2011 Archive

Julian Dent has finished this tough course, which is tripping up the best, in 2:12:45.

He made a mistake on control 2 in the green and lost time but Kratov caught him and he managed to keep with him or ahead of him into the finish. Old hands in the sport are predicting Dent will finish up between 25^th and 30^th place. Time will tell as the race continues…..Daniel Hubman from Switzerland is running a strong race so far and then there is Thierry…..

The Long Final is decided for both the Men and the Women.

Julian Dent has finished in 24^th position in his first Long Distance Finals race for the World Orienteering Championships. Dent has always had an ambition to compete in the Long Final at WOC and this is his first attempt. A top 25 finish is to be congratulated and can now be built on. He has recently moved to live and train in Sweden to continue to improve his Orienteering and hopefully produce even better results in the future.

For Thierry Gueorgiou this has been a long time ambition to win the Long Distance race and great to see him win on his home turf.

In the womens race Sweden continues to dominate in 1^st and 3^rd places and the Czech Republic an ever strengthening team.

Results were:

Women

Men

Tomorrow the middle Distance Final will be contested by Aussie girls Vanessa Round and Grace Crane.

Sweden has taken out 1, 2, 3 in the women’s final but Aussie girls in the mix as qualification proves testing.

In the womens race:

1. Gustafsson Sweden
2. Jansson Sweden
3. Eliasson Sweden

In the mens race

1. Hubman, Switzerland
2. Holmberg,Sweden

3.Mueller Switzerland

37. Simon Uppill

Simon reports he was pretty satisfied with his run just made a few 5 second mistakes here and there. He just needed to run faster in this highly competitive field.

The qualification sprint race proved to be a test of reading the technical out of bounds areas very finely and resulted in many disqualifications. Many impassable rock walls, outdoor cafes and olive green grassed areas in the gardens in the end caught many competitors.

Rachel Effeney was in, then she was out and then at 12:23pm (08:23pmAEST) the managers finally got the confirmation that she was in the final. Messages were exchanged and the quarantine time extended by 15 minutes so she could get to the area on time. Rachel took it all in her very calm manner and ran a good race, finishing 35^th out of the field of 45 runners.

Grace Crane also ran a carefully controlled and good technical race. She finished in 24^th place and was pretty happy with her run.

Australian 2011WOC Media Team

Julian Dent is Australia’s only  representative in the long final race today.  He starts at 9:18pm (AEST). He has to traverse 15.9km of forest with 690m climb and visit 31 controls. The race has a spectator control about ¾ of the way through but it is typical long course setting with long legs and some tricky technical bits particularly before the end. Runners will have to be feeling strong and energetic to complete this course.

The women have 10.3 km and 450m climb with 21 controls. 45 runners in each course will attempt to become world champions today.

Australian Media Team

The WOC2011 sprint qualification is being held this morning in Aix-les-Bains. It will be an urban sprint race with some park areas as well. It is being held in the centre of the town, so competitors will have a mixture of small and narrow alleyways and wide open town squares.

It’s forecast for 29 degrees here tomorrow so it’s set to be a great day for the Aussies that are used to long hot summer days!

Rachel Effeney, Grace Elson and Mace Neve will be starting in the women’s race and Rob Preston, Simon Uppill and Julian Dent will be running in the men’s. The start times are:

Rachel Effeney: 5.08 pm AEST
Grace Elson: 5.15 pm AEST
Mace Neve: 5.22 pm AEST
Rob Preston: 5.45 pm AEST
Simon Uppill: 5.58 pm AEST
Julian Dent: 6.07 pm AEST.

The expected winning times are 14 minutes for both women and men. The women will run about 2.7 km and the men will run about 2.9 km. The top 15 runners from each heat will make it into the final.

The final will be tomorrow as well, it will be just up the road in Chambéry and starts will be from 11 pm AEST. We will report on the qualification results and the Aussie participation in the final before the start of the womens sprint final.

Remember to visit the Aussie WOC blog to wish the team good luck in their races!

Congratulations to Vanessa Round and Grace Crane  for making it through to the WOC2011 middle distance final which will be held on Friday at La Féclaz.

Vanessa had a tough decision to make towards the last control when she dropped her map at the top of a large cliff. She remembered the control from the long qualification so decided that she knew where to go and to just keep on going rather than scrambling back up the cliff and risk missing out on a spot in the final!

Unfortunately Jasmine Neve, Rob Preston, Simon Uppill and Julian Dent didn’t make it through to the final. Jasmine and Rob are now preparing for the relay which will be on Saturday. Simon and Julian have now turned their attention to the sprint qualification and final.

Monday is a rest day for the WOC competitors and then on Tuesday morning we’ll be in Aix-les-Bains for the sprint qualification before heading to Chambéry in the afternoon for the final.

Grace Crane, Mace Neve, Rachel Effeney, Julian Dent and Simon Uppill will be representing Australia in the WOC2011 sprint qualification.

Don’t miss watching them qualify by watching live.woc2011.fr. For each of the final races you can see live gps tracking at live.woc2011.fr.

From the Australian WOC2011 Media Team.

It was a tough day out at St Francois de Sales for the runners in the long qualification. The winning times were all longer than expected and there were many tired bodies coming into the finish chute after a physically challenging course in warm conditions.

The French men showed their home ground advantage by winning each of the heats. Thierry Georgiou was the clear leader, winning his heat by over six minutes and being the only person to get close to the expected winning time.

Julian Dent scraped through in 13th place in his heat to make it through to the final which will be on Wednesday. Julian will be the first male to represent Australia in a WOC long distance final since 2005.

Julian said “technically I was happy with my run, although I made a small mistake after a steep climb at the end of the long leg. It was physically very challenging, but now I just have to focus on having a clean run in the middle tomorrow”.

Rob Preston, Aislinn Prendergast, Jasmine Neve and Vanessa Round all had steady runs that unfortunately didn’t get them through to the finals. Rob, Jasmine and Vanessa are now preparing for the middle qualification tomorrow and Aislinn will be supporting the team for the rest of the week.

And now for the middle qualification …

The WOC 2011 middle distance qualification is back at St Francois de Sales today. The courses will be shorter, but are expected to be much trickier than the long qualification. The terrain will be complex with intricate contour detail. The visibility will be good, although the rocky ground will slow things down.

The start times for the middle qualification are:

Jasmine Neve: 10.00 pm AEST
Vanessa Round: 10.38 pm AEST
Grace Elson: 10.52 pm AEST
Rob Preston: 11.22 pm AEST
Simon Uppill: 12.08 am AEST
Julian Dent: 12.22 am AEST

The women’s starts are from 10 pm AEST and the men’s starts are from 11.10 pm AEST. The women’s expected winning time is 24 minutes and the men’s is 25 minutes.

From the Australian WOC2011 media team.

The 2011 World Orienteering Champs start today with the long qualification. The team is fit and well and settling into life in Aix-Les-Bains, France.

The long qualification is in the foothills of the French Alps at about 1200 metres above sea level. The terrain is made up of two distinct types: one is steep, fast, open meadows which contrasts with the karst forest that has intricate rocky details with poor runnability in parts.

The start times for the long qualification are:

Aislinn Prendergast: 11.36 am (7.36 pm AEST)
Jasmine Neve: 12.09 pm (8.09 pm AEST)
Vanessa Round: 12.51 pm (8.51 pm AEST)
Rob Preston: 2.19 pm (10.19 pm AEST)
Julian Dent: 2.31 pm (10.31 pm AEST)

There are three heats for the men and three for the women, and the first 15 in each heat qualify for the final. There are 118 starters in the men’s class and 84 starters in the women’s. The women have a winning time of 45 minutes and an average distance of 6 km; the men have a winning time of 59 minutes and and average distance of 9 km.

If you want to follow all the action worldofo.com will probably have some information going up.

So you don’t miss out on any of the action, the program for the week is:

Sunday 14 August: the middle qualification starts at 10 pm (AEST) watch out for Grace Elson, Vanessa Round, Jasmine Neve, Julian Dent, Rob Preston and Simon Uppill
Tuesday 16 August: sprint qualification starts at 5 pm (AEST) look out for Grace Elson, Rachel Effeney,  Mace Neve, Julian Dent and Simon Uppill
Sprint final on the same day starts at 11 pm (AEST)
Wednesday 17 August: long final, 8.30 pm (AEST)
Friday 19 August: middle final, 9.30 pm (AEST)
Saturday 20 August: relay, 9.30 pm (AEST)

For more information see the Aussie Team Blog

 http://australianorienteeringteam.blogspot.com/

Australian Orienteering has hit new heights, with the excitement of live GPS tracking and video being offered at an event in Australia for the very first time. Orienteering is often thought of as a non-spectator sport, but with the promise of improving technology, nothing could actually be further from the truth.

For those who have experienced major European events, you may have come across event arenas complete with large screens emanating from  semi-trailers, screens filled with images of runners in technical terrain, GPS tracks of embarrassing mistakes, and close-ups of concern growing over competitors faces. Combine this with real times updates of split times, the suspense of seconds splitting the leaders and expert commentary and you have the making of a thrilling spectator event. And it will all hit Australian Orienteering this year in October.

But wait there’s more, unlike most sports, orienteers get to go out and experience the same terrain, get a sense of the challenges and mistakes in the waiting, and for the those lucky enough, the taste of success in their own class.

Combine all this with some of the best orienteering ever offered in Australia with the prestige of an international event that only hits the nations once every four years and you have an event that you simply can’t miss. The event management extraordinaire Darren “Dazzler” Meeking and the wily cunning of master Warren Key as course setter won’t disappoint.

Don’t believe us? Well get the one up on your competitors and watch a preview of the superb terrain and listen to the master Warren Key tell you about it himself. He wouldn’t exaggerate would he?

Oceania Carnival 2011 – Middle Distance Orienteering Championships Preview (9 mins) from Darren Meeking on Vimeo.

The selection panel has selected the following Australian team to contest the Australia-New Zealand Challenge in the Veterans age groups as part of the Oceania Championships in October. The team in the M/W 16, 20 and 21E age groups will be announced later.