Discussion: New WOC Thread

I thought the original WOC thread was getting too long to be friendly to people who hadn't been following along already, so here's a new one!

Today's a rest day, but Team USA has news in the form of the Relay Team announcement.

Women:
1. Ali
2. Sandra
3. Sam

Men:
1. Eric
2. Boris
3. Giacomo

More on US Team Blog, as usual.

We took team photos this morning and will make them available as soon as we can extricate them from Eddie's camera.

Cristina, thanks for the news. And thanks for all you are doing, both in team leadership and also (you and the rest of the Team) in passing on news to us back home. It's great.

So at various points over the next year back home, us OFs will have to pass the hat often enough to make sure we do our part in supporting the Team.

And good luck to Sam tomorrow. The new standard, of course, is 19th place (or better).... :-)

Re the JWOC photos - this was from the banquet, right?

I'm disappointed that Eric Kemp was not picked for the Canadian relay team.
Based on the spring results I saw Eric had a very strong season and I think scored better than most of the US team in US selection races.
Must be a western bias at play.
Build for next year Eric!

Isn't Eric from West(boro)?

Kind of jumping to conclusions there, Gord. The bias I detect, if we're going to use the word 'bias", appears to be towards putting people on the relay team who raced best in the individual WOC races. Which strikes me as a pretty good selection criterion unless the relay terrain is going to be completely different from the other forest terrain this week.

scored better than most of the US team in US selection races

Interesting metric you've got there...

All the US races I saw I recall he placed third or better. There could have been no more than two US team members ahead of him.
Anyway I'm only disappointed (and biased) but I'm not angry or second guessing the selection criteria.

Which strikes me as a pretty good selection criterion unless the relay terrain is going to be completely different from the other forest terrain this week.

In fact the relay terrain will be like the long, but quite different from the middle (and also, obviously, the sprint).

Well said, Jon. Gord, awesome that you support your club mates! Eric has had some great races this season. I look forward to seeing his continued development. You need to keep in mind that this is the (better) CANADIAN team not the US team so more difficult to be selected ;-) You can hardly argue against two western WOC A-finalist on the team.

In my expert opinion, the US relay teams shell be:
1-Sam, 2-Sandra, 3-Ali,
1-Giacomo, 2-Boris, 3-Eric

I think, each of these teams would be 2 places higher after 3 legs than proposed above (give or take a spot).

It is not too late yet :)

Easy Greg....
Please consider time and place.

On the other hand, your Wash Xing comments were the right time, place, and to the right person, and frankly I think he needs to hear it again, if you need something to do.

Thread should have been called Another US WOC thread.

I am very easy, and I also think Eric Kemp should be on Canadian team, but that is not my business.

Is this the official relay thread then?

Eric kemp did have an absolutely great run in the WUOC relay a couple weeks ago.

I was also hoping that Eric would be selected for the WOC relay after seeing his terrific spring form and the results from the WUOC relay. However, the question is who do you cut? I don't think that there are any easy answers there.

I think that Jeff, Robbie and Eric are all solid 2/3 leg runners (keep or slightly improve your relay position) and Will, Patrick, and Damian are all more explosive 1/3 leg runners (on any given day they might gain you 10 spots or lose you 10 spots)

So the bias I see is more to the "high risk, high reward" guys than the "steady eddies", with spots being awarded to the runners with the best qualifier results.

In summary I think that the selection was fair, and applaud Magnus for making difficult choices.

Louise arrives, and is 2nd place.. but the pack behind her changes it to 4th.. and so it goes. But congratulations to her and Samantha both! That looks like a hard race, already an abandon in each map.

It looks like Louise had a fantastic run in the long! Way to go Louise!

Good live TV coverage at
http://www.justin.tv/woc2012#/w/3451172704/4

Are butterfly loops no longer in fashion?

Yey! Ross looks to be having fun with his vuvuzela!

I swear the announcer keeps saying "xxx is running into the massage control". I guess that has replaced the butterfly loop ;-)

What he's really saying is "Passage" but gets the emphasis on the wrong syllables

Some photos of Louise & Sam are being uploaded to my flickr account

He also described the runner from Belorussia as running in the "red and green dress." I assume it sounds better in some other language. :-)

On the way back now, Sam is happy with her run. I asked for a quote and she said, "urghh". She's tired! Content, wishes she could have kept up as people passed, but really tired now.

I also applaud Magnus for making these decisions. It is a tough and thankless job (hint hint ;-) to be national team coach, and having the responsibility of selecting the WOC team and the relay team.

I will also point out that I think it is fair to say that Eric really got flustered at the start of his qualification race (and as a result turning in one of the weakest Canadian performance at this WOC). Eric is young, at his first WOC, extremely determined, and a very fast learner. He has made huge improvements in his orienteering speed and mental conditioning over the last couple of years. I think he will continue to improve and I expect his WOC performance next year to be much stronger now that he understands more what is needed to perform well at WOC. I don't mean any disrespect to Eric who is a fantastic athlete, but I do question his "fan club" who I think are expecting too much, at least this year ;-)

Selection is very difficult - the selector must predict who will perform best at some future event. One of the best predictors is of course the most recent race in similar conditions. For that I don't think you can argue too strongly against Magnus' selection.

Olav wins by a Simone-esque margin of victory. Do the other boys not train? ;)

AZ: The problem is that english is such a silly language. Half of the language was stolen from French, but with extremely inconsistent pronunciation. I mean, not even you native speakers agree on how to pronounce "garage"!

Eriol, the inconsistent pronunciation was chosen so we *could* distinguish massage from passage. And 'garage' is as it is so we can identify the infidels.

Olav didn't want to be slowed down by carrying in the national flag along the finish chute. He had to run pretty wide to get around the fella that was trying to make him carry it. Winning margin could have been slightly bigger ;-)

@ndobbs Olav is just really really fast. Plus he was running on anger. Remember Thierry at WOC Relay 2010? He was pissed as well, and that was super fast running.

I was standing right next to the guy who stepped out to foist that flag on Olav. Took me by surprise as I was waiting for him to come in. The flag wrapped around Olav's head and he had to reach up to get it off, and he did swing very wide outside, but never said a word or give a dirty look. Just took it in stride and kept going. Super happy for Edgar again. Sweet.

Anyways, here are some pics of our awesome gals. Will probably have to get up early tomorrow morning to have the bandwidth to upload the rest though. It goes completely to hell in the evenings when everyone is around trying to get news out.

WOW! Eddie, they are so fast you can't even get them in the frame. Seriously though, thanks for all the pics. Awesome for us to get a feel for the action.

Love the faces. Awesome job all!!

AZ has some great pictures on his Flickr. Watch Louise talk about her race at the Team Canada Blog

@theshadow: That's art, you neanderthal

@AZ:Oh okay. I noticed none of your pics looked like that :-o

Actually it gets so tiresome taking well-framed, in-focus, well-exposed photos over and over and over again. Here's one in which I let my artistic side free and managed a shot without a single pixel in focus ;-)

Go USA!!

All of my pics from the Long Final are now online, including the (M)edium res versions.

The US Team has just uncovered some rare footage of pre-relay rituals, taken way back before I had dinner. The first of the raw footage is now available on the US Team Blog. Additional pieces will be available throughout the evening.

The women start tomorrow at 11:30am local time, the men at 1:30pm. Cheer from home!

Can't wait!! Go USA!!

Go CANADA Go!

Women's Relay:

5:30am NYC EDT
2:30am LAX PDT
19:30 Sydney

Men's Relay:

7:30am NYC EDT
4:30am LAX PDT
21:30 Sydney

WOC Live Centre (links for results, streaming TV, etc.)

Having seen the briefing at the team officials' meeting on the finish area layout last night, there seems to be considerable room for very visible disaster - the way it works is that runners go to a spectator control, crossing the route to the start triangle as they do so. The spectator control is also the last control, and the chute splits, one way going to the finish, the other way to the run-through and the final loop. I think there's an excellent chance that someone from somewhere will manage to do one of the following:

(a) go to the finish when they were supposed to be going to the run-through, or vice versa
(b) forget to punch the control on the spectator loop or as a last control
(c) punch the spectator control and then run out towards the second-last control, starting the final loop in the reverse direction
(d) crash into a competitor on their way to the start triangle while they're on their way to the spectator control.

Yes, it looks a bit tricky. b) and c) would be my biggest worries.

better chance for a top 16 for Canada?
;)

By the way, there are lots of pics of runners from all the Attackpoint countries in the sets posted here even though I've only highlighted CAN and USA in the thread. AUS, IRL, NZL and lots of others. Will sort them all by country next week. Also won't have time to get relay pics up today - should have them up on Monday. Hopefully AZ can post some today.

Teams are waking up and having breakfast here at the hostel now. Sandra was up first this morning, ate and then went back to bed :) I'm the official waker-upper for the US men so I keep nervously looking at my watch...

Hi Eddie! :)

Morning all :)

Ali looks good in this company, good luck!

great start Ali!

Great middle too!

no more forking, Ali is great!

what a great run from Ali!

What a Comet!

3rd!!!

3 rd wow

Sandra - cool head!

Go Sandra!!

Sandra is in the race now, good!

Yep, very good after a small mistake to the 1st.

Blair, did you say a) ? UKR...

go Sam!

IRL in the lead :)

Yeah, USA Women!!! What a team. Congratulations to Ali, Sandra and Sam. Can't wait to get the details.

Yay Alison! Fantastic race, and US women in top 16, bravo!!

Also, Ireland second? Woo! (half-Irish, so rooting there too :)) ...and go Patrick! Although, going to 7, what a pack!

Hmm, Patrick seems to have been confused at control 9 there...

I checked the running speeds for that leg, and Hertner didn't _seem_ to be more than the others, but the effect was still there.

Meanwhile, I think the interview with Patrick will be interesting.

I can't seem to load the leg2 map, and the gps tracks for leg 1 are all frozen.. is it just me?

go Robbie !

Leg 2 map and gps works for me, but I had to re-load a couple of times. Chrome on Win7, if that matters.

Got the map, logos are slow. I think a bunch of new people are getting on the servers...

Meanwhile, up top, Thierry was running wild, catching up to the leader, until control 7. Could be tight!

This might be another server - http://gps9.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20120721WOCRelM2-W...

This is way less cool than last year, but the tv production is pretty good.

Cezchs second! And Go Robbie, he could overtake Turkey! ...though more interesting route choices taken there.

I hope I didn't jinx it by saying that. ..Robbie?

Go Boris!

What happened to RUS?

Czech republic in lead after leg 2 - have they won a medal before?

Boris is killing it!

Holmberg and Procházka neck-in-neck, but Lundanes is closing in, from 26 seconds behind to 12!

Meanwhile, in Leg 2.. Boris, Robbie and Turkey neck-in-neck! Excitement again! :)

@z-man - Khramov MP, I think

Boris takes the lead! while Korea catches up to Robbie. And Czech-Sweden-Norway battle it out still...

The tracking shows Korea skipped from 6-13. it also looks like Boris got the slower forks on 13 and 16 vs Robbie.

Yikes.. Yeah, saw that now. And Go Robbie! While Procházka took a 7 second lead at 11, but it's gone at 13. What a finish that looks to be!

Go Boris!!!!

GOOOOOOOOOOO Boris!

@ Niall- Czech got a bronze in 2001

Boris may not have gone out of 16 the best way, but Robbie's mistake at 19 got him caught up, and boris wins leg 2.

...go Will! :)

@hammer - turkey ? in there ? that is NO classic. Go Will !

If Lundanes has strength reserves, and he does his final sprint... but it's not over yet!

looks like Merz went around to see who wins what ?

It will all come down to the finish chute...

wow. Czech ? first gold ?

Wow! Go Czech! Those GPS dots were zooming!

Gold for Procházka and Czech Republic! Wow, look at him sprint!!

Procházka had consistently 24km/h for Lundanes' 22... the dots had all the spectator control people passing through, so I couldn't see. Congratulations to Czechs on their first gold!

are they using a compass today? where are Will and G going?

After Turkey

Turkey is good

Not quite as far as Turkey went, but.. Yes, interviews on route choices will be interesting. I really wonder what those woods look like!

Nice running by Will through the second half. He didn't give any chances for the others to catch up.

Here are a few quick pics of the US runners from the relay before our afternoon race gets underway :) Click on the thumbs for larger versions.

Got (a), (b) and (c) of my set today - (a)'s already been mentioned, (b) was done by one of the Koreans and (c) by Thomas Reynolds on the second leg for New Zealand.

Very nice job by the USA women today. Ten places better than last year and less than 5 minutes outside the top 10.

And I'm guessing Ali really enjoyed her run.

Yes, nice going!

Ali definitely enjoyed her run, and it was awesome! The women are quite happy with their race, and the men are definitely satisfied with 29th, and with giving Canada real competition. ;-)

It's a busy day, relay to beverage race, and now getting ready for banquet. Tomorrow everyone spreads out around the world again. :-(

Beverage race? What is that?

It's a race where beverages are consumed of course. You have to hydrate after a relay!

Is the beverage race a regular part of WOC these days? I don't remember it long ago...

short memory j-man.. was part of woc at least in 2009 ( Miskolc ) (indiv races ?! ) with Per as a guest speaker and 2010 ( relay)

Interesting...

It looks like I personally may have had a greater impact on the course of international competitive orienteering than OUSA leadership. Ultimately, I suppose we all pursue our interests...



Our friend Per:



I miss him.

Those who were not in Lausanne missed something truly miraculous as the final stages of the USA-Canada battle played out - Rosstopher managed to make a vuvuzela sound almost vaguely like a musical instrument.

Congratulations to TeamUSA!!

Great individual performances by all, and special congratulations to Ali for the Sprint and Sam for the Long. Wonderful to make the finals and do so well against the best in the world.

The relays were exciting to watch to the very end. Congrats to all. 15th for the ladies has got to feel pretty good and for Ali to be 3rd on the first leg of the relay is truly spectacular!

Thanks, too, to Cristina for all her hard work and especially for bringing it home through video on the blog.

I'm amazed that Ross was able to find yet another random concrete platform for the beverage relay start this year. Pretty soon it'll be an IOF requirement.

When I got started orienteering in the early 70s, I saw a video of orienteering in Europe; the American interviewed said it was easy to see the US results, just start looking from the bottom up. Ali Crocker's run in the women's relay staying in the lead pack then sprinting pass to finish 3rd is just amazing.

The video I saw of Ali's run comes from Norway. Thanks to Spike for the link.

Great job Team USA!

All my photos from the relay are now online. Also the (M)edium res versions from all the other events are now up as well. Hurray for bandwidth!!

That is a MASSIVE tub of nutella!! I hope you bought it.

:) I wish! No more room in the checked bag (already full of the good stuff from coop). Wouldn't it be awesome to dip a giant pretzel in that tub?

That nutella tub looks a lot like a curling stone.

I should mention that Ian was a big help at WOC this year. In addition to driving vehicles and taking photos, we also hired him to carry Ali from event to event so she could save her energy for the races.

Also, Octocopter. Definitely need one of these for NAOC.

Eddie--I fully expect the NSA/CIA/etc... will have drones flying overhead once they catch wind of what you guys are planning. Then, we just capture and re-purpose one of theirs, and voila! Instant threat catalog across relevant theaters of operation.

I saw the guy fly it under the yellow Postfinance arch once. Pretty cool to hear it buzzing around the arena, and fortunately it didn't fall on anyone.

How many people does it take to operate one of those for live video? One to fly the device, one to operate the camera? Or can one person do both?

Also, looks like the entire system runs in the thousands of dollars? (I'd be afraid I'd crash it into something)

Not sure if it was one or two. Hmm. Webcam, toy helicopter, bubblegum, some shoestrings. Maybe.... :) We'll have to get Ed on it ASAP.

Canadians can provide duct tape.

Looks like ~2000 to get a good quality prebuilt system. The high end systems have gyros and autopilots too (and enough processing power to run the kalman filters).

People are flying either gopros, or on the biggest ones, full DSLRs.

While this is only a quadrotor, it is reasonably priced ($300) and will take 720p video. The control interface is simple enough, and if someone in the O-community owned one, it could be used for events and making advertisements.

But that one is crap.
You get what you pay for, and you are not getting much for that. The biggest issue is its wifi for control. Without the sophisticated auto pilot systems, loosing control signal means its going to fall out of the sky and crash.

http://www.mikrokopter.us/shop/dji-fw550-dji-flame... is a good starting point. That gets you a frame and drive system.
Add http://www.mikrokopter.us/shop/dji/dji-autopilots/... for the on board controls. You still need all the rf gear and a good controller, batteries, chargers, camera gimble etc.

I think you need a new octocopter thread.

Its fun to say...octocopter.
Octooooo-copter. Hee hee!

Perhaps, but there will never be a James Bond film called octocopter.

The style of those mikrokopter pages looks hauntingly familiar...

Ah, you're familiar with the notion of "black", then? They're saying it's the new black.

What was the "old" black? Off-black?

Could these carry controls into the woods and (much more importantly) collect them after? Heck, if they were cheap enough they could be the controls

but they might move....

Mike,
I have looked into this a tiny bit and it seems that no matter the size of the aircraft or flight path if the flight is used for commercial purposes (i.e. being paid for using it to make a map...) then you need to file for a special flight operations certificate from the aviation authorities and can't fly it until you hear back from them.

It's far from impossible to deal with but I imagine it would be a pain to do one every time you want to put your 'drone' in the air.

@Canadian: I suspect there are work-arounds...

I wonder if the same is true in the USA.

If you're doing it for serious money, you can probably figure out the paperwork. If you're not, do the lidar for free and charge for the mapping. Ergo, drone is non-commercial.

Like

Not to change the subject but:

My award for best performance that I saw at WOC goes to Innes Brodman in the Relay.
She made a substantial mistake at the beginning of Leg one, but came back to finish second on the leg.
A never give up, run harder attitude.