Scorpion Fish: WOC Sprint Quali

The WOC sprint Quali was yesterday, and for me begun with the faint sounds of a familiar song as I had my pre race nap. Then came another familiar song. I was pretty sure that was more than just a coincidence.

Turns out a pretty legit South African band called Beatenberg are playing in a music festival in the same town we are staying in; Aviemore.

And Ben Howard after being observed by Jess at Zoo lake last week, has followed her over here to the same festival?? Craziness.

Back onto the Sprint Quali.

Quarantine is an interesting place and incites very different feelings for different people. It's always quite intimidating seeing so many of the best orienteers in the world packed into a small hall.

The starts were also pretty intense, with three people starting every minute, each of them on a different heat.. So loads of people running in every direction out in the terrain. Lots of tight corners meant quite a few collisions. Brad ran into an american going around a corner.

The terrain was pretty standard Scottish village, lots of small turns but very difficult to lose loads of time.

The girls started off first, and had good results, becoming the first South African women to finish under 130% of the winner's time.

The guys started a bit later and had a few mistakes, you can read Garry's write up about his race on Attackpoint: http://www.attackpoint.org/log.jsp/user_1614

Eugene has made some comments about his race on his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eugene.botha.9?ref=br_rs

You might even find some funny? pictures if you follow that link.

I (Brad) had a really good run, and I'm really happy with how it went. one route choice mistake to 8 (lost like 8 seconds I think) and a couple other smaller ones. 31 Seconds off qualifying for the final.

Sprint Relay starts tonight at 18:05 Scottish time, should be really exciting to follow from home!

WOC 2015

WOC 2015 starts tomorrow evening with the Sprint Qualification.

There are three heats and of each heat the top 15 will qualify for the final.

The start times for the team in South African Time are:

Jessica Lund        19:12
Michele Botha     19:24
Garry Morrison    20:11
Eugene Botha       20:16
Bradley Lund       20:33

You can follow the race with live results here:

http://liveresults.woc2015.org/followfull.php?comp=11093&lang=en

WOC website:

http://www.woc2015.org/home

And a really good website to keep updated with news from loads of sources:

http://worldofo.com/

End of Oringen

Pretty sad to leave Oringen again, in my mind I'm already planning how to get back next year.
I really enjoyed the week, the maps and terrain were really cool. The scale of the event is an experience in itself.

Photo Competition Answer:

Roisin, Aoife (Miranda), Cliona and Niamh. 

I am in Scotland now with my mom and dad. I think most of the team is somewhere here as well some South African team members ran the parkrun in Edinburgh on Saturday. Will start blogging again closer to WOC.

Oringen Stage 4

Today was the middle distance stage of Oringen

I started off decently but made a parrallel error on 5 which took way too long to work out and fix.

Took it chilled until 12 and then ran pretty hard from there to the finish.

Tomorrow is the last day of Oringen which is chasing starts, but seeing as I DNF'd yesterday I'm not actually in it.

This week has been a very cool experience and it has lived up to the great memories I had of it from 2007. It's a must do for any South African. It is epic walking around Oringen Town seeing thousands of people who do the sport we know is tiny in our own country.

Yesterdays Orienteer:

Anders Nordberg!
Todays competition:

They have high energy ↑

Oringen Stage 3

I didn't do much today, jogged the first two controls and halfway to the third decided to bin it so walked back to the arena.

Punched the last control and ran the finish split in 32, not too grand.

Answer for yesterday's picture comp:

Elena Roos and Florian Howald. Florian also has a South African O top, after I swapped with him in Poland.

New Competition:

The guy with the kid on his shoulders is the famous one.He's been to South Africa before and is doing pretty decently in my class for oringen.

Boras City Sprint

The national team members could run the same city sprint that the H21 and W21 Elites could run. I was very keen to have a crack at some sprint. My legs not so much.

I've been spending a bit of time with some Irish JWOC girls, who are pretty cool and have loads of high energy. Roisin Long was also running the sprint, so after figuring out we needed to be in quarantine, Cliona, Niamh, Miranda and I headed to the city, scoring a free bus ride on the way in. Somewhat due to my charm and good looks, maybe due to Roisin's chubby cheeks but most probably because my card wasn't working and the bus driver being generous.

Quarantine was interesting. Increasing any nerves I had. But it was really good to get that feeling again before WOC.

The race was decent. The first half nice and technical, second half a bit of a run.
I had a few hesitations, ofcourse, one or two bad route choices and one mistake to 5.

4 and 6 were quite interesting. They should go up on www.routechoice.co ;) here's the map:

Sorry about quality, not much I can do about that.

Day Two Answer:

Olle Bostrom, Eskil Kinneberg was also in the photo.

Boras sprint photo comp:

Oringen Day Two

After a pretty satisfying performance nav wise on day one, I was pretty keen to have a proper crack, and try run close to full speed.

I feel like I was going pretty well up until a rookie error on number 9. Went to correct control, read the wrong code, ran around for 3 minutes.

Stuffed around on the rest of it, and smashed the finish split.

36 seconds, 3 seconds ahead of any finish split in the elites. I might be wrong.

I'll be running the elite sprint tomorrow, will be interesting to see how I do against some of the best.

Daily Competition:

Michael Crone was the winner. Tove Alexandersson was the correct answer. She saw me, said she recognised me and was a big fan of mine. So being the gentleman I am, I allowed her to snap a quick selfie.

Bonus answer:

Jonas madslien bakken

Norwegian JWOC guy who swapped shirts with Roark

Daily Competition Day Two:

Two pretty big names in that picture, both of them arerunning H21E, point for getting either right.

Oringen Day One

On the way to the start I got a wiff of that european forest smell and it was glorious.

I was super stoked to get into some scandi terrain again, last time being at Oringen 8 years ago. Wasn't quite sure whether I should race it or just get into the terrain and make sure I could orienteer.

Decided to take it chilledish and navigate properly. Got a bit of a fright on the way to number 2, I stopped short and didn't really know where I was. My minuteman came through and saved the day :P

I wasn't reading ahead much and didn't make any big route choices really. Kinda just went straight, picking up features on the way and getting stuck in slow marshes quite a bit, was knee deep in some, waste deep in others. Went straight on the long leg which probs wasn't the greatest. Went tgrough some scattered open twice; also slow going.

Saw Olli Ojanaho on the way to 8 and tucked in behind the junior champ for a bit.

Map with route;

The terrain is awesome! The vibe is pretty sweet too. I definitely recommend giving oringen a crack, 10/10 would do again.

Might have the slowest second last control but holding thumbs for the finish split. Splits should be up soon.

Day One; Name the famous Orienteer

Bonus picture: name the guy wearing the south african shirt.

Africans at Oringen

Didn't want to make the title South Africans at Oringen, because then I would just be talking about myself.

There are two of us Africans at Oringen this year. Me; Bradley Lund and a Ugandan; Joshua Mayanja.

I'll try find him and write a bit about his story up here as well.

Tomorrow is the first stage. I'll be running H21Kort, and hopefully the elite sprint on tuesday as well.

I'll try post some pics (most of them will probably be selfies with famous orienteers somewhere in the background. We'll play name the famous orienteer each day and the person with the most correct at the end of the week will win something) 

Watch for my finish split.

Come to Big Five! 

http://www.bigfive-o.co.za