Discussion: WOC 2018 Relay

New blog post from the US team!

http://usa-orienteering.blogspot.com/2018/08/relay...

Excellent spraying technique, Giacomo!

Are they not starting the TV broadcast until halfway into the women's relay??

Appears so. But we have moving dots. Go Ali!

Am I the only one who sees that the video coverage of the relay doesn't start for another 23 minutes even though the GPS clearly indicates that the race has started? Once again the IOF proves that it considers the women's races to be completely inconsequential. I try to be very rational on Attackpoint but this makes me so angry. Why wouldn't they bother to show it?

There is a note on the stream that says The video is now sent via satellite and therefore ca can't start until 14:45. Hopefully it is just delayed rather than truncated.

Delayed would suck worse IMHO

Ali lost time going thru green to 6.
Norway missing 8...

Yeah, delayed would be way worse

Estonia in the lead!?

Yep, which way now ?

Is she going to run round the road or up the yellow spur ?

Fantastic to watch this rc unfold

Fields route wins

GBR confused by the control 15 forking...

Great race by Ali!!

Woohoo Ali! Go Tori!

Looks like Tori is collecting both halves of the fork

Indeed.

Why am I still seeing the gps for leg 1?

Simmo click the tab at the very top of the page.

@simmo - you are on the wrong fork, there is a tab for leg 2 "Women-2"

Both halves better than wrong half ...

Thanks.

GBR's crazy way-around route to 12 doesn't look too bad now!

Except that she is going to 14 instead of 13?

GBR having a good catch up leg now
[edit nope, they have mispunched]

Tove & Judith both took the road ...

Gonna be a foot race, sprint finish ..

Race for Anglo-medals still on, GBR eliminated, AUS, USA, NZLund still alive

Aus has been very steady in the women. That's the key to it I reckon. (Edit) Tis early days in the men but NZL is ahead of even GBR.

So steady that he went to both controls at 5

Steady - but have been overtaken by Spain, Germany and Hungary.

Sorry I shouldn't have edited above, out of order. I'm not watching the dots like you, but the live blog is a bit ruthless. Taking delight in showing unfortunate route choices by the likes of DRK. Well not sure which Korea it is.

GBR back in front of NZL men. They DO live a bit closer to the competition. Lizzie did a good job of chasing Belinda I see.

Does anyone know the running order for the Canadian men?

The live blog is the best bit of the results-watching :)

Also, from the start list:
Canada
1 Damian Konotopetz
2 Will Critchley
3 Graeme Rennie

AUS in front of the NZL men now. No wonder, they live closer to Europe, too.

NZ gone south - the lure of the fjords

But nobody taking the Megan CJ arctic circle route

Castle has a muggle repelling spell on it

The live blogger is so taken aback he's gone AWOL. Maybe he needed to rush down and do leg 2.

GBR should have a few nice forkings on leg 3.

Shame video is so far behind the gps; don't want to comment else give something away.

comment away.

FRAnce are just powering through

Is Blair on the dead-heat judging panel today ? Could be in play.

Well done GBR men on making the podium (do they still cram 6 on?) but your failure to score in the womens leaves AUS and NZL 1= in the Anglo Cup. How often do you see two friends in adjacent places in the results? Good contest, mate.

(I dunno that we'll accept Blair to judge THIS tie. Shall we do it on accumulated time?)

And a big hand to both Latvian teams. The men especially made the live blogger speechless.

I agree with all the comments re. Latvia: They did _far_ better than most of us expected, finally running out of juice near the end of the men's relay after staying in the lead up to that point.

I did find it a bit exciting to watch a single dot (Magne Dæhli/NOR) run what was supposed to be the best route to #13, while 8 other teams pushed each other along the "fjord route". In the end that big group did very well, running more or less exactly as fast as Magne.

Now, with 3 wins in a row it is almost as if we are back in the eighties when the men's relay had 4 _long_ and _tough_ legs, and Norway usually won. :-)

Norway not only usually won in the 80’s but they also usually swept the men’s classic medals and were top 4 once or twice too.

Terrain like this with limited point features and green seems to make for more exciting races that the terrain which is supposedly more technical with lots of point features.

Was only a judge for the women this time. (Only one close finish there, and it wasn't a close finish at all - China just beat the US across the line, but China had been in the mass start so were placed behind regardless).

Unpleasant terrain, great relay courses, great TV coverage, awesome race.

Another quality run from DK. Classy WOC from him for Canada.

@Hammer: Your are exactly right, the "most technical terrain" is where the world's best orienteers like to train year round, so they are extremely good there. It is only when you both take away almost all exact point detail (which includes any significant contour jiggle) and add a lot of vegetation which force you to deviate from a straight line that you see real mistakes at this level.

Today we saw pretty much every top-10 orienteer in the world at least hesitate if not make real mistakes.

Next year we're back in Østfold/Sarpsborg with terrain that is quite similar to WOC2016, I expect much less big mistakes among the top countries.