Exciting Win to Denmark in Sprint Relay

Today in the small town of Nairn beside the Moray Firth, on a sunny but cold afternoon the WOC Sprint Relay was a very exciting event. The arena was beside the sea in an open grass area with good viewing of the start, the spectator control and the finish.

Denmark led from the start with Emma Klingenberg establishing a lead within the first 400m. She finished the first leg a clear leader and Tue Lassen maintained a 32 second lead on the second leg. Soren Bobach was being chased by Mathias Kyburz (Switzerland) and they came to the finish together after the third leg. Sweden were in third place with Norway and Russia next along with France. Judith Wyder from Switzerland had a small problem with the map change and Maja Alm running the fourth leg for Denmark established a clear break from the rest of the field. She maintained this lead to win the relay for Denmark by a large margin of 1:21. The race for second was very exciting with both Switzerland and then Sweden being passed by Norway and Russia in the last loop of the race. All of this was visible in the arena on the big screen and was accompanied by Per Forsberg’s exciting commentary.

This was a very spectacular event and certainly would have been exciting viewing on live TV. Some purists would probably mention the relative easy navigation, however, there was enough route choice challenges set by the course setter meaning that technical aspects were not totally sidelined in this event.

The Australian team of Rachel Effeney, Simon Uppill, Lachlan Dow and Hanny Allston lacked the speed required to stay in touch with the leaders and finished in 16^th place. Hanny Allston running a strong last leg to be the seventh fastest on the leg and passing four runners to get the team into 16^th place.

Results, map and tracking

Another highlight of the day was the public sprint race held after the WOC Sprint Relay. A couple of thousand orienteers got to run around on the same map as the WOC runners. The only thing missing was the cheering crowd as we ran down the finish but imagination is a wonderful thing.

Tomorrow we are looking forward to the Sprint Final with both Hanny and Rachel in the women’s final. All the older Australians also get to compete in day 1 of the Scottish 6 days.

WOC 2015 Inverness, Scotland.

Preamble

The 2015 World Orienteering Championships get underway on Friday evening (31^st July) and conclude the following Friday (7^th August).

Australia will be represented by it’s largest team for many years as we have qualified to have two runners in the middle distance and the long distance, both men and women. With the unavailability of Julian Dent and Oscar McNulty (injury) there are two men making their WOC debuts- Ian Lawford and Brodie Nankervis. Also in the women’s team we have two sisters, Krystal and Laurina Neumann making their WOC debuts.

Womens Team: Sprint– Hanny Allston, Rachel Effeney, Krystal Neumann

Middle-Hanny Allston, Anna Sheldon

Long– Hanny Allston, Laurina Neumann, Vanessa Round.

Relay– Laurina Neumann, Hanny Allston, Anna Sheldon

Mens Team: Sprint-Bryan Keely, Ian Lawford, Brodie Nankervis

Middle-Lachlan Dow, Simon Uppill.

Long– Bryan Keely, Simon Uppill.

Relay-Simon Uppill, Lachlan Dow, Brodie Nankervis (sorry previous entry incorrect)

Mixed Sprint– Hanny Allston, Rachel Effeney, Lachlan Dow, Simon Uppill

Coaches: Tom Quayle, Wendy Read.

Program

Sprint Qualification: Friday 31^st July (3:00am AEST)

Sprint Relay: Saturday 1^st August (3:05am AEST)

Sprint Final: Sunday 2^nd August (1:51am AEST)

Middle Distance: Tuesday 4^th (8:54pm AEST)

Relay: Wednesday 5^th (11:00pm AEST)

Long Distance: Friday 7^th August (7:00pm AEST)

Terrain Descriptions

The Sprint Qualification and Sprint Final will be staged in the former Royal Burgh of Forres. This small town is renowned for impressive parks and gardens with their floral structures, and these will be appreciated from the main race arena near the centre of town. The competitions will include a range of types of terrain from housing estate with extensive path networks to complex old town with many “vennels” (small lanes and minor roads). There are also several areas of parkland with an extensive path network.

The Sprint Relay will take place in the attractive seaside town of Nairn on the Moray Firth. The competition terrain will include complex old town with areas of parkland and dunes ensuring fast running, together with many options in route choice.

The Middle Distance and Relay will both be staged in Darnaway, seat of the Earls of Moray for many centuries. The current Earl (the WOC 2015 Patron) was present at WOC 1976 in Darnaway, where Men and Women battled out the Long Distance. The race arena will be in sight of Darnaway Castle. This extensive well-managed forest has a mixture of woodland types: open pine wood with ground  cover of heather and dwarf shrub, denser pine and areas of broadleaves, especially beech. There are multi-tiered levels of vegetation, particularly in the beech wood, and both runnability and visibility will vary throughout the courses. The terrain is rolling, with steep slopes above the River Findhorn. There are complex contours due to glacial moraine features. There are some rough open areas (felled a few years ago), some open fields, and a non-linear track network.

The Long Distance will take place in Glen Affric, by common consent the finest of all of Scotland’s glens (valleys). The race arena is set within a few kilometres of the picturesque conservation village of Tomich, allowing access to what the Forestry Commission Scotland describe as “a classic landscape of perfectly-placed lochs, mountains and a wonderful mix of pine, birch and oak trees. The woodland is one the best examples of the Caledonian Forest that once covered much of Scotland. The rich environment is an important haven for wildlife, so the whole glen is protected as a National Nature Reserve”. The terrain is hilly but generally there is good runnability throughout the area. There is localised deep heather, very little bracken and few paths or tracks in the area.

There are 49 countries participating in these World Championships and this includes three countries from Africa- Egypt, Uganda, Cameroon. There are about 80 Australian orienteers competing in the Scottish 6 Days event which is being held in conjunction with WOC.

Live results, commentary and GPS tracking will be available- check WOC website.

WOC 2015 website

Detailed reports and analysis will be provided after each event on this link. As well the World of O will have very detailed reports and analysis after each event.

World of O

From all Australian Orienteers- those in Australia as well as those who will be spectating in Scotland, we wish the team all the best for the events and we will be following your performances with interest.

An idea that came from the OA Coaching Conference in January has been a great success. A combined junior training camp in preparation for the Australian Orienteering Championships Carnival in Ballarat later in the year. “A great success and something they certainly want to do again”. Read this report on the camp from Bridget Anderson the SA Junior Squad/Schools Coach- an elite giving something back to the sport. Well done to everybody who was involved in organising and planning this camp.

Bridget’s Report

South Australian and Victorian Juniors Orienteering camp 8^th-12^th July.

A combined training camp in the Ballarat goldfields in preparation for the Australian Champs carnival.

While most of the Australian Orienteering community had their eyes on JWOC during the beginning of July, the South Australian and Victorian juniors had their eyes set towards the Australian Champs carnival. The juniors spent a week in Ballarat preparing themselves for orienteering in technical gold mining terrain. For some of the South Australian’s this was their first time orienteering in gold mining and many found it a difficult but rewarding challenge.

The idea for the combined training camp came about after the coaching conference in January where it was discussed about the benefits of combined state training camps. After much discussion with the Victorian and South Australian coaching co-ordinators, the camp got the green light to go ahead and the planning began. It was agreed that the Victorian managers would organise the accommodation and the South Australian’s would organise the training with the help of local Vic orienteers.

On the Wednesday the 8^th the 13 South Australian juniors and 4 coaches drove the 8 hour drive across to Creswick to meet Roch Prendergast for a map walk at St Georges Lake. On Wednesday evening the SA juniors talked about short term goals for the camp and drew their own maps in preparation for the ViC/SA star relay for the next day. The SA juniors were encouraged to draw simplified maps to help them read the detail in the complex mining terrain.

The next day the SA juniors met the 17 Victorian Juniors and 9 parents at the Blowmine for contour only training and control picking and control flow exercises. In the afternoon the juniors were placed into teams of two (one SA and one Vic per team) for the Star relay at Surface hill. The aim of the star relay was for the Vic junior to place the controls out for their teammate using the proper map while the SA junior had to use their drawn map from the night before to bring their controls in. The team that completed all 5 legs first was the winner. This exercise proved quite challenging especially when some controls were not placed exactly in the right spot.

On Friday the juniors went to Muskvale to learn about identifying attackpoints in gold mining terrain. The juniors had to find the circled attackpoint for each leg before identifying where the control site would be. The aim of this exercise was to learn how to avoid wasting time in the control circle and to always return to the attackpoint if their approach to the control was not successful the first time.  After a fun session of Mirco-O in the gold mining the juniors headed off to St Georges Lake to practice direction with and without compasses.  In the evening, Steve Bird gave a talk about what makes ups the perfect orienteer and pre-race plans. We ended the evening by watching the JWOC relay and learning that even the best Scandinavian orienteers make mistakes too.

On Saturday we talked about the Australian Schools maps before heading out to Sedgewick for the local Bendigo event. It was there the Victorian Juniors said good bye as the SA juniors headed onto Sprint training organised by Richard Goonan. In the evening the SA juniors analysed their legs from the event that day and discussed time loss/gained due to route choice.

The last day of the camp saw the SA Juniors complete a camps champs at Surface Hill. While the courses were short, they were challenging and offered a great deal of practice in the gold mining terrain. Overall the combined camp was a great success and is something that the South Australian and Victorians believe would be beneficial again in the future. A big thanks to all the parents, coaches, volunteers and the Bendigo orienteers who helped make this camp the success it was.

The 2015 Junior World Orienteering Championships concluded today with the relay event on similar terrain to both the long and the middle.Again the Scandinavian countries dominated the relay competition.

The Gold medalists from the long distance – Olli Ojanaho (Finland) and Sara Hagström (Sweden) – each anchored their teams to Gold medals today.

While the Finnish men won a clear victory (1:23) with few changes in the lead, the women’s relay was much more dramatic. Many big, big mistakes by teams fighting for the medals. Norway looked like a sure winner for some time, with both Norway runners making big mistake on the third leg  – then Switzerland was up in the lead – and finally Sweden emerged as a clear winner (2:24).

The Australian men’s team of (Henry McNulty, Patrick Jaffe and Matt Doyle) came 11^th (official teams) and 17^th (all teams). This was a very good performance by the team and Matt Doyle ran very strongly as third leg to be only 4:30 down on his leg. The other men’s team was in 38^th place.

The women’s teams seemed to struggle a little with their running speed after what has been a very physical week of intense orienteering competition. The team of Winnie Oakhill, Nicola Blatchford and Anna Dowling was in 19th place (official teams) and 27^th overall and the other team was in 35^th place.

Results, maps and photos

World of O analysis

Thank you to all in the team for your efforts and performances this week and a special thank you to Hanny (Coach) and Karen (Manager) for all your efforts both during the last two weeks and in the many months leading up to the competition. Well done everyone.

JWOC Long Distance

Finnish Olli Ojanaho won a second Gold medal at the Junior World Orienteering Championships in Rauland, Norway after a great race. Swedish Sara Hagström won a well deserved Gold medal in the women’s class after trouble on both sprint and middle.

On what was very tough terrain the courses today were always going to be a physical challenge given the amount of marshes on the map. As well there were some significant technical challenges as the analysis of the splits shows, with some fairly big mistakes being made. The JWOC long distance is a very challenging event due to the number of runners and it appears that starting later yesterday was a significant benefit with what must have been tracking in the terrain especially in the marshes.

Section of the map showing the long leg on M20 course

Matt Doyle was the best Aussie finishing in 41^st place. Matt was wearing GPS so we could follow his progress and he had a very consistent run with only three small technical errors and his running speed was consistent. In his previous two JWOC Matt has finished 102^nd (2013) and 88^th (2014). He is making good progress in competing at this level. Henry McNulty after some early problem finished the course with very good running speed to be in 64^th place.

Three of our women finished very close together and with only some small mistakes they had almost the same running speed. Winnie Oakhill 68^th, Anna Dowling 69^th and Hannah Goddard 70^th. Winnie and Hannah are in their first JWOC so this is an impressive start to their international career.

Other results were Men: Aidan Dawson 104^th, Jarrah Day 107^th, Patrick Jaffe 117^th, Simeon Burrill 123^rd.

Women: Nicola Blatchford 75^th, Lanita Steer 91^st, Olivia Sprod 113^th.

Full results, splits, maps and GPS

Today in the final event at JWOC- the Relays

The Aussie teams are: Men Henry McNulty, Patrick Jaffe, Matt Doyle.

Jarrah Day, Aidan Dawson, Simeon Burrill

Women: Winnie Oakhill, Nicola Blatchford, Anna Dowling

Lanita Steer, Hannah Goddard, Olivia Sprod.

The men’s relay starts at 5:00pm (AEST)    and the women’s relay starts at 6:20pm (AEST).

On the same terrain as the middle qualification the courses again provided some typical Scandinavian technical challenges which were described on the World of O as

“The Junior World Championships Middle distance offered tricky orienteering – which gave very big challenges for the athletes. Many of the favourites got problems in the slopes around Rauland – the terrain offering many diffuse marshes and varying vegetation.”

Again it was a day for the Scandinavian runners – with gold for Finland’s Olli Ohanaha and Norway’s Anine Ahlsand. In the men’s class Swedish Erik Andersson (14 seconds behind) and Swiss Sven Hellmüller were closest. In them women’s class early starting Swede Johanna Öberg (also 14 seconds behind) and Swiss Sandrine Müller were closest.”

On a day with better weather than yesterday Australia had three runners in the A finals. Winnie Oakhill had a very consistent run with steady running speed- making a small mistake on control 3 (see graph). Another impressive performance from Winnie and she is certainly adapting her technique to the requirements of the Scandinavian terrain.

Unfortunatley Matt Doyle was DSQ after having what looked like a very good run in the Men’s A final. From the GPS it looks like Matt punched the wrong control 11. The rest of his run showed good speed with only a small mistake at Control 12. Patrick Jaffe after making the A final in his first JWOC gained some valuable experience competing at this level and finished in 57^th place.

Anna Dowling competing in the Womens B final had a very consistent run showing good terrain speed with only a small error at control 7. See graph showing the Aussie women on the B final.

Aidan Dawson recovered well from his experiences in the qualification to improve his consistency. He showed very good running speed and was leading in the C final at control 7. He eventually finished in 8^th place.

Other Australian results were

W20B- Heather Goddard 32^nd, Lanita Steer 43^rd, Olivia Sprod 44^th, Nicola Blatchford 46^th.

M20B- Jarrah Day 20^th, Simeon Burrill 45^th, Henry McNulty DSQ.

Results, splits and maps

Today is a rest day after three days of competition to enable the athletes to rest and prepare for the Long Distance event on Thursday.

A great day for two of our JWOC debutants-both just 17 years of age, Winnie Oakhill and Patrick Jaffe have both qualified for the A final in the JWOC Middle Distance  along with Matt Doyle who had a very good run in the qualification to finish 13^th in his heat. Winnie followed up her good effort in the sprint with another impressive performance to finish 18^th in her heat. Patrick demonstrated impressive technical skills to finish 20^th in his heat.

Here is a report from Karen (Manager) from what was a tough day for all with very cold weather and rain.

“Extremely pleased with Australia’s overall results following the middle qualification race today. Very technical race with three very different courses for both men and women. The top 20 from each heat move through to the A final, the next 20 to the B final and remaining to the C final.
Weather conditions were tough, going from 26 degrees on the sprint day to 6 degrees today and constant rain during the race. Most athletes had positive comments about their races despite some not being so happy with their final placings. Very pleasing to have three athletes qualify for the A final and even more pleasing to have a total of 3 girls and 3 boys in the top 26 of the heats meaning unfortunately three have only just missed out on the A final.
Our top placing results were:
MEN
Matt 13th
Patrick 20th
Henry 23rd

WOMEN
Winnie 18th
Nicola 21st
Anna 26th

The Middle Final is tomorrow with the same finish arena as today and similar terrain with perhaps more variation.

Our athletes start times as follows:
C FINAL
Aidan 10.43

B FINAL
Lanita 10.35
Simeon 10.39
Jarrah 10.46
Hannah 11.06
Olivia 11.09
Anna 11.13
Henry 11.24
Nicola 11.30

A FINAL
Pat 11.48
Matt 12.28
Winnie 12.59

Results, Splits and maps

Some analysis of the Australian performances- three athletes in the A final

Quote from the World Of O about the Middle Qualification

“The terrain in today’s JWOC Middle Qualification required a lot of experience in Scandinavian terrain – and thus the Scandinavian and Swiss runners had a significant advantage.”

So this makes the performances of both Winnie Oakhill and Patrick Jaffe very impressive as this was their first event in Scandinavian terrain, after only a few days training in similar terrain last week. To make the A final in the middle distance at their first JWOC is something that not many Australians have achieved. Also the steady improvement that Matt Doyle has been making with all aspects of his orienteering are clearly indicated by his performance today. Matt was 46^th in 2013, 30^th in 2014 and was a very impressive 13^th this year.

Matt lost about 30 seconds on the short leg 15 just before the run into the finish, but apart from this control he had a very consistent performance and was only 14% behind the winner.

Patrick also was very consistent throughout the course except for Control 13 where he lost nearly a minute. This was the same control that Matt lost time on but Patrick was coming from a slightly different direction.

Winnie again demonstrated her very good technical skills to have a consistent run except for Control 2 where she lost just over a minute but quickly recovered to be the fastest on Leg 3.

So between them they had many, many good legs and so will certainly be able to take a lot of positive thoughts into the A final tonight. It is all about being smooth and consistent and not trying to run too fast. Use the strategies that worked in the qualification again in the final as the terrain should be similar.

An interesting point about the heats where the top 20 go through to the A final is that in the men’s heats the 20^th place was 21%, 22% and 21% behind the winner in each heat, whilst in the women’s heats the 20^th place was 28%, 34% and 50% (W20C) behind the winner. So the time gaps in the women’s heats especially W20C heat were quite large.

Good luck to all athletes and remember to stay focused as there are still three events to go.