Author: craigf

Kathryn Ewels and Hanny Allston have both finished 5th and qualified for the Long Distance Final in Miskolc, Hungary. Hanny has now qualified for both the Middle and Long finals whilst Kathryn was running her first race for the championships.

Grace Crane was 17th and just missed the top 15 after dropping some time in the final section of the course. Grace qualified for the Middle Final yesterday and will now split her focus between the middle and the relay.

WOC 2009 now takes a rest day for the Official Opening Ceremony. The Middle final will see the first medals won on Wednesday followed by both the qualification and final of the sprint on Thursday.

The results can be found at the WOC live site and dont forget to check out the Team Blog

OA’s foreign correspondent extradionaire, Wendy Read, is sure to give a great insight into the finer details of today’s race

Today Kathryn Ewels, Hanny Alston and Grace Crane compete for a place in the long final. Using similar terrain to the middle qualification but with more green areas and a more developed network of paths and forest roads, it is anticipated that the fastest qualifiers will cover their 6.6km course in about 43 minutes. Start times are as follows:

Grace Crane 09:01 (was last starter in the MQ and is first starter in the LQ!)
Hanny Allston 09:17
Kathryn Ewels 09:39

During the training camp, Grace took the opportunity to head north into Slovakia to familiarise herself with the unique limestone terrain which will feature predominantly in the long final (Sun 23 Aug), where large sinkholes form negative contour features sometimes 20-30m deep. This will be quite different to today’s qualifying area, where only some small negative features may be encountered.

Check out the pictures showing Grace at the bottom of one of these sink holes located enroute from the start triangle to #1.

Despite the dominance of the Swiss women in qualification, Minna Kauppi (FIN) declared during her post race interview that she was in ‘unbeatable’ form and not concerned about the time difference behind the other women in the qualification. Simone Niggli (SUI) said she was looking forward to the challenge presented by Kauppi!  But watch out for the Aussie women…

Both Grace and Hanny were pleased with their performances today.  Grace ran a steady race taking care with the long, featureless leg through thick vegetation that many runners commented upon. It is this leg that caused some trouble for Jasmine, who was naturally disappointed with her result.

An error cost Hanny quite a bit of time, but she was relaxed and satisfied afterwards, already beginning to prepare for tomorrow’s long qualification race.

Link to Youtube clip of sprint race including interview with AJ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlwd8k7ifxY

The Australian orienteering community congratulates Adrian on the week’s successes.

In the rest of the Long final news:

Carolyn was consistant through the week with a 33rd place in the Long final.

Full placings:

1. Jackson Adrian AUS 01:32:41
2. Gritsan Ruslan RUS 01:35:25
3. Barthelemy Matthieu FRA 01:36:23

1. Schaffner Christine SUI 01:31:11
2. Zinkl Sonja AUT 01:33:00
3. Bajtosova Hana SVK 01:33:07

The 2009 World Orienteering Championships started in Hungary today with the middle distance qualification the first challenge facing competitors. The race was held at Bükkszentkereszt, an area 20km from the event centre, Miskolc. The region includes challenging low visibility sink hole terrain. Some of the top runners commented on how nice and suitable the area was for a middle distance event though these sentiments may not be shared by those that faced problems.

Australia has a full strength women’s team at this year’s WOC, but no men. The women had mixed results with the recently married Grace Crane (nee Elson) and Hanny Allston qualifying comfortably but Jasmine Neve missing out. Jasmine struggled in the early part of the course but finished strongly. Unfortunately the early setback was too much and Jasmine did not qualify for the final.

The top 15 from each heat qualify for the final on Wednesday 19th.

Other results

Men A
1. Pavlo Ushkvarok UKR 26.40
2. Matthias Mueller SUI 27.01
3. Dmitry Mihalkin BLR 27.04
15. Wolfgang Siegert AUT 29.11

Men B
1. Matthias Merz SUI 25.47
2. Tero Fohr FIN 26.41
3. Zinca ROM 26.60 (?)
15. Robert Banach POL 29.47

Men C
1. Valentin Novikov RUS 26.12
2. Daniel Hubman SUI 27.07
3. Thierry Gueorgiou FRA 27.16
15. Emil Wingstedt SWE 30.33

Women A
1. Simone Niggli, SUI 26.46
2. Helena Jansson SWE 28.30
3. Merja Rantanen FIN 28.57
11. Hanny Allston AUS 31.45
15. Ilina Shandurkova BUL 33.14

Women B
1. Anne Margrette Hausken NOR 27.02
2. Dana Brozkova CZE 28.05
3. Vroni Koenig-Salmi SUI 28.10
11. Grace Crane AUS 31.55
15. Karin Schmalfeld GER 34.37

Women C
1. Lea Mueller SUI 28.16
2. Minna Kauppi FIN 29.14
3. Radka Brozkova CZE 29.58
15. Irina Maiorescu ROM 37.28
24. Jasmine Neve AUS 46.17

Full information can be observed on the WOC website.

Don’t forget to check out the Boomerang’s team blog.

Tomorrow will see the Long Distance qualification race using the same arena. Australian’s Hanny Allston, Kathryn Ewels and Grace Crane will be lighting up the forest.

Adrian Jackson wins another gold for Australia. The current world number one has cemented his position at the top of the sport by winning the long distance final race at the Mountain Bike Orienteering World Champs in Israel by nearly three minutes. He took 1hr, 32mins, 41 seconds.

This is Adrian’s second gold medal for the 2009 champs and the fourth of his career.

This is a truly outstanding performance given Adrian only has the opportunity to compete against international competition once a year.

More details to follow.

The organising city, Miskolc (the largest city in North Eastern Hungary) is host to the 26^th World Orienteering Championships, being held in conjunction with the 6^thWorld Trail O Championships.  With all athletes being accommodated at the University of Miskolc Campus, it is the intention of the organisers to create an ‘Olympic village’ feel for all participants, providing a high standard of accommodation and other facilities.

There are over 360 male and female competitors from more than 40 nations, so placing in the top 15 in qualification races will in itself provide a challenge for most.

Seconds will count as a timing system involving electronic start gates, finish line and bib numbers will be used. Finish times will be taken when the runner breaks the beam at the finish line with times will be rounded down to the nearest 1.0 second, except in the Sprint Final, when they will be rounded down to the nearest 0.1 second.

The Australian women will compete in all 4 events with 3 representatives in each discipline.

A summary of the event program is as follows

Competition commences today with the Middle Distance qualification, with expected winning times of 25minutes, average course length of 4.1km and with 170m climb.  Terrain description is as follows:

A sunny day is forecast with temperatures ranging from 15-30C, so keep an eye out for the Aussie girls:

Start Block 1 – Jasmine Neve  10:05am
Start Block 2 – Hanny Alston  10:27am
Start Block 3 – Grace Crane 10:57am

Here’s a look at the Model Map for the Middle Qualification Race that the team visited on Saturday.

Apart from reading the team blog, the next best place to go is the WOC website which now has LIVE section.

AJ sprints to gold!

Riding in only his second WOC sprint ever Adrian Jackson took out the gold medal today by 11 seconds over the Dane, Lasse Brun Pederson.  Lasse had started 1 minute in front of AJ but they didn’t see each other.  Adrian was leading after the 3rd of 17 controls and was either 1st or 2nd for the rest of the race before finally taking the lead again and holding it from control 15.  On a course where it seemed impossible to ride without error Adrian only lost 10 -20 seconds several times. However he made some telling “cuts,” running with his bike xc for short distances between tracks. Adrian was stoked with his ride immediately after he finished and being the 4th last starter he only had a short wait to be confirmed as champion.  Brother Timmy was then despatched to make the gold medallist flower garland and proud Tim and mother Carolyn presented it to him on the podium.   Initially they had hung our flag upside down on the flagpole, but this was soon corrected, being pointed out by several other nations before us!

Carolyn rode steadily to place 36th, except for one bad route choice, but found it difficult to read the map on-the-go due to the detail.  Estonian Maret Vaher unfortunately suffered several broken ribs from a crash but managed to finish before getting taken to hospital!  Slovakian Hana Bajtosova won, repeating her sprint victory from 2008.

The Neot Kedumim area was fantastic terrain for sprint orienteering being a landscape reserve which had literally been sculpted out of eroded hillsides.  There were many old farming and archaeological sites dotting the almost open rocky hillsides.  More importantly there were a myriad of small tracks, with many of them paved for easy access making for very intense orienteering.  It was the most exciting and unique area for sprint orienteering that I have seen in a WOC.

1  23.19 Adrian Jackson
2  23.30 Lasse Brun Pedersen (Denmark)
3  23.56 Ruslan Gritsan (Russia)

1  22.37 Hana Bajtosova (Slovakia)
2  23.00 Marika Hara  (Finland)
3  23.34 Michi Gigon (Austria)
36 31.22 Carolyn Jackson

More story and photos on AJ’s blog

With team preparation and training complete, the Australian team of 5 is ready for the World Orienteering Championships commencing today, Sunday 16 August with the Middle Distance qualification race.

The training camp was based in the beautiful village of Lillafüred, only 10 minutes from Miskolc, where the team made the most of training opportunities in forests located close to their accommodation.  Training maps for all event types were readily available, with athletes able to select maps according to scale, terrain and event type for specific training purposes.

With minds and bodies relaxed and refreshed, Hanny, Grace and Jasmine take on the world in the Middle Distance qualification.

To keep up with all the WOC news, results, photos and interesting snippets, check out:

• the official Australian Team blog 
• and of course here on the OA website.

AJ places 5th in middle.
Adrian Jackson again has made the WOC podium, this time with a 5th in the middle, in the opening 2009 individual event. His finish line comment of “19 controls – 19 mistakes,” aptly summarised his thoughts.  In reality he made many small 20 – 30 second mistakes, perhaps rushing a little in view of his lack of recent O competition. However a podium place is still a pleasing result due to the ever increasing quality of the competition. The influence of MTBO Jwocs is being seen with many good juniors making the elite teams.  Russia has 4 juniors in their team.  Fitness wise Adrian coped admirably with the sizzling hot conditions.

In contrast Carolyn Jackson was extremely pleased with her 35th position, having only a one minute error. Although her place appears low Carolyn was only 8 minutes off the podium and all the places around her were very close in time. She swears to the value of wearing the ice vest to cool the core temperature prior to starting.  The Finn Hana Marikka was a delighted winner while Austrian Michaela Gigon had to suffer the agony of being announced as the winner and a minute later being told that a mistake had been made and she was in fact 2nd!

In the women there were 5 nations in the top 6, while the men’s competition is dominated by Danes, Russians and the Czech Republic at the pointy end.  Today’s event was held in a section of Ben Shemen forest, with just a 3km ride to the start from our accommodation. Again the finish line was sited just 50 metres from a village swimming pool and officials were busy handing out watermelon to finishers.

Tomorrow is a rest day, with just a long model ride programmed.  The following day is the relay, but with a team of only two we will be interested spectators. Then its on with the sprint and long final on the concluding days.

52,22 Marikka Hara – Finland
53.23 Michaela Gigon – Austria
53.44 Christine Schaffer – Swiss
53.49 Hana Bajtosova – Slovakia
54.11 Ingrid Stengard – Finland
56.07 Anna Fuzy – Hungary

56.29 Torbjorn Gasberg – Denmark
57.09 Jiri Hradil  – Czech
57.17 Lasse Brun Pedersen  – Denmark
57.30 Anton Foliforev – Russia
59.19 Adrian Jackson
60.11 Beat Okle – Swiss