Discussion: JWOC Middle

Who is up and watching? Good luck juniors!!

I'm here and sporadically watching - how many go through ?

OK, 20 (at least in the womens) from what the excellent commentator said then.

Us too - hoped it wasn't just 15 to go through!

Nicola missed just - looked like the penultimate runner knocked her out.
Aidan D took a detour.

Looks like Matt Elk didn't manage to hold onto the Norwegian-Finnish express as it came through.

Its an ugly demo of EMIT - punching time seems to vary wildly.

From the Australian point of view, Winnie is through, and Matt and Patrick should make it from here. Jarrah is a late starter so could still make it too.

Matt Elk is hanging onto the Swede and its dragged him up ... finish it off kiddo !

undy, what do you mean about the punching times?

blair Jarrah aint got long though. only a few minutes

We have one USA woman in the A final and Morten may make it the men's side. In the history of the Middle qual and final format I think we have only had two runners make the A final prior to this: Holly Kuestner and Ethan Childs. Congratulations Amanda!

Great run by Alexander Bergstrom! Nicely done Alex. He should make it. Looks like you have to have Scandi blood to move on to A final for the North Americans today.

Jarrah a bit too slow.

@Toph - watching them punch the two controls you can see, some doubling back and a lot of variability in how long they take to get a clean punch. Could just be cold hands. Was more obvious earlier when there were groups of 3+ going through.

[my bias - I never got comfortable with using EMIT]

And, congratulations to Morten!

Looks like Matt and Patrick are through (by the narrowest possible margin in Patrick's case), so three A finalists for Australia.

Great finishing kick Alex...Off to the A finals...Congrats

Nice run, Alex!

I think Leif Anderson from the US also made the middle A-final in 2005.

Is that 3 (one CDN and two US) through then? Looking forward to watching the finals tomorrow. Best of luck juniors!

Nothing new there. Thy use touch Emit. It is over 20 years old system, older than any of those athletes, everyone should know by now all the advantages and disadvantages and how to punch with it. The good thing is (unlike other systems) no-one uses time or tries again because the system/electronics does not work, it is just for not being able to place to card right. I believe Norwegians and Finns have edge here for using it the system regularly (and having practiced punching a lot for all those sprint races they run with this system).

barb> I think both Leif Anderson and Suzanne Armstrong have made the A final before.

and Corinne Porter and Erin Olafsen (it was called the Short).

John Fredrickson made A final in 2006.

Since 2006 Holy and Ethan are the only ones.

Ethan & Holly were never in the same JWOC, so that was not a case of US having 2 runners make the A-final.

Watching you guys argue about A finalists is like listening to a weather report from Blair!

More pictures! https://www.facebook.com/robert.graham.39948/media...

@Jagge - yep, I think you are right looked as though some people just weren't getting the punch right. Probably quite a cheap thing to train on for those who don't use it often, but who would bother ? (I never do and I'm always hopeless with it).

If you want to see awkward punching, Emit on mountain bikes (as practised at the 2006 MTBO WOC in Finland) is a good place to start.

WOC & JWOC participants should bother!

Alex Bergstrom bothered: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1173151242...

Is men's GPS happening? Link did not work for me.

Morten is hanging onto his initial lead at radio 1. :-)

From WorldofO twitter:
"Around 50 last starters in men's/women's race will carry GPS. Tracking should be live from around 12:15 CET"
which is about 4 minutes from now.

thx

That looks like a really tough hill coming out of the arena passage. I wonder if there will be some blow ups on the last loop from people pushing too hard on it because they feel like they can't walk in the arena.

GPS is working now http://gps.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20150707M20/?v=m3

The hill looks brutal from the bottom of it!

Morten had a so-so run. He said he was tired and made about three minutes of mistakes. Happy to be first to finish.

Amanda starts in 25 minutes.

Look at #7-#8 on the men's course. Wowza....tricky stuff.

Interview with Tyra after her run.

Raw footage of an interview with Matej, Isabel, and Evalin after their runs.

Saying Matt Doyle DSQ?

He missed 14 and 15 I think

GPS trace just disappears through that section.

Big mistake by Aebersold at 4, looked like she had a good alt route too

She's been there for over 6 minutes... its hypnotic

Olli is 18. Not bad.

Week ago he won EYOC both sprint and long (with 4 minutes to silver medalist).

Very quick - he and Jonas Madslien Bakken look like they had a good race yesterday a bit head-to-head and both did really well today.

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