Discussion: WOC MIddle Final starts tonight at 8 PM EDT

Looks like the women start at 8 (with Erin leading off) and the men start at 8:30. Sandy starts at 9:12 EDT. Both Matthi-i are running for SUI. I think its Erin's day today. She'll have a "fresh" course without all the clutter and people stomping around running every whicha-way. Will crack open a package of McVittie's Digestive Biscuits (imported from Canada) in honor of the occasion while watching tonight. Go get 'em Sandy and Erin!

McVittie's Digestive Biscuits ??

The best!
Accept no substitutes. Erin runs faster on these things. They are hard to find in the US, but most CAN groceries have them. Thats the real reason I go to nav-stock :) I catch hell at the border: "anything to declare?" "Nope, just 6 kilos of cookies."

Does anyone have information about the B finals? I can't find a schedule anywhere.

Saw the following on a british site (Nopesport) -- "Initially, the organisers had planned to have B finals but the IOF have axed them, but non-qualifiers will be able to run an unofficial B final as part of the spectator races." Can't vouch for its accuracy.

The last WOC bulletin still lists a B-final, but it's the same schedule as the public racing. So that is apparently what they are doing today.

The long B-final is on a different schedule than the public race tomorrow.

Has anyone seen any reports or intermediate splits yet?

Not yet. Just a couple start times going from x:xx:00 to x:xx:01.

Nope, either it is very late in the course, or the early runners are going to be a lot slower than the predicted winning time ...

Ester Gil just showed up at the split in 34 minutes.

Digestives for Erin!!

Oops. Going first is tough. Looks like Erin might be with the Latvian woman now ...

Looks like Fincke has set the early mark to beat.

Yeah, Erin's in. And "5th in the world", for a few minutes anyway.

Well done Erin! Definitely a good run from the intermediate control to the finish. I think I'll eat a few cookies and drink a beer in your honor, in fact! Good to see a NH woman carrying the tradition of running in WOC finals :-)
Many more to come!

And I have to add a little 'Go Helen' for my old Leeds University teammate!!

Those who go first get to clear out the spider webs for the rest.

Based on the intermediate times so far, looks like Erin had a strong finish.

Look at the Aussies go!

Good vibes to Sandy on the start line now ...

Dlabaja is first to the intermediate control for the men. Starting first that must be a good feeling. Oh, and first to finish too.

Based on the fastest intermediate to final times, we should see <35 min for both the men and women.

Here are some photos we took of Sandy at the spectator control
of the Middle Distance Final last year in Sweden:



(click for larger versions)

See Zsuzsa Fey's split from the intermediate? She took 2 minutes out of everyone so far. I wonder if that came down to a route choice.

Anna in the lead at the intermediate! My Linköping team mate!

The Lithuanian runner that barely beat Erin to the intermediate split took less than three minutes to finish. I'm suspecting a glitch at intermediate on a couple of these.

I wonder whether there is something funny about the intermediate control.... the Latvian in 14th place at the moment apparently only took 3 minutes from the intermediate to the finish......

The name Irina Mikhalko seems awfully familiar - is this the same Irina that was in DVOA land in the mid 1990's?

It almost looks like the intermediate times are being radioed by voice periodically. Maybe its a typo or voiceo.

The men's times are coming in now too.

Sandy should be at the intermediate soon!

Sandy! O Canada! 5th

Go Sandy go (good thoughts, good thoughts, keep on swimming, swimming ...)

Is Ted's top 10 finish in jeopardy of being broken? Go Sandy!

ROCK! Go SANDY go!!

Only 8-9 runners start behind her. Definately a top 15 (best ever by a nor-am woman is 18th) is possible here

Sandy finished 41st last year.

LETS go SAN-dy!! (clap clap, clap-clap-clap)

LETS go SAN-dy!! (clap clap, clap-clap-clap)

5th at this finish so top 15 is gaurenteeed here.

She's sub 7min from the intermediate. How does that compare? Anybody been watching those?

Holy shit, this is exciting!

The bulgarian is behind so top 12 is a gaurentee.

GO Canada GO. This is awesome!

Riina's too slow - thats one less!

Only the leader and the glitches have been under 7 so far.

Was out walking the pooch... so just got to the computer. Holy crap! Nice run Sandy!

Hi pooch.

Martina's a minute back at intermediate!!!!

Simone's first to intermediate; hope she doesn't carry too many others with her.

Simon is about to catch Jenny.

Sandy will be 8th overall I think!

Everyone is through intermediate, Sandy 10th there.

Top 10 looks good...

Looking good ... looking good ....

3 seconds in front of the Swiss woman ... good kicking! Fantastic run Sandy! Wahoo!!!!!!!!

Its gonna be 8!

The intermediate cannot be trusted...

What a great race by Sandy. Top 10 and best in the Hott Johansen household...

Meanwhile, David Anderson's finish time looks good.

YES YES YES!!!!!

Where's Minna?

Bronze medal to Minna

9th, top NAmerican ever - fantastic run Sandy!

Minna's in. Sandy takes 9th!

We should also applaud the course setters for nailing the 32 minute thing!

Anyone want to call the Men's race?

Who woulda thought a text screen could be so gripping? Rock on Sandy. Gotta be some cheering going on in an otherwise quiet corner of New Brunswick right now.

1. TG, 2. JR (not Ewing) and 3. DA (I hope) but I fear AN.

Rostrup in with a competive intermediate split. See if he can smoke the finish.

Well, Andersson has made mistakes after the intermediate split so Chris and JR both have great chances to best times.

1. AN, 2. TG, 3.JR

C'mon Jorgen!

Tero! Holy crap. Is this guy human?

Jorgen was 7th in the Sprint last year. He also had the fastest time on the relay anchor leg to give Norway the Gold.

TG's split looks hard to beat.

Woah, TG is on fire.

Where's AN? Heia Norge!

Will this be a three-peat for TG in the Middle?

TG must have blown right by Kerschbaumer.

TG, unreal!

The King of Middle Distance did it again.

AN's split is in, not going to be his day.

Here's Terro and Mats Haldin rounding the last corner of the Middle Distance final last year in Sweden to take the gold:


(click for larger version)

Wow! I still can't believe Sandy's 9th place. Very inspirational for all of us. Time to break out the Mcvitties and a two-four of 50!

I'm having dark chocolate to celebrate.

Yeepee Sandy!! Actually, I think this is a well deserved result.
About Simone and Thierry, are we all really so slow?!

I downed 1/4 of the biccies already during the excitement! Does Kirin even come in two-fours? Truly awesome. Can only immagine what the NA guys are going through over there now. It must be pandalerium! "Dogs and Cats living together" kinds of craziness!!

I crunched the numbers for the intermediate-to-finish split for the women. Pretty interesting. Not sure if the first two are believable. Sime, Jenny and Zsuzsa are close enough together to be believeable. Incredible really. Check out Erin at 33.

Spl place   Name     Split(mins) Country  Overall: time pl

-----------------------------------------------------------

1   Vilma_Rudzenskaite  2.93834 Lithuania       44:45.3 32

2   Signe_Søes          3.27167 Denmark         40:44.3 21

3   Simone_Niggli       4.48833 Switzerland     32:46.3 1

4   Jenny_Johansson     4.97833 Sweden          34:59.7 2

5   Zsuzsa_Fey          4.98000 Romania         38:07.8 8

6   Martina_Fritschy    5.43000 Switzerland     38:21.8 10

7   Minna_Kauppi        5.76666 Finland         35:50.0 3

8   Hanny_Allston       6.71667 Australia       39:54.0 18

9   Bernadett_Kelemen   6.73667 Hungary         44:19.2 31

10  Lea_Müller          6.92167 Switzerland     37:55.3 7

11  Anna_Mårsell        6.93834 Sweden          35:58.3 4

12  Sandy_Hott_Johansen 6.95833 Canada          38:18.5 9

13  Mingyue_Zhu         7.01334 China           46:04.8 38

14  Riina_Kuuselo       7.12500 Finland         39:53.5 17

15  Ieva_Sargautyte     7.14334 Lithuania       38:49.6 11

16  Anni-Maija_Fincke   7.20833 Finland         37:03.5 5

17  Hanna_Palm          7.27500 Sweden          39:12.5 12

18  Marianne_Andersen   7.32333 Norway          39:40.4 15

19  Tracy_Bluett        7.34667 Australia       39:23.8 13

20  Aija_Skrastina      7.52167 Latvia          45:53.3 37

21  Helen_Winskill      7.53000 Great_Britain   40:33.8 20

22  Tatiana_Ryabkina    7.81167 Russia          37:49.7 6

23  Céline_Dodin        7.82333 France          43:14.4 28

24  Iliana_Shandurkova  7.83500 Bulgaria        41:20.1 22

25  Natasha_Key         7.97166 Australia       45:07.3 35

26  Antoniya_Grigorova  7.97167 Bulgaria        44:02.3 30

27  Yoko_Bamba          8.00667 Japan           42:58.4 27

28  Irina_Mikhalko      8.01333 Russia          42:09.8 24

29  Eva_Jurenikova      8.07833 Czech_Republic  39:38.7 14

30  Juliette_Soulard    8.11666 France          44:48.0 33

31  Elisa_Dresen        8.35667 Germany         44:54.4 34

32  Shihoko_Ochiai      8.45333 Japan           47:59.2 42

33  Erin_Olapsen        8.47667 USA             52:40.6 43

34  Natalia_Korzhova    8.61000 Russia          45:23.6 36

35  Mhairi_Mackenzie    8.72667 Great_Britain   47:17.6 41

36  Tania_Robinson      8.74000 New_Zealand     39:41.4 16

37  Esther_Gil          8.86500 Spain           43:28.9 29

38  Martina_Dockalova   8.87833 Czech_Republic  42:32.7 25

39  Helene_Hausner      9.09833 Denmark         42:44.9 26

40  Marianne_Riddervold 9.10000 Norway          41:28.0 23

41  Inga_Dambe          9.12833 Latvia          40:08.7 19

42  Éva_Makrai          9.63333 Hungary         47:01.0 40

43  Vendula_Klechova    9.72833 Czech_Republic  46:32.7 39

44  Anne_Konring_Olesen -33.6167 Denmark        0:0 DSQ

Yes, same Irina Mikhalko.

2 more Bronze medals for Finland by Minna Kauppi and Jarkko Huovila. And, tomorrow we'll see Jani win the Long Final and Minna race against Simone for the second time. Hyvä Suomi!

First of all I would like to say a huge congratulations to Sandy! She looked very fast out there.
Second of all, thank you for all of your support, reading through all these comments after the race is humorous and very interesting to see.
I had a fairly terrible time out there, made a large error on the first control, which was my goal NOT to do, got caught by the Spanish girl and was just so fatigued that I could not push to stay with her. From then on I was making several small hesitatino and route choice errors and just couldn:t concentrate. (Tripping over everything from not being able to lift my legs didn:t help.)
It:s an embarrassing result, but I suppose my goal for this WOC was to make an A final. Next time, though, I think I will have to clarify my goals.
Thanks again for the support and congratulations to Sandy!

Way to go Sandy! Awesome run! And great job Erin too in your WOC Final Debut!

Irina M. has run some excellent relay legs for our team Rastivarsat during last two years.

Nothing to be embarassed about Erin!!! We're thrilled to have had you represent us in the Finals. IIRC that was one of Team's goals, was it not?

I hope that with time you'll be able to look back on your experience as a great achievement!

And Cheesydude asks a good question. Is eveybody really that slow? Tero & Sime beat everybody by more than 4 and 6% respectively????

Clean map and
Tero's winning route

Sime continues her perfect record. She has won every single race so far (3 qualifications and 2 finals). Looking good for a repeat of Switzerland 2003.

another bunch of maps here

just look at the largest files.

I think that it is pretty clear from the winners that success leads to greater confidence, less hesitation, and more success! Self-belief must be a huge part of their speed. I can't believe they would be so far ahead in, say, a trail race.
Simone and Tero KNOW they can win, and so they do!

So, by that theory, Sandy is now free to have an absolutely AWESOME relay run :-)

Damn straight. And she will, too.

Eddie - you hacker you.

Swampfox, I see that mushroom growing areas area actually marked on the middle distance map with a special symbol. Terro seems to have resisted the temptation.

Here is the middle distance video
There is even some english in this one!

Love the budda statues in the forest. Is that an icepack on Jenny's ankle?

spjelkavik.net had this one pic of Jon spectating at the middle final (Jon is on the right). Or maybe he's standing in front of a firing squad...its hard to tell from the photo. :)

There's an article about Sandy on the IOF website. "The best non-European result ever"

Not to play down Sandy's awesome result, but what about the Aussies? Surely they have placed better than 9th. Or are they considered Europeans now?

I don't know about previous WOCs, but Troy de Haas was 7th in the Sprint. Maybe they don't consider the sprint to be a legitimate discipline, or maybe whoever wrote the article got carried away. Sandy's run was awesome in any case.

Irina Mikhalko was also DVOA women's champion - the fastest one ever.

No question about it, you have to love a well tended mushroom farm. Is that guy up there above the official WOC 2005 Blue Bugler??? I was wondering if they would have one of those on site. And what is that red thing on Jon's chest anyway? It aaaaaaaalmost looks like it could be a monkey paw print!

I think confidence is one thing, and while I can't speak for either of them, what I know about Tero is that his preparation is prodigious. He reminds me of Lance, Vijay, and Tiger in that regard. Each of those guys has competitors, but they are each renown for their assidudous and specific work to get ready. Just look at some of the crazy things Tero did to get ready for this WOC.