Discussion: WOC

Posted on the WOC web page.


25-March, Covid-19 update

The situation concerning the COVID-19 Pandemic develops extremely fast. This may potentially affect the planning of WOC2020, and we know it also creates great uncertainty for all of you who are looking forward to visiting WOC2020 either as runners or as guests.

We in the WOC organizing team are monitoring the situation closely and keep contact with the Danish authorities. We are still planning towards a WOC in July, but at same time we recognize the seriousness of the situation, and we are looking into different alternatives. Hopefully, we shall be wiser within next few weeks, and we shall be able to announce a final decision.

Regarding the WOC Tour we have made the following changes:

The Early Bird deadline is postponed to 1-May
We encourage you to still make your entries in Orienteering Online, but NOT transfer any payments until you receive notice from the WOC Tour organization.
In the event of cancellation or postponement, all fees will naturally be refunded.
We thank you for your understanding and your patience in this challenging situation.

The WOC organizing committee

The IOF just posted this as well:
https://orienteering.sport/update-on-iof-events-st...

Here's the quote about WOC: "Regarding the Nokian Tyres World Orienteering Championships 2020 scheduled to be held in Denmark July 7-11, contingency planning is going on at the moment for postponement of the event to October. A decision is expected within a few days. The IOF will publish news about this and any potential consequences for other events in the calendar once the decision is made."

Also in cancellation news: they're looking at postponement options for JWOC (although I'd still be surprised if it happens), and WMOC 2020 is cancelled but Slovakia will be reallocated an event no later than 2023 (presumably this means they'll be given the currently unallocated 2023 slot, unless they're needed to step in for 2021 because Japan postpones World Masters Games due to the Olympics clash).

WOC2020 cancelled.

https://orienteering.sport/nokian-tyres-world-orie...

Individual sprint and sprint relay have been added to next year’s Czech WOC.

Interesting development https://woc2021.cz/2020/06/15/world-orienteering-c...

Yah normal WOC again!

I thought normal WOC was just individual classic and relay.

Who's to say what's normal?

unprecedented is the new normal

So bigger teams? Or are the middle/long bush teams going to do the sprint as well?

There's no limit on team sizes these days, so countries will presumably select people as they see fit.

OK, so potentially up to 5 extra each for men and women (3 for the sprint and 2 for the sprint relay) although probably just 3. I'm guessing many countries won't bother selecting extra though as they may already have 3 men and women for the Middle and potentially 3 more each for the relay (maybe the same) and 1-3 for the Long depending on promotion and relegation (again maybe the same).
So countries could select anywhere from 0 to the lower limit of 24 (if in Division 3 for the Long) or upper limit of 30 (if in Division 1).

It's effectively the same as WOCs in 2018 and earlier. You're right that it's theoretically possible that 15 men/15 women could be chosen but the most I can remember from any country is 9, and 6-7 is more typical for the big countries.

So what are the chances of Denmark offering some forest events in 2022? :-)

Yea, a "real" WOC.

Yeah, I guess he isn't. (Although, I guess you could pronounce it "whoosh", if you stretch things a bit.)

Do you pronounce it as "woke"?

Someone deleted a comment in here (so I deleted mine) and now nothing makes sense. I guess that's just AP.

I noticed there were a bunch of deletions (one seems to have reappeared now after the comment it was originally before) but I woke up to the fact.

All the more fun. At least the misspelling of "wok" is gone.

I must have missed that deletion - I certainly walked in too late.

tRicky - you've been at work.