Australian Elite squad training camp- internationals welcome

Orienteering Australia is holding an Elite Squad training camp being held from Jan 2-9 based at Beechworth, Victoria. This period is a popular time for European visitors to Australia so if any international orienteers are interested in attending they can contact the organiser below.

For this camp the new “Rowdy Flat” map (used for the Oceania Middle Distance Championships) and the very old “Kangaroo Crossing” area will be amongst the maps utilised. To do so the organisers have been given special permission by Orienteering Victoria, as these areas are being used in September 2012 for Victorian Championship middle and long distance events.

Thus there will be an embargo on both maps mentioned above, which will take place from January 10th 2012. This gives any orienteer the chance to run on these areas until that date.

Additionally, other orienteers are invited to participate at the January camp, especially keen juniors.

For more information on this please contact Rob Preston – rob_preston AT hotmail.com

Sprint the Bay

Also, in February, after the Sprint the Bay carnival (4-6th) in NZ there will be a senior squad training camp from Feb 7-12th. Other keen orienteers, juniors or seniors are also invited to participate in this. For more details contact tour leader Jim Russell - jymbo@dodo.com.au

Event details at www.sprintthebay.org

Crane and Round in Middle Final

Australian team runners Grace Crane and Vanessa Round had their individual day of reckoning in the forests of La Feclaz today with the 2011 Middle distance final.

After a solid qualification last Sunday they were expecting a tough technical challenge. Grace started early and was the leader through the early TV controls. With a trademark safe start Grace looked set for a top 20 result but mistakes on the tricky 6th and 7th controls cost dearly in a competitive WOC Final with Grace finishing up in an excellent 27th place.

With a strong qualifying position Vanessa started amongst some favoured runners. After a solid start Vanessa was caught by World champion Dana Brozkova and they missed the troublesome 8th control together. But Vanessa stormed home in the hot and tough conditions to finish in 35th place.

Results

Map and GPS Tracks

Relay

Both ladies will be backing up for the Relay tomorrow and they will be joined by Jasmine Neve.

In the men Simon Uppill will lead out, Julian Dent 2nd and Rob Preston will bring the team home.

The Relay is final race of WOC 2011 and is expected to be very technical and could produce some surprising results.

Watch live at:

live.woc2011.fr

Julian Dent 24th in Long Distance Final

The Long Distance final of the 2011 WOC was the longest in history, with a handful of athletes breaking 2hrs. French favourite Thierry Gueorgiou was a class above the rest of the field, winning by 4mins from Pasi Ikonen (FIN) and Francois Gonon (FRA).

Julian Dent lost time early in the course, on controls 2 and 3, but gathered momentum for the last half of the course to move through the field to finish a credible 24th place in his first Long Distance Final. Below is a copy of Julian’s GPS route, and some photos of the day.

 

 

WOC 2011 Sprint Final

 

Congrats to our finalists and their great results- Simon 37th, Grace 24th, Rachel 35th.

The final results can be found here- http://live.woc2011.fr/data/uploads/result/rl_woc2011_sprint.pdf

but we are still waiting for the qualification results…..

Below are some photos and video from the final.

Tomorrow is the Long Distance Final at Le Feclaz, where we will all be supporting Julian Dent in his first Long final. Most of the team is heading up early for a crack at the spectator races, a great chance for some relay training.

Sprint Qualification Debacle!!

This morning’s WOC Sprint Qualifications in Aix-Les-Bains has been shrouded in controversy with large numbers of athletes disqualified for crossing forbidden features.

Simon Uppill had a great run to qualify in his very competitive heat and is the only Aussie man to make the final. Julian Dent and Rob Preston lost a little time and finished outside the top 15. There is some controversy about the final results as Jules and Rob were also listed as disqualified despite not being aware of crossing any forbidden features. Hopefully this will be cleared up later on…

Grace Elson had a pretty clean run and qualified well for the women’s final. Rachel Effeney also had a pretty good run and was originally placed in equal 16th with a Chinese girl, but was reinstated to 14th place after a nail biting wait for Wendy and Rob to come out of the team leaders meeting with final start lists. A great result for Rach at her first WOC, she is excited and relieved to be running the final this afternoon! Mace run well in the first part of the course and was feeling good, but unfortunately lost too much time on a tricky leg towards the end to qualify.

There were 3 areas of infringements;
1. Jumping down an impassable cliff near men’s #5/women’s #4
2. Running through cafeteria’s in the town centre (marked as purple hash)
3. Running through olive green areas near the finish

Apparently 54 women and 41 men crossed the wall, but their results were allowed to stand due to it being  unclear where the wall ended. Nor were any people DSQ for crossing an uncrossable crag at no. 3 on the women's.

Starts have supposedly been delayed by 45minutes, and hopefully online coverage can be followed at the WOC2011 live website. It should be an exciting race once things get moving after this mornings kerfuffle! The rest of the team is getting ready to cheer our qualifiers on… GO SIMON, RACH AND GRACE!!!

And here are some pictures of our team from the opening ceremony and parade which was held last night, to a great local turnout!

WOC 2011 Qualification races

The first race for WOC2011 was the Long Distance Qualifications, with Australia being represented by Julian Dent, Rob Preston, Vanessa Round, Jasmine Neve and Aislinn Prendergast.

The courses were very tough as expected, with the mens winning times much longer than expected. The courses started with some relatively easy to navigate but very physical legs through steep open meadows in the blazing sun, then the second half was through the much slower technical forest.

Julian produced our best result to finish in 13th position in Heat A and qualified for the final. “I was technically I was happy with my run, although I made a small mistake after a steep climb at the end of the long leg. It was physically very challenging…”

Rob was pretty disappointed with his run, particularly selecting a very poor route choice on long leg #5 which cost him a lot of time. He had some good sections in the more technical middle section but made a few more mistakes near the end as he got tired. “The highlight of my race was getting caught, and following Thierry for the final loop of 4 controls. And I repaid a favour to my favourite Swiss Orienteer (and multiple world champion) by showing him where he was at the 2nd last control!”, Rob said.

Jas, Ness and Aislinn had a frustrating day, missing the finals by 8, 24 and 85seconds, in 16, 17 and 18th positions. Vanessa and Jasmine said they were overly cautious but it really became evident that you really need to have a clean and fast run to qualify- qualification really is tough! Jas had some trouble with the difficult longer route choice and made some mistakes on the more technical legs in the forest. Vanessa was well on track to qualify until losing too many vital seconds at the second last control.  Aislinn had a really good run, but made one significant mistake on a difficult leg, to just miss out. Overall a great performance for her first WOC, and she can be confident in her ability to qualify.

Julian will run the long final on Thursday.

WOC 2011 Middle Distance Qualifications

Sunday saw competitors back at Les Creusantes for the middle distance qualification. The girls started first, with Jas drawing the very first start block, and Vanessa and Grace following up.

Jas started well, but made two big mistakes at the 4th and the 8th controls. Ness had a screamer and qualified in 8th place. Grace felt that she was bit scrappy overall, but qualified comfortably in 13th. 

The boys had excellent runs in some very cut throat heats. Robbie finished in what looked, for most of the day, like a very promising time, but was pushed into 19th place at the end of the day, missing out on a place in the final by just … seconds.  Simon ran well but lost vital time on a route choice towards the end and was pushed into 19th place at the end of the day. Both were a bit disappointed- there was really no room for error for qualifying for the men’s races. Julian struggled with illness from the night before. He said he had no energy and felt weak during the race. He was also disappointed with some mistakes towards the end of his course.

Ness and Grace will run in the final on Friday, and the boys will shift their focus to the Sprint and Relay.

Today is a rest day with a model event for the sprint races tomorrow, last minute walks around the town of Aix Les Bains where the sprint qualification race will be held tomorrow mornin, our usual baguette lunch and some attention from Steve, our physio.

Follow Grace, Mace, Rachel, Simon and Jules in the sprint races tomorrow at the WOC2011 live results page http://live.woc2011.fr/ 

Here is a great action shot of Rachel doing some sprint training- speed and agility around sharp corners is crucial!!

 

 

These great pictures and more at http://runners.worldofo.com/woc2011_AUS.html thanks to www.worldofo.com

Aussie Boomerangs Training camp update

Another blog post from the Aussie Team, the day before the WOC races start tomorrow with the Long Distance qualification...

final day of Swiss O week in Flims

Previous to our official training camp beginning last week in France, a few WOC team members (Wendy, Simon, Aislinn, Mace, Jas, Ness and Robbie) attended the Swiss Orienteering Week for some pre WOC race training. We stayed near Flims and caught chair lifts and cable cars up the mountains to almost 3,000m to race next to glaciers. The biggest Aussie triumph of the week was coach Wendy Read zooming past the world champion, Simone Niggli Luder, in the finish chute on day 2! Yep, she sure did!

Rob checking out the views of Mont Blanc from Aguille du Midi

The team then drove (via a pizza shop in Chamonix for some) to the little French mountain village of Arith for our week long WOC training camp. Rob L, Rach and Grace joined us there. We staying with our newly adopted French family, Sophie, Chef Gerard and two year old Remy, who made us delicious four course evening meals, and helped us out with a game of trivial pursuit.. in French.. We were joined on a few evenings by French trampers who were stopping on their way though the mountains. Sophie, Remy and Gerard have promised to come and watch the sprint race.

post training discussions after our first day... a lot to learn

interesting area of Le Creux qui Sonne, note the wide route choice from 6 to 7- a bit of respite from the forest is definately a worth while choice!

We found out pretty promptly what all the fuss over the French terrain was about. Our first few training sessions in the French forests saw us running over 20 minute kilometers.. Vanessa and Jas agreed that “there is so much detail on the map that it's tricky to read, but there is even more detail on the ground..” Luckily we have all steadily improved. By the end of the week everyone had had at least one good run.

The sprinters were pretty happy having beautiful little French towns to run around. However, they had to get up early to avoid the crowds on their training maps. Mace described the sprint terrain as “fun, but tricky with lots of little alley ways and confusing route choices.”

Shopping for lunch at the Annecy markets after a sprint training session. Unsuspectingly we purchased the most smelly cheese possible, some of it is still lingering in the fridge a few days later!

We moved to our WOC accommodation in Aix Les Bains yesterday. We settled in to our rooms, and received our accreditation tags. The model events opened yesterday and long and middle distance runners spent the morning out in the forest.

The 'bush O' girls team frolliking in the meadows of Le Revard. The long distance races are supposed to include a mixture of open meadows and intensely technical forest...

The competition starts tomorrow, with the long distance qualification. Ness, Jas, Aislinn, Robbie and Julian will be running. Keep your fingers crossed for us and check out our results on the WOC website!

You can follow our results and view the full program by visiting the WOC website at: www.woc2011.fr

Jas and Ness check out the view of Mont Blanc from a 'hilltop' after a training session in the forests below.

The view from our WOC accommodation- we are self catering here, so are no longer enjoying Gerard's French cuisine, but are making sure we still a variety of fine smelling cheeses!