High Performance News

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/

At an altitude over 2000m today was the JWOC Long Distance event on a very steep and rocky map that certainly provided a physical and also technical challenge. The Australian team again had some very good performances after yesterdays success in the Sprint. Matt Doyle who was the last starter on the mens course had a very impressive run in this challenging terrain to finish strongly and he ended up in 18th place, time 73:48, 13.5% down on the winner J Hadorn from Switzerland (the winner of the gold medal in the sprint yesterday). In fact the top three today were the same as the top three from the Sprint. Matt had a very steady start and after some time loss at controls 8 and 9 where he was in 39th place  finished the latter part of the course strongly to move up to a very impressive 18th position.

The two youngest members of the team Aston Key and Tara Mellhuish who are both still 16 years old had very impressive debuts in their first JWOC  Long Distance event. Aston who had a very steady run but tired a little after starting fast was in 55th place in a time of 80:57. Tara who was slightly disappointed with her run in the sprint showed very good resilience today to be the best of the Aussie women in 60th place in a time of 76:10. Both of these performances indicate that both these young orienteers have a good future as they develop more with age and experience.

Tomorrow is a rest day and after the sunshine and very warm weather of the last 9 days tomorrow is forecast to be wet and cooler. On Wednesday the Middle Qualification heats will be held on the slopes above the village where we are staying -Ftan. The team will be having an afternoon tea for all the Australian supporters who are in Switzerland cheering the team on tommorrow afternoon at the team hotel and then we will be attending the medal presentation for both the sprint and the long.

Full results, maps and photos-JWOC 2016

http://www.jwoc2016.ch/

Event analysis can be seen on the World Of O

http://news.worldofo.com/2016/07/11/jwoc-2016-long-maps-and-results/

Nick Dent

In todays JWOC sprint held in sunny and quite hot Scuol the Australian team celebrated the first Australian on the podium at JWOC since 2007. Henry McNulty finishing a fantastic run in equal 6th place in a time of 13:20 just 3 seconds from 4th. Henry was very pleased with his run and said that he did not think he could have made up any time. The whole Aussie team and all the supporters we had in the large crowd were very excited with this result.

The two winners today of the gold medal were both from the home country- Switzerland. S Abersold made it two JWOC Sprint victories in two years with a decisive victory by 52 seconds. In the mens race the winner was J Hadorn, with the Swiss having 4 runners in the top seven places.

The Aussie men performed very well overall with Aston Key in his first JWOC  41st place, Matt Doyle  45th place, Simeon Burrill 55th, Jarrah Day 62nd and Patrick Jaffe 91st.

In the women, Lanita Steer had a very steady run  to finish in an excellent 26th place.Other results were: Winnie Oakhill  41st, Asha Steer 91st, Tara Mellhuish 104th  and Zoe Dowling 122nd. Unfortunately Anna Dowling missed a control.

Some analysis of the Aussie Performances

The team is now recovering and resting for the Long Distance event to be held tomorrow.

A great way to start a long week and we can look forward to more good performances during the rest of the events. It has certainly given the whole team a boost of confidence.

Nick Dent

The National Orienteering League program framework for 2017 has been agreed, as follows:

Items still to be finalised are:

• Which events at the Oceania Championships will be National League events (which may differ for seniors and juniors)
• Which events (other than the Australian and Oceania Championships) will be World Ranking events
• The sequence of events within each of the non-championship weekends.

JWOC 2016 starts today in Scuol, Switzerland with the Opening Ceremony to be held at 16:00 in Scuol, which is also the location for the Sprint Distance event to be held on Sunday morning. The Australian team has settled into their JWOC accommodation in a small village Ftan, overloooking the very picturesque Engadine Valley and only about 15 minutes from Scuol. The accommodation is very close to the middle qualification area (Wednesdays event). The team has been spending the last five days preparing for the events by visiting some of the training maps and having talks about the mental and technical challenges of each of the disciplines. The team has responded very positively to the coaching from Julian Dent and Ralph Street and are relaxed and focused ready for the Sprint Distance event tomorrow.

Yesterday the team travelled to the model area for the Long Distance event which will be held at an altitude of over 2000m at Pass dal Fuorn. The team did a map walk checking out the main features of the map and got a birds eye view of the arena for the long from the higher section of the model map. This area will provide a true Long Distance experience for the athletes- steep terrain with some areas of low visibility and rocky ground. The expected winning km rates are 8min/km for the men and 9min/km for the women.

The program for the week is very intensive and certainly provides these young athletes with both a physical challenge and a mental challenge during the five days of competition, especially given that on the Long Distance event there is a lot of travelling involved in getting to the event.

All team members are well and relaxing today before the start of the competition tomorrow. They have been posting on their blog and many photos can be found on the facebook page and on instagram- see these link

https://www.instagram.com/ausjwoc/

http://ausjuniororienteering.blogspot.ch/

https://www.facebook.com/AusJWOC2014

There will be live production of the events and this can be found from the JWOC 2016 website

http://www.jwoc2016.ch

It is planned to provide daily reports for the events on this website.

Nick Dent

The 2016 Australian JWOC team assembled in Sent on Sunday for the 5 days of pre JWOC preparation with a focus on 1. terrain familiarisation, 2.  mental techniques 3. technical challenges of each discipline and 4. creating team harmony and focus. A detailed plan for the 5 days has been prepared by the two coaches who are working with the team during the week-Julian Dent and Ralph Street. These two older elite athletes who have both recently achieved impressive results in the two biggest relays in orienteering- Ralph being in the winning team at 10Mila in Sweden and Julian in the second placed team at Jukola in Finland, have prepared a structured program for the athletes to prepare each athlete for the challenges of the JWOC competition which starts on Sunday with the Sprint Distance in Scuol.

Some of the tam have been in Europe for some time competing and training and all have arrived in Sent healthy and relaxed. There are three newcomers to JWOC competition in the team- Aston Key, Tara Melhuish and Zoe Dowling. We have some experienced JWOC team members with Matt Doyle, Henry McNulty, Lanita Steer and Anna Dowling all having been to at least two previous JWOC’s and are all competing in their last JWOC before moving into senior elites. Winnie Oakhill, Asha Steer Patrick Jaffe, Simeon Burrill and Jarrah Day are competing in their second JWOC.

The JWOC week of competition is very challenging as all athletes compete in five events over the six days. The Sprint on Sunday is followed by the Long Distance event on Monday which will be held at an altitude of 2100m. A rest day follows and then there is the Middle Qualification , Middle Final and the team Relay on the Friday. There will be live streaming on the JWOC website of all the finals and the relay including GPS tracking for some athletes.

2016 Australian JWOC Team at Tarasp

Nick Dent