Discussion: WOC starts tomorrow! Woo!

Team USA will be posting titillating content all week long. Check it out, cheer from home, collect the whole set!

http://usa-orienteering.blogspot.com

Woo!

Fast thoughts to all!!

Watch it all happen here

http://woc2012.ch/en/live-centre.html

Woo indeed! Race well everyone!

Already? Best wishes to all concerned! I'll be cheering.

Sprint Qual starts in 27 minutes, but I'm going to bed. (curse word.)

There is a live blog at World of O, and Uncle JiM already posted the streaming link above.

Looks like no streaming video for the quals---just the final.

Midnight ain't so bad out here...

Looks like the live updates are updated every 5 minutes?

Is anything happening at the Live Centre for anybody? The first women should be finished by now.

Or not at all grr...

my last update was at 9:06:23

with the previous update at 9:01:15

9:06:23 was my last update as well...

There we go! Ali 13 seconds back at first radio on B.

Woot!

Now how long will we wait for the next update?

Ali Crocker finished in 14:13, 1 second back in B.

Looks like Ali had a solid run. One second behind the Norwegian in her heat.

Sam is within 1 second of the Den Norsk Bank and Finnish runners in C.

No amazing times yet in A.

How are you getting these results? Live results isn't working for me.

I've gotten 4 results updates, at 9:01, 9:06, 9:16, and 9:24

I see, internet explorer doesn't work. Had to change to chrome

Ali still in 3rd. Sam near the bubble in 13th if I counted correctly

Ali is guaranteed in! 3rd with 7 to go!

Sam is either last one in, or first one out...

Ali guaranteed 3rd!

Great run for Ali! But does anyone know anything about Lizzie Ingham? Was that result expected? Can she sustain it in the final?

Lizzie was 11th last year in the sprint so it's not completely out of left field

The results are stuck for me again... with Sam so close to the edge. That 15th spot is either Sam or the Lithuanian.

Sam in 16th. 5 seconds out.

Too bad!

Wow... Sam's time in C would have been good for 4th place in A and 7th in B.

Why no canadians in the Womens sprint?

Interesting strategy or coincidence? Most teams seemed to have kept their best racers away from Simone Niggli-Luder and Helena Jansson. But after you get down past those two it seemed a bit easier to qualify in Gorup A for the women.

Sweden, Den Norsk Bank, Finland, UK, Switz, France, Lithuania with all 3 women advancing.

Interesting strategy or coincidence?

Coincidence, I think. The heats are random, aren't they?

Louise is the only Canadian woman at WOC this year and after running all three races last year, she decided it was better to focus on just the long and the middle.

I don't think the teams get any say what heat each runner is in...

Teams get to nominate which of their runners goes in which of the three start blocks. Teams have no say re which runner is in which heat.

3: Sweden, Den Norsk Bank, Finland, UK, Switz, France, Lithuania, China
2: Czech, Russia, New Zealand, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Bulgaria
1: USA, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Portugal, Austria, Estonia

A photo of Louise and some Canadians made the live blog!
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

These waits for split times are a little bit ridiculous...not that I have ever attempted to live broadcast splits myself...

Patrick should be done by now, right?

Maybe even Will, at this point.

Not Will yet he started at 13... I'm sure he would be very happy with a 12 minute run...

Looks like a good race by Patrick G. Third at the moment.

Update!

Will 10th through 1st radio!
Patrick in 3rd at the finish!

Just saw that Patrick is 3rd in group B so far

live results seems to be working again

Will is 8th at the moment. I hope it is good enough...there are still lots of runners left...

Whoa, there's a Kenyan!

Will is gonna be close to that 15th line. Patrick's in for sure.

Boris has finished, but he's just outside (16th) at the moment.

Womens Maps:
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

Mens Maps:
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

What is that bizarre area in the centre bottom of the map?!

I can't figure it out! It looks like rocky ground mixed with a building overhang? and some weird shapes!

It's a weird looking building... I noticed that on Google Earth earlier today...

Not many contours on the map.

It looks like Will is out. Patrick should make it. Robbie looks okay at the start

Wow, Patrick barely makes it in, at 15th!

looks like you need to finish within 40 sec of the leader if you're going to make A

Building on google maps:
https://maps.google.com/maps/myplaces?ll=46.51851,...

My results show Patrick as 13th...

Oh, you're right. He was 15th through the 2nd radio...

Patrick should be in, only one more finisher to come and he's late

What a bizarre looking building

Pretty easy courses in a simple area - but at least no badly mapped walls and grass out of bounds like last year!

Robbie is out as well. Congrats to Patrick. He only wanted to run the sprint at WOC. I am glad that he got in.

You'd better watch what you say about the building - it is the Rolex learning centre

6: Sweden, Switz, Lithuania
5: Finland, UK, France, Czech, Russia
4: Norway, New Zealand, Hungary, Denmark, Bulgaria
3: China, Poland, Germany, Austria
2: Spain, Australia, Belgium
1: USA, Japan, South Africa, Portugal, Ireland, Romania, Canada, Italy, Estonia

Anyone know the story with Lithuania? 6-for-6 seems really, really good for them. In 2011, they only went 2-for-6 in the sprint.

Great job Ali! Also, O being developed in Kenya. Check out the article in the new ONA.

Here are some shots of the North Americans in the Sprint Qual this morning. Will post all of my pics later if the bandwidth holds up...










Patrick and Ali looking over the Sprint Final area between races this afternoon:

Hi everyone,

About to head over to the quarantine for a long wait with Ali. She ran so fast in the qual that she's one of the later starters, 16:38.

Follow along at http://woc2012.ch/en/live-centre.html !

You'll need to pay! 12 Swiss Francs covers all four finals.

Patrick starts at 17:18, leaving to the pre-start area right now with Magnus, a few minute walk from Jeunotel where we are staying, kind of an athlete village at this place.
Few photos from the quali in the morning here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/magjoh

Just paid, very simple via Paypal, and the Swiss Franc is almost equivalent to the dollar right now. Bargain (as long as it works!)

My photos from the qualification race, showing the strange/cool building.

Gotta say, a bit disappointed in the terrain choice - in a country dotted with cool old towns with intricate passage ways and twisting streets it is strange to have a sprint on a 1960's style campus

A lot of people have commented on how they wanted to make sure the race was ultra fair after last year's debacle with the qualis. I can see that point for sure. But yes, it does seem courses could have been a little trickier, but I think most of the teams had figured out this would be the case.

All. Thx for the reports and the photos. We appreciate it.

Overview of quali on the Team Canada Blog

Live streaming is working well so far.

Just as you said that mine dropped off!

They need audio from the arena big time.

Mine is working great, but no audio from the arena.

It is interesting to watch the GPS tracking in "replay" "from start" mode, even while the race is still on.

Go Ali!

12th at 2nd radio control.

Must be cool racing with Simone :)

Well done, Ali! Fantastic!

What a finish!

Rolex building = swiss cheese?

Does the "rocky ground" in the canopy areas mean low ceiling?

15th at the finish (she chased Simone to the line!) with 4 to go...

Top 20!

Way to go!

Ali 20th. 2:03.6 back

Awesome Ali! Super Simone!

Great job Ali!

Ranges of Sprint qualifying times...
Men A 13:51-14:23 (32s)
Men B 13:23-14:27 (64s)
Men C 13:21-14:03 (42s)
Women A 1357-1549 (112s)
Women B 1408-1516 (68s)
Women C 1332-1436 (64s)

Typical?

Awesome run Ali!

Patrick!

Patrick seems to have run fairly cleanly, I didn't notice any major errors. Lots of route choices! The GPS signal bouncing makes for some interesting traces.

Nick 6th from 35 at 1st intermediate!

Swiss sweep?

Looks like it!

Hometown fans must be going nuts!

No kidding. Swiss sweep! Kinda catchy!

Swept all 3 men's medals. Swept both gold medals. Had 5 top-5 finishes.

Here are all my pics from the Sprint Qual. The sheep and the cornfield are on the map.

And pics from the Sprint Final. Really nice lighting in the afternoon. I was standing on top of a 2m wall at a turn for many of these.

A few highlights for the N.A. crowd back home. Lots of other countries at the links above.

The blog has been updated with some goodies from today. Check it out!

Tomorrow is the long qual and we have six runners: Sam, Ali, Alex, Eddie, Boris and Eric. First starts at 13:01 local time.

Good day for runners named Matthias

Eddie, thanks for all of the photos!

Nice Job Ali and Patrick. Good luck to all those running tomorrow.

Updates on Team Canada Blog . Videos from Patrick and Magnus. Also be sure to check out updates from Charlotte and Adrian too... interesting!

Great photos, Eddie! Could you (and others over there!) shoot some strong horizontals, too? Need some to make WOC banners for the OUSA site! Thanks!

A video of Ali at the last control of the Sprint Final:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buEf1rrQyl0&feature...

That's Simone Niggli-Luder in front.

Live results have posted long map.

Mens map:
A: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
B: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
C: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

Womens map:
A: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
B: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
C: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

Go Samantha! very exciting; she seems right on the edge of A final if they take 15.

Go Sam - you can do it!!

same as Louise...currently in 15th. Go Louise!!

Sam can make it!

Top 15. Ali and Alex are out, Sam is going to be right on the edge again.

So Sam in 12th place with only 4 yet to finish? All/most of whom were behind her at control 12? It looks like she's in if they take 15!

I think Sam will make it, looking at who's left! Yey! Holding thumbs now.

Looks like Ali made a mistake between the two radio controls. 13th->18th from 8-13.

Womens C is also the fastest heat. 2min faster at 15th place.

Louise has qualified! Congratulations!!

Sam is in. 12th with only 3 left to finish.

Looks like Louise is in! Yay!

Eric so wanted to qualify in the long ... but at control 16 he's in 21st place with 7 runners yet to reach that control.

yay for Sam and Louise!
Sad for Eric, but good effort.

Next: Eddie!

Waiting for Eddie to punch #10 ...

At control 10, Eddie already almost 16 minutes behind leader. Looks like no US men in the long final.

Sam made it in the Long Final! That's awesome!! Grattis, Sam!

Congrats Sam!

We're all really happy for Sam and excited that she made the final today. We have a quick update to the blog (http://usa-orienteering.blogspot.com ) and will hopefully post an interview tonight.

One bizarre error today from the organizers... at each start interval there were three runners starting (Heats A/B/C) simultaneously. But there was an non-divisible-by-three number of runners so at the last women's start time there was only one runner starting (Tatyana Riabkina (RUS). She should have run in Heat B but was sent out instead on Heat A - which she won. So those of you who were paying close attention would notice that 16 runners from Heat A made the final instead of the usual 15. So, 46 finalists for the Women's Long distance race.

A very few, very Canadian, set of photos from today's Long Qualification

And a similarly Canadian view of yesterday's Sprint Final (with some nice photos of Ali including one super-blurred picture of Ali & Simone finishing (blurred for artistic effect))

Number of qualifiers per country through 12 heats:

13 Sweden
12 Switzerland
11 Russia, Czech, Lithuania
10 Finland, Norway
09 Denmark, France, Great Britain
08
07 Hungary
06 Bulgaria, Austria, Poland
05 Estonia, Belgium
04 New Zealand, Australia, Ukraine
03 China, Germany, Italy, Spain, Latvia
02 Portugal, Ireland, Romania, Belarus, USA, Canada
01 Japan, South Africa

Middle Maps:
Womens:
A: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
B: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
C: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

Mens:
A: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
B: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...
C: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

here is a nice alternative way to follow all the heats at once:
http://liveresults.lofas.se/women.html
http://liveresults.lofas.se/men_alt.html

Louise has qualified. Congratulations!!!

Looks like Louise qualified by the skin of her teeth! Only 3 seconds ahead of 16th. Phew!

Three for Three for Louise---Congrats

Congrats to Louise! Quite an accomplishment.

Way to GO!

Looks like fantastic orienteering. Is the first control on the men's A course on an 80m long feature?

Congrats Louise!

Congrats Louise!

Bravo Louise! Some really tight races there.

I'm also impressed by China qualifying twice for Sprint and once for Middle - is this new? Also, Australia or New Zealand managed to qualify for all three individual races in both genders. Are more and more non-europeans managing to qualify? Sprint had South Africa and Japan too. A good trend if that's the case.

Congratulations to all the qualifiers so far! It's been exciting to watch the live results, and the great performances by all the athletes.

I've finally had a chance to post the Team USA at WOC 2012 review on the Orienteering USA website. [Now I need to cover WUOC and JWOC.]

If you have more photo links, commentaries, or links to add, let me know.

Number of qualifiers per country through 18 heats:

19 Sweden
18 Switzerland
17
16 Lithuania, Finland, Norway
15 Russia, Czech
14 France, Denmark
13 Great Britain
12
11 Austria
10
09 Hungary, Estonia
08 Bulgaria, Latvia
07 Poland, Ukraine
06 Belgium, New Zealand
05 Australia, Germany, Spain, Italy
04 China, Belarus
03 Canada, Romania
02 Portugal, Ireland, USA
01 Japan, South Africa, Slovakia, Croatia

Louise chats about her middle qualification race.

Some of my photos from the Middle Q

(ps: Louise is 2 for 2, not 3 for 3. Like many of the North American runners even though she could have run more races she chose to focus on fewer and concentrate on making the final in those races where she is strongest. I think this is a good sign of growing confidence in our top young runners)

What's the deal with Germany?

They are literally surrounded by good orienteering nations. Bordering countries France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech, Poland, Denmark, and Belgium have a combined 85 qualifiers.

But Germany only has 5! And they have the 2nd largest population in all of Europe!

Even little, far-away New Zealand managed to get more qualifiers!

Middle Final Maps:
Women: http://cdnmo.coveritlive.com/media/image/201207/ph...

Alternative liveresults view of the middle-final:
http://liveresults-1821823936.eu-west-1.elb.amazon...

Pink Socks - there's about as many people orienteer in Germany as do in the US from what I can tell, despite some great areas. Not sure why, which is the obvious next question!

Germans are too busy bailing out the rest of Eurozone.

WOW! Wasn't expecting that!

BERTUKS!!!!!!

"It seems to be sure, you are the new world champion."

"Good"

What's the deal with the USA?
3rd largest population in the world, 3rd largest country ( the 2 that are bigger are mostly frozen wilderness) with so much great O terrain.

worlds largest economy.

And yet....

So disappointed for my boy VladimirValentin, but not surprised by Bertuks at all. He had had it going on all year long.

 Yes so close for Valentin.

What's the deal with China?
__ population in he world, ___ largest country, ___ etc...

As for the USA? What did the world's highest earning orienteer make last year? Economic opportunity cost.

"You're the world champion in orienteering? What is that?" Social opportunity cost.

Superficially, from afar, and from memory, some of the middle terrain (mostly contour shapes) reminds me of Norway's middle. It doesn't look super difficult, but I'm imagining that the runnability is worse than shown?

So disappointed for my boy

Glad to know 38-year-olds can still move around. You'll know how it is, Clem, when you get up there.

Err... don't know what caused that slip-up. Sorry for all involved. Little coffee and a lot on my mind, perhaps...

What's the deal with the USA?
What's the deal with China?

You're ignoring one of my reasons for asking the question, which is that Germany is literally surrounded by orienteering greatness. I didn't even mention Sweden, which is only 50 miles away across the Baltic.

If Canada and Mexico were churning out 15 WOC qualifiers each, then we could point fingers at the US.

I also read this in the WOC bulletin: "We are very pleased to host an event of that magnitude for the first time in the French speaking part of Switzerland, the Romandie.It will help raise awareness to the sport of orienteering which is much better known in the German speaking part."

Reading this, this pushes the orienteering greatness even closer to Germany.

I think the corrolary is more informative. For instance, what is the deal with France? What is the deal with Switzerland?

Because orienteering is a niche sport everywhere, a concerted effort can move the needle, if one can be supported. (It can't in the US.)

How the Swiss and French attained relative greatness in orienteering is well documented, and could be replicated. (Not really in the US)

Surely greatness can be replicated in the U.S. given ample funding per head on par with, or greater than, what the Olympic Sports receive. It can't be replicated by replicating the Swiss or the French system, no.

@Pink Socks
Germany is good at many sports and why not also in orienteering? Hard to say but you shouldn't compare only absolute achievements but also relative conditions if you want to compare orienteering in different countries. Maybe GER is doing relatively better than SUI - spent less money per 1 WOC qualifier? Basically you should compare facts, overall infrastructure and organization. I would say that SUI has better conditions to find those runners who also like orienteering and better conditions to support them to become WOC qualifiers.

I think GER is doing very well.

Photos from the women's Middle Final

I've always found the German lack of O success to be interesting, but perhaps best on another thread? One with many Simpsons references I would hope.

What's the best way for me to learn what the Swiss or French system is, that you refer to? Maybe you could summarize? And, yeah, I guess this is the wrong thread to ask in.

Do you 1) find people with great navigation ability and try to get them to be great runners or do you 2) find great runners and try to make them great navigators?
OR do you 3) get them in to a club at a young enough age that both talents can be developed simultaneously.
My guess is that the very successful countries find the answer behind door # 3.

I'd say Norikov has nothing to be embarassed about, especially at 38! He was in fact leading by a few seconds until #18, then neck-to-neck, and only Bertuk's burst of speed in the finish chute really decided it.

I did wince watching Lundanes' error to #9 though. And had to fight the urge to tap my monitor to get Gueorgiou's gps dot to move...

More pics from the Middle Final. I missed most of the women's race - was still out stumbling through the slash and rocks. Took an arena pan, but haven't assembled it yet. There was a cool train going by every now and then. Awesome to see Bertuks win. Really cool.

Only one Scandanavian/ Nordic man and three women among the top twelve seeds in each Long Final race. Is this further evidence of a shift in power in the O world or a case of the wise doing just enough to qualify? They will turn on the jets in the final.

One thing to know about sports in Germany is that almost all successful elite-level athletes in sports that are not soccer stems from the East-German system one way or the other. The DDR-system was set up to maximise the number of olympic medals and as a non-olympic sport orienteering was never that interesting and no real coaching and training structure was ever created. And since the reunification, sports in Germany seems to be more about maintenance than progress.

That's my somewhat prejudiced take on it anyway...

Is the map Ed linked to the actual competition map? It has subtle shading on the hills to give the look of a 3D map; I had to do a double take to realize that it is, indeed, an orienteering map. I love this look (as long as the shading doesn't compromise the readability of the hillsides; it looks like there weren't any controls or major routes on them so it's not a problem. Swiss cartography has long been fantastic.
But I suspect that this isn't the competition map (halos on the course, no surrounding text or ads etc), and I would think the IOF would have to approve a change in the map like this (not likely).
I really like it though; I think the hills jump out. I'd love to try running on a map like this!

That is the map from the GPS tracking.

I agree. That map is actually better (certainly for beginners) than a standard orienteering map.

Shaded so the media can see what's up and down. :-)

Interesting! I've actually been experimenting with overlaying O-maps over hillshades. It's pretty easy to do nowdays, if you have the skills and access to a digital elevation model. I thought it would be a nice feature for beginner focused events (Score-O's, W/Y/O, etc..)

The ground hillshade really accentuates the way the contours work, but vegetation still looks flat. Canopy hillshades can accentuate the idea that white is vegetated (you get some texture from the treetops and bushes), but that texture has to be dialed back or it will obstruct details. At least in steep terrain, a blend of the two can make a nice compromise.

I wouldn't use the hillshades on advanced courses though, since it reduces the legibility. Experts can do fine without. The shading doesn't fully protect against up-down inversion either. You can still flip a reentrant to a ridge in your head, if you imaging the lighting source coming from the wrong direction.

Nice to see some of you have worries about german orienteering.
So you mean, since Germany is in the surroundings of great o-nations we should be successful as well?!

I think it is a bad arguement, you should rather consider how the federation and the elite sport is built up to be able to say something about results and stuff like that.

And yes there is 80 mio people in Germany ...but as little as under 1% is doing orienteering.

Links to follow the long today:

Split view för Official results:
http://liveresults.lofas.se/longf.html

Alternative results with highlighting and virtual sorting
http://liveresults.lofas.se/longf_alt.html