Discussion: Next WOC in North America! Where?

Everytime I visit Sudbury, Ontario (where I am on vacation right now) I always dream about how it would make an awesome location for WOC. The Finns would certainly love it with all the open rock. So it got me thinking about posting this thread. Where would the top places be for the next WOC in North America? From a Canadian perspective I figure it needs to be a place that has a lot of good terrain (preferably public land) - preferably not too far from a HQ, good for national media, strong local club(s) and strong government/lottery and/or private sector support.

Here are my list of five potential Canada WOC areas that fit most (but not all) of the criteria:

Whitehorse
Calgary/Foothills
Interior BC
Southern Ontario
Sudbury

There are pros and cons for each of them. Thoughts?

Good luck to the Canadian and American teams at WOC. -mike

I think you are overlooking the east coast, I think Fundy would be a good place, the host of COC '08.

I really liked the area of 2005 US Champs in Oregon.

I am highly skeptical about the possibility of a WOC in the United States within the current structure of USOF. It's kind of like a boyscout troop trying to build a skyscraper. The intentions are great and noble, but the infrastructure is not there. Sorry if this offended anyone. This argument is without regard to the quality of terrain we may possess south of the 49th parallel. A WOC is 15% technical effort, and 85% "everything else". It is the "everything else" that is lacking.

All the best wishes to Canada if it decides to hold a WOC.

With acknowledgement to Vlad's point above, this is still a fun topic to dream about.

In the U.S., there seems to be plenty of great terrain out West. I recently had my eyes opened to some Idaho gold mining terrain. (Stay tuned.) However, besides the lack of O infrastructure in the West, the other concern is elevation, which I believe is already in WOC rules. 1600m sticks in my mind, which would eliminate quite a bit.

Back East, closer to our O infrastructure, as it is, I am not aware of any cluster of world class terrain crying out for a WOC, except for what we've already used at Harriman. The closest possibility might be out on eastern Long Island. Spike and I have have had seperate ventures into this nice and interesting sand terrain, which is quite out of character for the East, and much of it appears to be public. One drawback is driving through that damn city to get out there.

There appears to be a great expanse of fantastic glaciated terrain in western New York state, which Mark D has started to map, but that's still rather remote.

If the conversation is expanded to World Cup options, there are probably more terrains to talk about, although WC's don't sound realistic either at this time.

Still there are some terrains which occur to me as deserving of something special, at least for conversation.
*First is Bear Brook NH, a large and varied area used for NA champs in '75(?) I've heard rumors of some remapping here. Hope it gets put to good use.
*Second is the Southern part of Harriman, SW from the Jackie Jones WOC map, perhaps known as Breakneck Mountain. This area is huge, relatively flat, and great, based on limited research. The main problem is access, (parking and comp center) which is why it wasn't used for WOC 93.
*My closer-to-home fantasy is getting a piece of Pennsylvania strip mine terrain, probably for a Middle distance event. The main problem here is that almost none of it is public, probably because of environmental liability. It seems that the public sector will take it only after the original contours are restored, which defeats the whole point.

the other concern is elevation, which I believe is already in WOC rules. 1600m sticks in my mind

This seems hard to believe. Do other sports, the Olympics, etc., have similar restrictions on venue. A quick google shows Mexico City clocking in at 2240m, for example. I don't see why a WOC couldn't occur at least at that altitude. Does anyone know the altitude of the Oregon US champs, just out of curiousity?

BTW, back to Hammer's initial post -- Whitehorse rocks as an O destination. I don't know about "good for national media" and that sort of stuff, tho.

Yeah it is a fun topic to dream about. Remember the WOC terrain need not be 'new terrain'. We can always take a page from the European approach and use areas that our young generation are racing and training on now and then do the obligatory multi year embargo and claim it was 'fair'. :)

Harriman is still the best in NA (and my favourite maps and terrain I've run on in the World). The fact it is next door to one of the World's most famous cities and West Point and not too far from North America's largest "O" clubs is a huge bonus (and probably a WOC necessity).

2005 US Champs in Oregon: the majority of that map is over 2000m.

and, for what it's worth,

2006 US Champs in Colorado: majority of that map is over 2500m.

WOC in Whitehorse would be totally awesome.

If not for the altitude restrictions (which I've never heard of before), WOC in Colorado would be worth dreaming about.

Thanks for the compliments re. Whitehorse. In another thread I mentioned how we had considered putting in a bid to host JWOC; but ended up deciding not to do so; one of the reasons being we felt we did not have enough people who would be interested in the 'care and comfort' side of things.

I have never orienteered in Colorado or Wyoming; but have drooled over various maps, photos, comments etc. Maybe next year. But it sounds to me like it would be an awesome location, partly just because they have never held a WOC in stuff like that. It would be cool, neat, unique etc. (likewise to see a WOC or even WC in sandhill terrain like Manitoba).
We now have the next three WOCs in eastern Europe, then Norway and France. Not to imply that these won't be technically good WOCs - but the phrase "been there, done that" comes to mind......

Perhaps instead of a world cup or world champs with all the intense infrastructure necessary... there could be a pair of A-meets a week apart in late fall (with at least one world ranking weekend) on the Harriman and Pawtuckaway terrain with the intent of getting a wider audience. We could get some information out to the rest of the orienteering world as a chance to compete in two great areas and spend the week in-between either traveling around New York/Boston or going climbing in the Gunks or something:).

I know that I've talked to some orienteers in Europe who were at those world cup/champs races and absolutely loved the terrain... and others who have heard about it. I think it could be attractive.

On another note, it's fun to get a list of particularly beloved areas in different places in North America... as a sort-of wish-list of places where I should race or train sometime.

There used to be a limit of 1200m but I don't think this is a hard and fast rule any more (although I suspect a proposal to use terrain at 2500m or thereabouts might raise a few eyebrows). The 2005 JWOC relay was run well above 1200m (not too far short of 2000m if I remember rightly).

For a WOC a significant factor is being reasonably accessible to an international airport, so something near New York or Boston (or Toronto) would probably have a better chance than Whitehorse or Wyoming. Having said that, we ran JWOC somewhere 400km from the nearest major airport so that isn't an absolute rule.

Well, Whitehorse does have direct flights from Frankfurt in the summer....

Isn't the sanctioning fee due to the IOF for WOC in the neighborhood of a high 5 or low 6 figure amount (in euros) these days? Who would be willing or able to get that kind of sponsorship money together?

I don't think it's quite that high (and in any case can be subject to behind-the-scenes negotiation if the IOF wants the event badly enough in a particularly location), but it's certainly well into 5 figures - something like 40 or 50K IIRC.

How did Ukraine afford it?

There's some truly outstanding glaciated terrain in central Wisconsin that Kevin Teschendorf is working on getting mapped. Hopefully, we'll at least get an A-meet there sometime in the next few years.

I guess almost any NA terrain would do just fine. For exmaple for 2001 WOC in Finland there was several candidates with very very nice terrains. Tampere terrains were the worst with clear margin (Tampere terrains were pretty crappy actually) but Tampere was selected anyway for other reasons: accomodation, airport, sponsors etc.

1993 WOC may have been exception, it was placed on a best terrain around(?). It hasn't been like that very often. Maybe in Japan it was like that too.

But I guess you like to continue the tradition to use best possible terrain. There is some very nice ones at http://rg.orienteering.ca . But I vote for Anza Borrego.

eastern Long Island. ... [T]his nice and interesting sand terrain, which is quite out of character for the East, ... much of it appears to be public. One drawback is driving through that damn city to get out there.

This information was quite enough for me personally to resume dreaming about the boyscouts getting somewhat organized and serious about the skyscraper. I think the only chance to hold a "good" WOC is for it to be extremely close to the population, at the possible expense of terrain quality; Camp Ripley is yet to hold an A meet. And, the chance for media exposure increases exponentially as one gets closer to the "damn city".

sandhill terrain in MB.....good call Ross!! I think the terrain hear would be something new & different for a lot of elites from Europe....don't know of any other places like it.....over there at least....It can be very technical and fine orienteering....and quite fast if you go clean. I grew up on it so I guess I am biased.....what is the process to host a WC or WOC? I can imagine it is quite the job.

Well I guess COF should be able to tell you. For JWOC there are some guidelines and an application form you can get. For the 2010 JWOC; we would have had to put our stuff in to IOF by Jan. 31 2007.

The question of media exposure is an interesting one - that is - what exactly do we mean by it, what scope or level - local media, regional media, national media?

Also closeness to a huge city might 'backfire' in that orienteering might get lost admidst all the other sports or cultural events that media might cover. But if WOC were in Sudbury, Laramie, Albany, etc. (rather than NYC or LA) it might get more local/regional media attention that would help the sport locally more....

A question for the dreamers, could WOC be in October which would open up a lot more regions in Canada?

I seem to remember someone mentioning inviting over the Brits and the Irish for a 4 Nations Cup or something like that, were there any actual ideas tossed around? Did OJ get wined and dined in NJ last year? What time of year would make sense? The flights to the UK are getting cheaper and cheaper.

Many of the posts have missed pretty much all of Hammer's criteria. Terrain is one thing, but infrastructure is above and beyond more important. Canada has hosted 4 World Cups, two in Ontario and two in Alberta. What could be learned from these, or is WOC such a different beast now. Considering how few Eastern clubs are interested in putting on the Canadian Champs, it really doesn't matter how good your terrain is without all the bells and whistles.

Fundy?