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Natasha Key dominated the W45 age group at the World Masters Orienteering Championships in Estonia, winning by large margins in both the sprint and long distance events. In the sprint, held in Tallinn’s Old Town, she had a minute in hand over the rest of the field, and in the long distance she was more than four minutes clear, huge margins at this level. Her runs are indications that she is in excellent form as she moves on to her elite international comeback at the World Orienteering Championships in Sweden later this month.

Geoff Lawford almost managed to repeat his 2015 sprint triumph in M60, but had to settle for silver, five seconds behind Great Britain’s James Crawford. There was a near-miss for Wendy Read, who after winning her qualifying race, finished seven seconds outside the medals in fourth place in W50.

In W35, Anna Sheldon was 7th in the sprint and 14th in the long distance, while there was also a pair of top-20 results for Amber Tomas, about to return to Australia after many years in the UK and US.

Other Australians to achieve top-20 results were Gayle Quantock (12th, W50 sprint), Jim Russell (13th, M55 sprint), Basil Baldwin (17th, M75 sprint) and Liliia Glushchenko (16th, W45 long).

One of the most keenly anticipated Australian contests of the event, in the M35 sprint between former WOC team members Troy de Haas and David Brickhill-Jones, turned out to be something of a fizzer after both missed the A final (de Haas picking up the wrong map in qualifying, although he did have the fastest time in the B final).

Full results, along with videos (spectacular ones from the sprint), are available at the WMOC website.

WUOC Middle Distance

Today was a long day and a pretty challenging day for the Aussies. What stated with a bus trip that was longer than indicated, on some narrow and windy roads and then continued with a map that had a lot of green and some fairly vague features, sometimes in the green, ended with some disappointments, some could have been better and some not to bad runs from the team.

After the domination yesterday by Great Britain, the Swedes dominated today winning both the men and women’s events by small margins- O Sjoberg in the men and L Forsgren in the women. Michele Dawson was the best placed Aussie in 40^th place 31.9% behind the winner. Michele had a good start being in 17^th place at control 6 however, she lost over 3 mins at controls 9 and 10. She then had some running mates and finished well. Belinda Lawford after a very slow start and after 5 red controls in a row (66^th at control 9) speeded up significantly from control 10 to control 15, to finish in 46^th, 38% behind. Heather Muir was an early starter and tired towards the end of the course to finish in 65^th place 64% behind. Nicola Blatchford who was in 70^th place at control 8  mispunched at control 9.

Andrew Barnett who had a very consistent run was the best of the Aussie men to be in 64^th place, 31.5% behind. Matt Doyle was running faster than Andrew but a small mistake at control 21 caused him to lose over 1 minute. He finished in 66^th place, 32% behind. Henry McNulty had a pretty inconsistent run today with control 12, 14,15 and 21 costing him time and his running speed slowed towards the end. He finished in 71^st place, 38% down. Brodie Nankervis who started well and was in 31st place at control 10, then had some problems and he mispunched control 19 (he was in 57^th and control 18).

Tomorrow is the relay with all the Aussie team running.

Men: Henry McNulty, Brodie Nankervis, Matt Doyle: Lachlan Dow, Ian Lawford, Andrew Barnett.

Women: Krystal Neumann, Belinda Lawford, Michele Dawson: Nicola Blatchford and Heather Muir will run in a mixed team with a French women.

Ciao

Nick Dent

WUOC Sprint Relay

Today’s Sprint Relay was held downtown in Miskolc and was a very spectacular event with good visibility of the runners, big screen and also GPS available in the arena. Relays can be very exciting and this one certainly was. The comment from those Aussies present was “why don’t we have more events like this one?” I can only agree with this sentiment.

The Great British team are certainly demonstrating their strength in sprint orienteering. After their successes in the individual sprint they were clear winners today by 50 seconds from Czech Republic with Norway in 3^rd place.

The Australians who do not get much experience in relays let alone sprint relays had a very impressive team performance finishing in 13^th place only 5:14 down on the winners. All runners had good runs with some small errors but the combined result of 13^th which is four places higher than two years ago. Krystal Neumann was 14^th on her leg, Henry McNulty 12^th, Ian Lawford 11^th and Michele Dawson was 17^th on her last leg.

Tomorrow is the middle distance event on a map with some negative terrain and rocky areas that should lend itself to some good middle distance courses. Australia will be represented by:

Men- Matt Doyle, Henry McNulty, Andrew Barnett and Brodie Nankervis.

Women- Heather Muir, Nicola Blatchford, Belinda Lawford and Michele Dawson.

Sorry too late for analysis and any photos.

Nick Dent

WUOC Long Distance

Today’s Long distance looked like it would be very much a physical challenge with a distance for the men of 13.8km and climb of 655m, and for the women a distance of 9.8km and climb of 420m. This is exactly how it turned out.

In the men’s the winner was Rasmuss Anderson from Sweden in a time of 83:59, and in the womens the winner was Anna Haataja from Finland in a time of 74:27 (estimated winning time was 65 mins).

The best of the Australians on the day was Krystal Neumann who was 30^th -19.8% behind the winner. Krystal made some technical errors at controls 2 and 7 (both short legs) which cost her 3:30 mins. Otherwise she had a steady consistent run. Belinda Lawford was 46^th (33% down) and Belinda had some technical errors at three short legs, controls 4,5 and 6 which cost her 5 mins. Nicola Blatchford had a steady run but lacked the running speed over this distance to be in 48^th place (36.7%). Heather Muir had a combination of some technical errors, especially at controls 6, 13 and 15, along with a lack of running speed to finish in 61^st place (61.2%).

In the men the best Australian was Lachlan Dow in 46^th place, 24.4% down on the winner. Lachie lost almost 2 mins on control 1 but after that had a steady run and finished the strongest of all the Aussies. Matt Doyle was in 52^nd place (26.4%) and Brodie Nankervis was in 58^th place (29.6%). Lachie, Brodie and Matt were almost equal in time at control 20 but Brodie made an error on control 21 which cost him 3:44 mins and Lachie finished strongly from control 20 onwards. Andrew Barnett after an early error was lacking the running speed of the other Australians.

The lesson to take away from this experience is that at the top international level of orienteering the long distance event requires endurance and stamina which only comes from years of training. The experience will certainly benefit these athletes development towards improving their performance in long distance events international.

Women behind superwoman

Tomorrow afternoon at 5:00pm local time in downtown Miskolc the Sprint Relay will be held. Each country is only allowed one team. Australia will be represented by: Krystal Neumann, Henry McNulty, Ian Lawford and Michele Dawson.

Photos from Sprint

WUOC Sprint Distance

Today the WUOC Sprint distance was held at Lillafured a small town to the west of Miskolc. The map was very small with the competitors having two maps on the same page. There was one section of gardens and walls that was very intricate and provided many short route choice legs. It is certainly worth having a look at for those interested in sprint orienteering. The competitors ran through this intricate area twice.

The Australian had a mixed day with the best result being Belinda Lawford who was in 24^th place, 12.7% behind the winner. In the men Henry McNulty was the best Aussie in 36^th place 16.2% behind the winner. Unfortunately, there was one mp and one dsq. Brodie Nankervis missing control 16 and Michele Dawson running through an out of bounds area that was marked on the map but not in the terrain.

Other results were, Men: Lachie Dow in 42^nd place 2:32mins down, Ian Lawford in 72^nd place after being 24^th at Control 10, Ian lost 1:34 at Control 16 a very short leg in the garden area. Brodie would have had a time to be about in 59^th place. Women: Krystal Neumann in 42^nd place 3:30 min down. Krystal had the same running speed as Belinda but lost 50sec at control 6. Heather Muir was in 59^th place and Michele would have finished in about 50^th place.

Some analysis is provided from Winsplits Pro.

Tomorrow sees the Long distance event being held in what appears to be fast and mostly open forest but with a fair bit of climb.

Australia will be represented by Men: Andrew Barnett, Matt Doyle, Brodie Nankervis and Lachlan Dow.

Women:  Krystal Neumann, Nicola Blatchford, Heather Muir and Belinda Lawford.

Some photos from the very good Opening Ceremony

Nick Dent

World University Orienteering Championships 2016

Miskolc, Hungary

The Australian team has settled into the accommodation at Miskolc University in preparation for the start of the WUOC today with the Opening Ceremony this afternoon.

Australia has a team of six men and five women who will compete in the events. These events are: Sprint distance, Long distance, Sprint Relay, Middle distance and Relay.

The team is:

Men: Andrew Barnett, Lachlan Dow, Matt Doyle, Ian Lawford, Henry McNulty, Brodie Nankervis.

Women: Nicola Blatchford, Michele Dawson, Belinda Lawford, Heather Muir, Krystal Neumann.

All the events will be held in the area to the west of Miskolc and the terrain maps are in a similar area to the WOC 2009 maps. Tomorrow the first event will be the Sprint distance at Lillafured. This map is described as two generally flat areas of urban and park terrain connected by a steep hillside with hanging gardens. The terrain looks intense with it being a small area there will be a map change during the course with both maps printed on the same side.

Australia will be represented in the Sprint by: Men- Brodie Nankervis, Henry McNulty, Ian Lawford and Lachlan Dow. Women- Heather Muir, Belinda Lawford, Krystal Neumann and Michele Dawson.

Radio split times, GPS tracking of selected runners and commentary will be available online

www.wuoc2016.hu

from 10:00 Local time (6:00pm EST).

It is planned to provide reports from each event if time permits and internet connection is good enough.

Nick Dent

On the slopes of Ftan just above the team hotel today was the Middle Qualification heats with the top 20 from each heat going through to the A final tomorrow. The weather today was cooler and rain threatened, with heavy rain stating just about two thirds through the start list.

Both Matt Doyle and Henry McNulty continued with their good form, both finishing in 6th place in their heat. Matt with a time of 27:24 was 3:39mins down on the winner and Henry  with a time 26:53 was 1:44 min down on the winner. Both Matt and Henry easily qualify for the A final tomorrow. Aston Key was very close to qualifying being only 24 sec behind 20th place. Aston had a small error at control 17 but otherwise a very steady run. The other men were all a little off the speed needed to make the A final and made a few small technical errors and will all now compete in the B final.

In the women’s Winnie Oakhill just missed out on the A final with a time of 32:55 -6:04 min down on the winner in 21st place, 30 sec down on 20th place. The other women were generally happy with their runs but their speed was not there and a few technical errors cost them time.

Full results, splits, maps and photos

http://www.jwoc2016.ch/