Discussion: Guelph A-meet in 2 weeks (Team CAN selection races, round 1)

In case anyone didn't notice this, the first of the two Canadian WOC team selection races is taking place the weekend of May 14-15 in Guelph between Hamilton and Toronto, ON. This is a regular A-meet with a full complement of courses. Event website is here. For the advanced runners, Sat is a Classic distance race (90 min winning time) and Sun is a middle distance (30 min win time). Everyone else gets a farsta on Sun. Most of the top Canucks will be there. Course 8 competition already looks formidable. C'mon fellow Yanks, lets show up and put some heat on these guys! The Nor-Ams will be in this general vicinity in just over a year - come up and have a look beforehand.



Also, here is a note Peter sent around about Sandy's Memorial Day weekend fun at the Delaware Water Gap. If you've never been there, I highly recommend it - good stuff.

Here's first notice of a couple of days of orienteering at the Delaware
Water Gap which Sandy is setting up.

1. Regular courses Sunday My 29, advanced courses only (Brown, Green, Red, Blue), set by Alexei.

2. A sprint double-header on Monday May 30, set by Alexei (maybe) or Clem (maybe), or someone else (anyone interested?).

3. Help will be needed for picking up the controls for Sunday's courses. Some expressions of willingness to do this would be nice!

4. E-punching.

5. Net proceeds to benefit the Team! (thanks Sandy!)

Sandy's idea for doing this is:

-- the Water Gap is a neat place.
-- with only advanced courses it's a lot easier to put on.
-- clubs in the Northeast don't seem to have anything scheduled for Memorial Day weekend, so it might interest quite a few people.

But she needs a little help (see #'s 2 and 3 above). Who can pitch in?

Peter

PS. The sprints will be 40-pointers.

------ Forwarded Message
From: Sandra Fillebrown

Peter -
OK - it's official. There will be two sprints on Monday, May 30 at the
Water Gap. Please add them to the Sprint series.

I've asked Alexi if he's willing to design one or both. Clem McGrath said he'd be willing to do one if I got stuck. If you know of someone else I could ask let me know.

I'm thinking 9am start time for the first and maybe 11am for the second so that there's time to collect controls afterwards. The Sunday courses will be open starting at 10am. I'll put together something with more specifics in the next few days.

All proceeds (after expenses) will go to the team. Any chance you could get commitments from a few team members to help with control retrieval for Sunday's courses? I was planning to spend Saturday putting out those controls and Monday collecting them, but I'll be busy now on Monday with the sprints.
Sandy

Although the Gator Cup is only 15km away from the 2006 NAOC map, the terrain is completely different. Gator Cup terrain is hummocky moraine terrain (Michigan with few trees, similar to Manitoba). NAOC terrain is flat limestone terrain (forested and lots of rock detail). This weekend's "Hard Rock O" is on Hilton Falls, the map that is adjacent to the the NAOC map. But yes the Gator Cup terrain is great and the men's elite field is a good one so the weekend promises to be a lot of fun.

The top 2 men at the Gator Cup will make Canada's team. Part 2 of the Candian Selection races will take place the weekend later in Kamloops, BC at the Sage Stomp.

Oh.
Then change "in this general vicinity" to read "its in Canada" :)

That should narrow it down Eddie. Just head north, past the first beaver dam, hang a left and you're in Guelph (ancient Indian word for place where cows run the show.)

Hammer, as a way of boasting about how lucky we are (even though I mostly live in Ottawa) can you post the various types of terrain we have within an hour of Hamilton

I've never thought of Niagara as a beaver dam before, but thats pretty funny!

A link (right side of page) that describes southern Ontario's terrain types is here

As Nev-Monster mentioned there is a large variety of terrain in southern Ontario, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side it prepares us for a variety of races in other areas of North America and the World. For example, Hilton Falls is similar to Vasteras (WOC'04), Dundas Valley is similar to Japan and Denmark (WOC'05-06). As far as disadvantages...we don't really have a home terrain advantage because we don't run in one terrain type enough that if we have a big race here then we get a big jump on everyone else.

Yep, I can hear ol' Red Green now: "Thats one big-ass beaver pond. Its almost...eerie." (heh heh hehhhh)

One week to this meet. Sign up soon.

Eddie seems to be doing more hype for this event than anybody. I just noticed that they have added a sprint event to the weekend (see below). Not sure if that is part of the Canadian Team Trials or not.

"In addition to the 2 events, a sprint is planned after the events on Sunday morning. This will be free to everybody. More information will follow".

Are no women being selected for the WOC team at this competiton? Just 2 men? I hadn't noticed that before. Whats the reason?

It is alleged that all likely female WOC prospects living in eastern Canada have affirmed that they don't want to go to Japan, hence the knock-down, drag-out, winners-take-all-the-marbles female selection only at Sage Stomp.

Interesting. I wonder how the "unlikely" eastern prospects feel about this. I wonder if I was a likely or unlikely prospect when I showed up at the Pig with a bad cold.

No slap in anyone's face intended or, hopefully, perceived - I don't know where quite everyone female and Canadian who wants to go to WOC lives (they might absolutely all be out west) but I am dead certain 5 of the at last count 7 live west of the Saskatchewan-Alberta border. The powers that be are just trying to minimise everyone's travel expenses while keeping a requirement that one actually beat other WOC hopefuls to make the team.

Here is a sample of the Guelph Day 1 map from a past event. How did I get ahold of such a thing given the ITAR rules and such? Yeah, I have spies...
This looks pretty sweet.

With Canada expanding to 6 men and 6 women this year it is very likely that that Canada's men's team has already been selected. The selection races may end up mainly determining 'who runs what at WOC'.

Currently, all women live out west. (and all the best men live in the east, or to include a few more, has been living in the east at one point in time)...;-)

Pam James, Pippa McNeil - Yukon
Marie-Catherine Bruno, Louise Oram - BC
Charlotte MacNaughton - Alberta
Victoria and Heather Smith - Originally New brunswick, now???
Sandy Smith - Norway (preselected)

Since these are the women who expressed interest I suppose this is why the women are only being selected in the west!!! ;)

Hey, "all women" don't live out west, Sudden - what about Suddenfru and Etoile? As a woman living in the east who plans to race in the Gator Cup, I'd love to sound really indignant about this situation. However, I'd have to be able to run about three times faster than I do before I could complain - and that's definitely not going to happen! All my best wishes to our western women. :-)

Are the Canadian TT open or invitational?

Open, provided you can produce your Canadian passport on demand, but trials entrants are required to tell Ted de St. Croix they want to go to Japan if selected before the first trials race takes place, i.e. there's still until Saturday for dark horses to enter the fray.

So, basically, the men get 2 chances to make the team but the women only get one shot at it, and the reason for this is geographic?

What about USA/Canada Team Trials together next year?

Based on the response to the invitation this year, joint US/Canada trials are a possibility provided they aren't scheduled early in the spring when they'd severely disadvantage people residing in the snowier than average parts of Canada. I've no idea whether the odds of the COF buying in would be increased by trying to jointly agree on a trials event or whether it would be best to settle on US Team Trials at an appropriate time and just invite the COF to use them if it likes. The COF doesn't have the best past record of deciding on team selection well in advance but things may be different looking forward.

Responding to Eddie, basically, yes. We also refrained from taking up the WOC organisers on their offer to organise trials races, presumably for geographic/financial reasons. Maybe doubts relate to any women possibly being sick or injured at Sage Stomp? The COF has apparently authorised a "Scandinavian style" selection process, i.e. Ted's judgement rather than any mathematical formulae will decide who did best in the selection races. I'm not sure whether this means he has the discretion to decide someone underperformed due to illness or injury and should go to Japan despite doing poorly in the selection races but I suspect he does provided he can then get the COF board to ratify his decision.

The US team trials for 2006 will be hosted by the St. Louis OC on May 19-21. Same format as what was in Cincinnati -- sprint, middle, classic. SLOC is applying for sanctioning as an A meet. I would think they would be pleased to have the Canadian trials as well.

That may be too bad - Sage Stomp XXI will quite likely be held that same weekend (a traditional holiday weekend in Canada) and it's hard to imagine the COF deliberately sending our elite to an event in the US when it's in conflict with a Canadian event.

Somehow I doubt we would choose something that far away for all of us when there is already a suitable event closer... How pertinent is the terrain? Would you guys think of coming up here ever?

I shouldn't speak for the US side, but it seems only fair to switch (if Canada holds its team trials in the US one year, then the US should do the reverse the next year). Actually, if this were to happen it could easily become the biggest M/F21- event on the calendar. For me it would be bigger than the US Champs, Canadian Champs, or even the North Americans. Just look at the field we had racing in Ohio this year. It would be great to repeat that kind of field at more events, so as a neutral, I'm all for combining team trials.

I wish I were going to Guelph, but unfortunately the dark side (adventure racing) calls this weekend...

"Will, I *am* your father..."
(insert Vader-breath here)
"Come with me to the Guelph side, and together we can rule the GALAXYYY!!! Uhh, I mean, CANADAAAA!!"

What happened to you Will? Did someone strike you on your head?

We need a task force to study the usurpation of O by this adventure racing.

I thought I should give it a try and see what the attraction was. j-man, you yourself have been known to take a temporary detour from the one true path of O over the last few years, so this is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black... :)

Don't worry, there will be no mountain biking in the sprint series finals at Pawtuckaway... and we won't be calling it 'sprint trekking', nor will we be using a USGS map of Pawtuckaway.

Ah, the true path. Yeah, I've been known to deviate from time to time.

I've always suspected the true path passes through Laramie, but as to where it begins or ends, I haven't a clue.

That would be US Route 30. It starts in Philly, passes through French Creek and Laramie, and ends in, umm, where does it end? Abe was on to something. But you'll never hear Yoda say "Rt 30 is the one true path." Its a huge Jedi cover-up.

I always thought US-202 was the orienteering road. It starts up in Maine near the map for last year's US relay champs. Past Rochester NH where UNO holds rogaines. North of Pawtuckaway and Bear Brook. It passes two miles from Fox Forest in Hillsboro, NH. A few miles north of NEOC's Troll Cup 2000 maps in Ashburnham, MA. Five miles south of Mt Norwottuck and into Holyoke, MA just south of Mount Tom. Through Litchfield, CT (Five Ponds, WCOC), and towards Kent, CT, then south to Danbury (Tarrywile, Trout Brook). Across to Peekskill, NY (Blue Mountain), then over the Bear Mountain Bridge and along the southern edge of Harriman. Morristown NJ (two HVO maps). Valley Forge, Brandywine Valley, and then it comes to an end at the bank of the Delaware, a few miles short of Iron Hill in Newark, DE. A tour of US-202 would give you a good idea of orienteering in the Northeast...

Some prelim/unofficial results from the men's races:
3 races, 3 different winners....

Long (14.7km)
1) Nick Duca 88 min
2) Jon Torrance 93 min
3) Wil Smith 94 min

Middle (5.2km)
Map is here

1) Mike Waddington 33 min
2) Nick Duca 34 min
3) Wil Smith 35
4) Eddie Bergeron 35
5) Hans Fransson 35
Jon Torrance 38

Sprint (2.5km)
1) Jon Torrance 10.59
(finish line SI failed half way through race....)

Here are the pictures I shot at the Gator Cup this weekend. The first page is mostly day 1, but starting with IMG_3171 and all the ones on pages 2 and 3 are from the sprint. Links to different sizes below each. As usual, these will only be posted here for a week or so and then disappear automatically. As you can see the sprint terrain was VERY open. Nev-monster is totally focused, looking ahead from the GO control despite the paparazzi being in his face.

Nick Duca has just given word that results are up at http://www.gators-orienteering.ca/GatorsCup/CupMai...

Clickable link to results. Note Coach Stanislav in M45!