Race schedule

This week the races start.

Tomorrow is the middle qualification. Top 15 from each heat will qualify to run in the final on Friday.

On Wednesday will be the long distance which is 16km in tough Norwegian terrain.

You can follow the race live here:

Einarbu

I've been here for about 2 weeks now.

Luckily through Sigmund Vister and the Flagtreff Orienteering club I could stay at their clubhouse at Einarbu. The boys from JWOC four years ago stayed here. Naming it EinaBru. Meaning ouch bro in south African.

Check out their blog from them for some info.

I had company for a couple of days in the forum of Colm Moran. Grandmaster in chess, part time orienteer.

Did a couple of trainings with the Danish and Chinese teams which were fun.

I'll post some links to maps and 3drerun stuff later.

Terrain is super tough running. Balancing training and resting is tough.

Norway is expensive.

WOC 2019

This year's World Orienteering Championships will be taking place in Norway.

The South African team will consist of just me (Bradley Lund)

I'll be running the Middle and Long distance.

The last time WOC was in Norway was in Trondheim in 2010. This time the event will be held on the East side of Norway, quite close to the Swedish border.

The terrain is super tough going and energy sapping. Have a read through the blog posts from 2010, you'll find some interesting comments from the South African team of 2010 about the orienteering and Norway in general.

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 ↑