeremy and I had forgotten our control description holders and strapping tape. This was not really the way that I wanted to start my first WOC race, but with the help of the Germans and the Canadians we were all set. I started in the first start group and fluffed the first control slightly. Other than around a 10 minute mistake on my long leg and around a 5 minute mistake on the other long leg I didn't have such a bad race. After all of the hype about the terrain the race was not as difficult as expected. Jeremy would have had 600 world ranking points had he not made a 6 minute mistake. Nic also complained about making some mistakes.

We have just done the sprint model in Chambery. It was pouring this morning (and is surprisingly sunny now) so the park there was a little slippery. Nic complained about the pretty poor map quality.

Some photos of the middle and long qualifications: (all pictures are from worldofo.com)

Training for WOC

Sorry about the apparent information blackout. I think that we have all been pretty busy with other things after coming home late from training and driving around.

The maps here are really detailed, it's incredible how difficult it is to run quickly through the terrain without completely losing your place and being forced to relocate. Murray Strain put it nicely when he said that you can know exactly where you are, walk 20m and no longer know where you are any more. It was a challenge for me on La Revard yesterday where I was a bit too concerned about following some elephant tracks. Needless to say, one incredibly straight road had me confused so badly that I ran north until I recognised something.

We have been enjoying the local scenery and food. Nic seems to have an obsession with pain au chocolat and Jeremy often sits down to try and find four leaf clovers.

We are all looking forward to the start of WOC on saturday (for Nic) and on sunday (for Jeremy and I). I can perhaps say that I am pretty scared of the forest.. However I am really excited for the sprint on tuesday. We even checked out the final area in Chambery which also seems amazing.

Thanks for all of the support so far.

Day 6. Snow and exercise

With the reduced training yesterday due to the weather, today we squeezed in two sessions. The first session (11.2km) was at lower altitudes so there was no snow and it was a dry run, but it was still in single digit temperatures.

The afternoons training (8km) was still patchy with snow, and on the higher slopes there it was still a foot deep in places. This made for very wet and cold running. The controls had been collected already so Nick and I took turns leading out. We would then regroup at the control location to confirm with each other that it was the place. One control has us both waiting at different cliffs, my will broke first and I went looking for him...
he was right.

The terrain is extremely technical, but I am feeling a lot more confident in navigating through it, so the weeks effort has been worth it. Today was a tough day and I think we will both sleep well. Tomorrow we have one more forest session planned and then we are going to skip the sprint map session in Annecy, and rather go for a tourist drive. We drive through Annecy on Satuday morning on the way to the airport, so we can squeeze in a quick session if there is time.

The week has gone much quicker than I though it would. We will spend the weeks and months between now and WOC going over the routes and maps many times to determine what the best strategies are for different route options, what worked and what didn't.

The most important tool for this forest is compass work. Sounds obvious I know, but with so many re-entrants, depressions and knolls, the exit angle and map orientation are crucial as a couple degrees error could easily send you into the wrong valley.

Here are some videos of running through the various terrains.

Running in the clear forest the down a path with a bit of snow at the end.

This one is of a less runnable area. No possibility of running in a straight line ever.

Some stills of the terrain.

Looking into a runnable area of forest, there is often brashings on the floor. Especially after the heavy snow yesterday.

This is a less runnable area. some undergrowth on top of the very rocky forest floor.

This is a very runnable area - from a mapping perspective, but the moss covered limestone rocks make it very slow, almost like boulder hopping in a kloof, but in he middle of the forest.

This is a view of our little village taken on the way back after the afternoons training camp. the church in the middle and our accommodation in the the house on the far right at the end of the row just above the church.

Day 5. White Forest

The day started slower than most - with another late night meaning another late morning.

The weather stared clearing and across the valley we could see snow on the hills. As time marched on it started clearing so it was only at about 13h00 after brunch that we headed out to training.

The Morning View from the front door
snow on the distant mountain slopes.

As we got closer and closer to the start - the snow got more prolific and this is us driving into the starting parking lot.

Nick decided not to go out on a run today claiming that he had already been orienteering in the snow and it wasn't that much fun. The Irish team were also returning from their training runs and they were saying that the going was very tough, and potentially dangerous as all the limestone gullies were now covered with snow and it was very slippery and treacherous, threatening injury that would ruin the rest of the weeks opportunities.

Jeremy however decided this was to be a run to remember - clothed in 3 layers of orienteering clothing and a balaclava buff. He first posed for some pictures before heading into the white forest.

Jeremy Running out of the forest well dressed.Not all forest is runnable - especially in the snow.

This it the white forest around the parking area.

and here, just for mike - is running through the forest
-not much opportunity to run fast.-

So that was the orienteering today. a quick 40 minutes in the snow.

Typical White Forest.

Jeremy with a big smile - that was fun.

It ended with Irish Team needing a lift as their key was no longer being recognized by their car.
It really was cold then... What made it more difficult was that it was freezing, now down to 2 degrees, and they were cold from orienteering in the snow and they couldn't warm up in the car cause it wouldn't start. But wait there is more - there was no cell phone reception there either so they couldn't phone the rental company for assistance.
We gave them a lift to Aix-Les-Bains where they had another car, and cell reception so they could make a plan. The irony is that the rental agency couldn't work out where the car was, yet kept insisting that they wait at the car, which they couldn't do. It could have been worse, it could have been us:-)

Here is some info on our chateau.
It is in the small village of Arith, right in the middle of all the training events - but far away from anything else. No shops to speak of, and the nearest petrol station is a 40 minute drive. But is it pieceful. we drove around the town trying to find the place and eventually stopped at another accomodation venue to ask. Even then we battled. It is the lower level of a three story house, where we have half of the lowest section. Every thing is raw pine and actually really nice - espicially at the price.

La Tour, Arith France

Most of our time is spent on our computers at the dining room table. Me trying to keep up with work and Nick getting his i tunes and i phone sorted out - it is incredible how long it can take when you have the time... and he never listens to the entire song. I have listened to every genre, artist and era, all in bite sized bits.

Nicks Usual pose.

Tomorrow: double session and more snow perhaps?

Day 4. The weather is worse but the orienteering better.

The weather changed today - started out ok with clouds in the distance, but by lunchtime it was clouded over and by the time we were ready to go training - it was raining.The training event was a long drive - 5 mins straight up the hill. then the walk to the start. The official information said it was 1km to the start, but that was obviously for teams with a manger that could drop them off and then collect them close to the finish.
The parking lot is off the map on the top right corner. We started in the quarry - just below the number 7. Jeremy's GPS failed to record, perhaps due to the rainy conditions, so no track on the map today. We mad a mistake in deciding when to go training, and this was the picture of what greeted us at the finish at 16h30. The car park had 10 cars and a gazebi in it when we started the training 2 hrs previously.
and this was the trip down the hill back to the accommodation. We were wet and cold and ready for supper - and now we really needed to do some laundry too.
Supper was great and another evening at computers for both of us. The sun just went down - long days make for productive days - it is 20 to 10 in the evening.

Day 3 - O gets worse before it gets better

The weather stayed great for the first training day - the third day of our trip.

the view from our chateau - the basement of a house in Arith - Rural France
with lightening fast internet access.

Tired bodies from 2 days racing in unfamiliar terrain kept us lazing around the accommodation till after lunchtime. We then headed back to the Le Revard II map - this time at a new scale - 1:10 000, but the printing was not the same standard and Jeremy found the clearings difficult to read. LITF was Jeremy's summary of the days training. My worst orienteering day so far. I could hardly walk this morning my stabilizers are so overworked, and i just couldn't get in contact with the map today.
Nicks take on the days training was that he took it easy with low intensity recovery session. Flowing through the controls, many similar to yesterday but in a different order and approaching from different directions made for a good session. He did miss the north lines on the map however and had to keep ensuring the map was correctly orientated.

The training map for the day. only friends and family get to see Jeremy's GPS track. Notice the absence of North lines. they were missed! Control 1 was the same as control 5 from yesterdays race, and Jeremy got it wrong again.

Jeremy wasn't the only person battling today - there were some other athletes who came back to the start looking like they should find another sport. Thierry however took the day off from orienteering and cycled up the the event to see what was happening.

The team then went into town, Aix-Les-Bains, to buy provisions for the rest of the week. Carrefour supermarket was an interesting experience. Many of our staple foods were conspicuous in their absence. Yogurt is big, Fresh milk not so much. Pasta sauces were also a little scarce and we never did find the chicken pieces. the standard Nutella and bread was easy to add to the trolley - which was surprisingly cheap - perhaps relative to the Norway costs of last year. Self catering is definitely the way to go while traveling on a budget. The difference is astounding.Jeremy then dropped into Decathlon (sport shop) for some energy drink and got to work the self service check out. The honesty system is impressive - and it seems to work here.

The day was finished off with another late night. Jeremy reviewing papers and closing out with some angry birds, while Nick worked on the music compilations, labeling and rating for his new i phone.

We finish off this blog with some pictures of our walk round Annecy on Saturday.

Nick the photographer. from the top of the hill overlooking the old town.

Good thing this isn't Nicks front door. Many years of subsidence have made it skew - it wasn't built that way - so the guide map says.


The old town where we had some expensive sandwiches with not so expensive ice cream.

Day 2 - French Long Distance National Champs

Day 2 started with blue sunny skies: at 5h50!
The sun gets up early here and I hadn't closed the shutters.
With no food in our accommodation at all we were off early in the search of sustenance.
Being a Sunday Morning, nothing was open at all - so we pegged our hopes on registration having something to eat.
Turn out that parking however, was 2km from registration.
Jeremy had a 9h49 start so timing was tight.

2km walk to registration for a cup of coffee (espresso only) and a piece of cherry pie and sponge cake. 2km walk back to the car gave Jeremy 20 minutes to get ready for his start.This is the view from the starting area. On top of the world with upward of 10 para-gliders enjoying the weather..

The race was a tough one. 40/169 competitors dnf or dsq including 80% of the Irish and British squads.
The race was 14.1km straight line, but there were very few straight line options. green was very green and white was hard work. Jeremy found it very difficult to locate in the forest and spent a long time up and down the road to 5 confirming his exact location before going into the forest.

Jeremy's course and route for the French National Long Distance Champs. Thierry Gueorgiou won by 9 mins in 1h31 putting all comers to shame.

Nicholas ran 2h48 and Jeremy got good value for money with 3h42. He never actually got lost, he says, "I just needed to confirm exactly where I was."
Only 1 water point on the course made it very difficult going. Jeremy walking the majority of the second part of the course with no reserves and dehydrated.
http://www.nationalesavoie2011.fr/ has the results for all classes.

It was a long day out, with another 2km walk back to the car and with most things still closed it was a small cafe that provided supper and provisions for breakfast the following morning.
According to the GPS on Jeremy's arm, he did 30.7km that day - 23km in the race and the rest warming up and getting between the car, registration, start and finish venues.

Next up.
Good value and not so good orienteering.

WOC Training camp 3 - June 2011

2/3 of the South African Squad selected to go to world champs in August are attending the last official training camp in Aix-Les-Bains France. Jeremy Green and Nicholas Mulder are orienteering on terrain and maps similar to that which will be used for world champs in August (http://www.woc2011.fr/) in an attempt to get familiar with the terrain, mapping style and what training is necessary between now and then.

The trip started off with the a race on Saturday where, as they were flying into the area that morning, Jeremy and Nick requested late starts. Little did they know that with a first start at 12h30 and 1 minute start intervals, they would start at 16h55 and 16h59.
(http://annecyso.fr/)
It was the regional middle distance champs and both Nick and Jeremy were happy with their performance on the day.

Here is Jeremy's map with course and track.
Check out attackpoint.com for commentary on the race.

However with the extremely late starts, but the time they finished and got ready to go shopping for food for breakfast, nothing was open anymore... the start of the challenge for day 2.

On the way to the start after a walk around the town of Annecy as we drove from the 400m height of the town to over 1600m start position. This was a view of the surrounding mountains en route with the town below on the shore of the lake.


Next blog post:
shops and closing times:
3 days of Orienteering that keeps getting harder not easier:
Sun and stars:

SA team selected for WOC France

The team that will represent South Africa at the World Orienteering Champs in France in August 2011 has just been announced.

The 3-man team is:

Michael Crone (Wits OC - Johannesburg)
Jeremy Green (AR Club - Johannesburg)
Nicholas Mulder (Rand OC - Johannesburg)

Unfortunately, no ladies have been selected in 2011.

The team features a mixture of experience and strengths. The new-comer is Michael Crone (21) who will be making his WOC debut. He has previously represented South Africa at JWOC 2010 in Denmark. He will undoubtedly be focusing most of his energies into getting a good result in the Sprint distance event, where he is currently showing superb form. Last weekend, in his first year as a senior, he became South African Sprint distance Champion when he decimated the field on a 3.0km course around the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.

 Pic: Michael Crone at the Gauteng Sprint Cup, December 2010 (photo by Francois Marais)

Jeremy Green (37) is in the team once again for his 4th WOC appearance, after competing in Denmark '06, Ukraine '07 and Norway '10. After suffering serious injuries throughout 2009 and 2010, he'll be hoping for significantly improved performances in 2011 following his recent return to form.





Pic: Jeremy Green at the Gauteng Sprint Cup, December 2010 (Photo by Francois Marais)

Nicholas Mulder (32), will be competing in his 10th WOC, having represented South Africa at every WOC since Scotland in '99, with the exception of Japan '05. With the World Champs in France taking place is some of the most technically challenging terrain of any WOC in history, Nicholas will be hoping to make the most of his technical ability and improve on previous qualification results.

With just under four months to go to the World Championships, the team will now focus their training on the special requirements of the terrain in the Savoie - Grand Revard region of France. The team will make two training trips to the region, firstly in early June for a week-long training camp, and then once again in early August for final acclimatization and adaption to the challenging terrain.