The newly released Bulletin 3 gives the athletes more information about how long the WOC-races will be, and the long distance race will create a historic moment with the longest WOC-courses ever for both men and women.

The men will fight out a course of 18.1 kilometres with 28 controls. This is the first time a WOC-course will pass the 18 Km mark. The previous longest race was in Sweden in 1989, 17.7 Km. Last year’s course in Denmark was also long, 17.5 Km.

The womens course for the long distance race will also be the longest ever at 11.9km. This is just 100 metres longer than the course in Switzerland 2003. There will, however, not be a record for number of controls. The men’s course in Switzerland 2003 had 34 controls.

It remains to be seen if the races will be the fastest ever for a long distance. Petter Thoresen ran close to 5min/km in 1989, and this means the race this year must have a winning time close to 95 minutes to be the fastest race ever. Will it be possible?

Jørn Sundby
Head of international press and information WOC 2007
joern.sundby@gmail.com