Nick Dent

Yesterday (Thursday) was a rest day for the WOC teams but it was an opportunity for the other Aussies to experience the WOC Long terrain on day four of the Five Days of Italy event being held in conjunction with WOC. After this we were invited by the WOC team to an afternoon tea at their team hotel on the south side of Lago Lavarone. A very pleasant and peaceful environment beside this picturesque lake. Toph and Lachie were the captains of the paddle boat entertaining Linus Quayle while the rest of us enjoyed coffee and cakes on the balcony overlooking the lake. A very nice occasion and the team seemed very relaxed about the challenges of the next two days.

Unfortunately Vanessa will not be running the middle today as she is not feeling well. She was a little off colour before the long but did an exceptional performance considering her physical state to finish and run so well. The coaches have decided to replace her with Hanny in the middle giving her a rest and a chance to recover for the relay on Saturday. Hanny is relaxed about the middle and will no doubt have the stamina to back up after the long on Wednesday. Jasmine Neve will be having her first run at WOC and will start at 12:35, Hanny starting at 13:19. The women will run before the men. Julian will be our representative in the men’s event and he will start at 15:07.

The terrain for the middle and the relay is described in the Bulletin 4 as “the middle distance final is organized in Campomulo, which is part of Asiago karstic highland, in the altitude of 1500-1700 meters above sea level. The landscape is characterized by many terraces divided by steeper areas.
Vegetation varies from alpine pastures to open forest, mainly coniferous, and the ground surface is very rocky throughout reducing the runnability in the forest. Trenches from World War are very common in this area. The network of paths, tracks and roads is not very dense. Cross country ski tracks exist in parts of the area”.

The men have a course distance of 5.86km with 290m of climb. The winning time is down as 35 minutes (6min/km). The women have a course distance of 4.96km with 230m of climb. The winning time is down as 34 minutes (just under 7min/km). Yesterday when some of the team went training on the model map there was fresh snow in the forest.

Wow!  How good was that!

Monday evening in the old town section of Trento-Piazza Duomo, was the scene for the first ever WOC Sprint Relay, a format that had divided opinion of the relevance of it as part of the WOC program. After the experience yesterday maybe there will be a different perspective on this format in the future as it was certainly very exciting for the spectators and we hope those of you in Australia who were watching it were just as excited about the event.

The format with the women starting first in a mass start meant that we had 34 women lined up on the start line and they had to navigate their way to the first controls through a very narrow funnel of spectators for over 200m, just like the peloton in the Tour de France. As well there were cafes to be avoided and many locals just wandering around. Rachel Effeney was our first starter and what a great start she had. She was seen to run into the first passage way in third place and held this position until towards the end of her course. Rachel put Australia in a great position coming into the finish in sixth place 14 seconds down on the leader, sending Julian Dent out on the second leg. Julian tried to hold onto some impressive runners around him and had a pretty clean run but just could not maintain the speed required to stay in touch. He handed over to Simon Uppill with the team in 10^th place 50 seconds behind the lead. Simon also had a relatively clean run but just could not maintain the speed to stay in touch. The rain had been threatening all afternoon and after some light rain since the beginning of the race, it started to rain heavily as Simon was running the third leg. Simon handed over to Hanny Allston with the team in equal 12th place but Hanny was not too far behind some runners so we were optimistic that the position could be improved on the last leg. Hanny was running in heavy rain and we were trying to follow her on the GPS in the arena but things were happening so quickly we weren’t sure what was happening. On the run through it was clear Hanny had gained some places and on the long leg in the second part of the course she took a left route choice and the runners around her went right. This turned out to be a good choice as she managed to get in front of the group including Norway. At the end Hanny was in a sprint with the Lithuanian runner for 9^th place. There was a sharp turn into the finish and Hanny was unable to get past. She made up 2 places on the fourth leg- so the team finished a fantastic 10^th place- 2:41 seconds behind the winners Switzerland. There were some very excited team members as well as Australian spectators when Hanny finished in the pouring rain.

The winners of the sprint were the Swiss team of Rahel Friederich, Martin Hubmann, Matthias Kyburz, Judith Wyder who were clear winners after Matthias Kyburz took the lead away from Denmark on the third leg. These two countries were the favourites and were in first and second place throughout the race. With the combination of two big screens showing the live GPS and TV pictures, great commentary from Per Forsberg and also a run through the arena was a very exciting place to be for the duration of the event.

A great day for Australia to be in the top 10 countries in this inaugural sprint relay. The team has a rest day today and are planning for the Long Distance event on Wednesday when we will have Hanny Allston and Vanessa Round in the women’s event and Simon Uppill in the men’s. The long distance will be held in the hills and valleys of Lavarone with stretches of alpine, pine, spruce and beech forest. The terrain is a mix of areas with good visibility, forest with good runnability, and areas where vegetation is more dense and running speed is reduced. The women have a distance of 11km and a winning time of 77 minutes, the men have a distance of 16.4km and a winning time of 97 minutes. The first start for the women will be at 12:00 (20:00 EST) and the men start at 12:50 (20:50 EST). The start interval is 2 minutes and the start order is determined by the athletes World ranking.

So the WOC week is well and truly under way. A very scenic sprint happened in Venice on Saturday. Today saw the opening ceremony in the mountain town of Asiago and tomorrow all eyes will turn to the first ever WOC mixed sprint relay. And what a race it is expected to be.

Here are the details of how this race works. The team consists of 2 women and 2 men, with the women running the first and last leg, which leaves the blokes to run the middle two legs. Each leg will take somewhere around 13 minutes to complete, so the race will be all done and dusted with in hour. Like all sprint races it is expected that the winning team will be just a few seconds in front of the rest, so it is definitely a race not to be missed.

The Australian team will be wearing the number 1 bib, yes that’s right we also hope to keep it at the end of the day. The team will be Rachel Effeney out first, Julian Dent second; Simon Uppill Third and Hanny Allston will bring home the team on the last leg. The team has prepared well and is looking forward to some good racing around the streets of Trento.

The relay will start at 5:30pm here is Italy, so that would be 1:30am on Tuesday morning for all you back home on the east coast of Australia. If you’re keen for a late night I’m sure it will be worth every ounce of tiredness later that day! You can follow all the action on the WOC website. There will be live results for free, if you want more than that you will need to pay for access for the IOF’s new live center, which will give you access to gps tracking and the live TV stream.

We will be also posting news and photo updates to the Orienteering Australia Facebook page about the progress of the race as things happen so check that out as well. That should about be enough to look at but if you so desire more then you can always check out World of O or Attackpoint for many discussions and updates about the races.

Hanny and Elin after a morning run!

Toph