World University Orienteering Opening Ceremony was held last night in Olomouc. The Australian team had moved into the official accommodation earlier in the day and had a chance to experience the model sprint map which was around the accommodation at the University campus ‘Neredin’ on the edge of Olomouc. The ceremony was at 8:00pm in a large open square in the old town section of Olomouc. We had a thunderstorm earlier in the day and the rain was hanging around. It was an entertaining ceremony featuring the usual welcome speeches, local group singing and dancing and was finished off with a light show highlighting the local area. Light rain fell during the ceremony but not enough to stop the proceedings.

Australian Team waiting for Opening Ceremony to start.

Today we are preparing for the first Sprint Relay to be held as part of the WUOC program.Each country can have one team in this event. There will be 28 countries represented. The terrain is a mix of flat parkland and an urban section of the historic old town of Kromeriz. The Australian team is Belinda Lawford, Bryan Keely, Bridget Anderson, Murray Scown. The organisers have made a different running order to what was used at WOC in Italy with the order being Women, Men, Women, Men. Also it appears from the event information that there will be four courses, so women may end up running the same course as the men. There are some world class runners taking part in the WUOC and the Swiss team today includes Martin Hubmann and Matthias Kyburz who were members of the Swiss team at WOC who won the Sprint Relay.

Live results available

http://splits.racom.cz/wsplits/races/wuoc.htm

Tomorrow is the Long Distance event in fairly steep terrain, many vegetation changes and a dense network of tracks. All team members will compete in this event.