G'day everyone, and welcome to the first blog entry for this years world orienteering championships, in rainy Inverness, Scotland! While the sun has not shown its face for more than a few minutes this week, the Australian team is full of smiling faces, as we begin to arrive in Inverness. Competitors, managers and coaches are arriving one by one, as they travel from Sweden, Norway, France, Australia and Italy, while some of our supporters arrive too (one supporter is walking the 120-odd kilometres from Fort William to Inverness - go mum!).
To start with, its time for a quick little overview of our week so far. On Monday, most of the team had assembled in Inverness so in true athlete fashion we spent a lot of money on food at Tesco! In the evening the team took part in a sprint test race run by a Scottish orienteering club. The race was a fantastic way to prepare for the coming Sprint races and there was even a Quarantine.
On Tuesday the team headed out for two forest sessions, one in long terrain and one in middle terrain. Although it was a very wet day, the terrain was beautiful and at least there seemed to be less ticks! For a sneak peak of the middle training map check out @auswoc on Instagram (link below). Following this the team headed out to loch ness for some touristing, which would have not been a true Scottish experience without a taste of some Haggis and a trial of some "traditional" Scottish clothing.
Tuesday was a special day for another reason, Simon became one year older (rumour has it he is now 40). Unfortunately Simon's cake went missing and he had to settle for apple crumble for dessert!
Today half the team headed out to a sprint map on the coast while the others headed back into the forest for some more middle training. Big thanks to Icebug who have been helping us keep out feet in the slippery Scottish terrain. The rest of the day was spent traversing the Scottish coast, checking out the Sprint areas for the following days.
The first race this year is the sprint qualification, on Friday (July 31st). From Friday, the program is:
Friday 31st: sprint qualification
Saturday Aug 1: sprint relay
Sunday Aug 2: sprint final
Monday 3rd: rest
Tue 4th: middle distance (final)
Wed 5th: relay (forest)
Thur: rest
Friday: long distance (final)
Following the Aussie WOC team is easy this year, and we are expanding our social media outreach with the debut of our social media gurus Ian and Brodie. You can keep up to date through following our blog as well as Orienteering Australia on Facebook, following @OrienteeringAUS on Twitter, and now on Instagram @auswoc as well. Hopefully that's enough websites to get you up close and personal with our team!
