Discussion: World Cup in Italy

The final round of the 2006 World Cup will take place near Rome, Italy, next week. The USA will be represented by Karen Williams, Sandra Zurcher, Eddie Bergeron, Boris Granovskiy, and Randy Hall.

The schedule is:

Monday 10/3: Middle semi-final and final
Tuesday 10/4: Sprint semi-final
Wednesday 10/5: Sprint final
Thursday 10/6: Long (final only)
Saturday 10/8: Relay

Good luck to all of you! And don't forget to keep us posted here on AttackPoint.

Mike Smith and Sandy Hott-Johansen will be there for Canada. Good luck to all!

myself, Andrew Quin and Niamh O'Boyle from Ireland...

Oh so that's why Eddie's not Highlandering... He's doing something cooler. Looking for Charcoal Platforms in Italy during an Eclipse! Good luck team! Even a Men's World Cup relay from the US - and with 3 from Ireland, will they try a different "Men's" team like Italy(?) at WOC? And will US be able to hold them off? And will I find time to follow the results next Saturday in between entertaining kids (and adults :) at my daughter's birthday party? :)

We're on our way over now - will try to post stuff as we can. See you there Neil and Co. Enjoy the Highlander everybody. Sure hate to miss that. Its the greatest O-race of them all!!

Results from this morning's qualifications are up at http://www.o-id.it/lwcup.asp?lg=EN

Finals coming up in a bit I think

Mamleev demonstrates the virtues of home field advantage.

Not bad, Boris, couple of good, solid runs, need a bit more speed (any errors, time lost?), and a best split on a leg!

Yea, nice runs. I thought he's got the speed (# of good splits), would be interesting to find out the details...

Way to go, Boris! Some good orienteers behind.

Speed, speed, speed! With the winning Middle Qual times under 20 minutes, I wonder what the winning Sprint Qual times will be?

With Middle Qual and Finals on the same day, certainly the shorter course makes sense - but the times still surprised me. The transition to faster orienteering certainly has been quick and well-received.

Apparently they don't have very easy internet there. Even Sandra's log isn't updated. It would be interesting to see the comments. Good run Eddie in the Middle Final - coming back up after a tough Qual. Boris continued to do very well, and it looks like both Karen & Sandra had decent Middle Finals. Looking for the Sprint results...

They had some photos up this AM too - I noted Boris and Karen amongst them (sorry, no time to paste direct links) Looks like kind of interesting terrain.

Sprint quals up!
Some solid runs - espcially from BG and Karen.

HOLY COW! I'm not used to seeing Belgium in the #1 spot, even if it is a qual. I suppose if the French can do it, there's no reason the Belgians can't...

Of course, if the Belgians can do it, we'd better get our North Americans up to speed!

Wow! I missed that. Belgium? Who would have thought? Unbelievable :)

Anyway - that is some fantastically beautiful terrain there. I wonder how much of it is that open... and that town! I really wish I was there!

Also, it looks kind of cold there. Did I see snow in some pictures?

ANother good reason to be there.

But for a bobble on #14 looks like Sandra had an excellent run.

Congrats to both Sandra and Karen, who
made the A final in the sprint! Boris also
only missed by about 40 seconds. The sprint
was extremely technically and physically
demanding -- first a few technical controls in
a forest section with prickly undergrowth, then
then a technically demanding tour of the
back alleyways of Subiacio, with tons of climb.
It was probably the toughest sprint I've seen,
and a well earned result by the girls.

Hopefully the organizers have the maps up, but
the internet connection is too slow, and the
line for it too long to take the time to check.

Yes, its cold and been rainy, but no snow. The
weather was fine today, tho.

Middle distance was also quite technically
challenging. It is not like it is in the
pictures, lots of green thru terraced
pasture land that presented tough
problems to make sure you didn't paint yourself
into a corner. Maps and course setting were
excellent. Those pretty pictures of the terrain
are for the long, which is right outside the
dorm, and we're all drooling over it ...

Tomorrow is the sprint final, same sort of thing,
forest then old town with tons of climb.
I'm being kicked off the computer, root for
the girls and thanks for your support.

Looks like Sandra could have been 2 minutes faster but for #14. She was in 8th place for a long time. But excellent that both Karen and her made it to the A final (which I think is top 17 in each heat, same as the Middle). Karen beat both Brits in her heat. And Boris didn't miss by much; he's getting better.

OKO's map from the middle race (the final, I think):


http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~oysteios/news/data/upimag...

Mike in Sprint: http://www.wcup2005final.info/Sprint_Qualification...

Bravo to Karen and Sandra! Stay cool in the final!
Does anyone know enough Italian to translate -
PE, PM, NP? I'm assuming DNS, MP, and DNF - but I don't know which is which. Did Sandy start??

Daniel Hubmann lays some smack down in the men's final...

NP is DNS. PE and PM seem to be indistinguishable, just as MP and DNF often are in English.

I'll speculate that they stand for cognates of "not participating", "punch erroneous", and "punch missing". But I'm still thinking on "RI".

ran intotree?

NP must be something like 'non partito/a', i.e., DNS.

Fantastic results for the Brits! A medal in each!! Many congratulations to Helen, an 'old' Leeds Uni clubmate (though I don't think she reads this ...) Now I am going to look at the photos, and maps ... gotta love all those stairs and things!

Yes, I definitely like the 'Karen goes up the steps' and 'Karen goes down the steps' photos. Do I detect a dog leg?

Wow. That is some smack. More like a Simone result than Simone pulled off.

Annabel Fernandez, formerly of SDO, got 21st place! This is evidence that having a *Finnish* boyfriend is also good for the results.

Looks like final results are in for the Long. Eddie had a nice run!

Loking at the men, I have to ask, where are the Swedes and the Norwegians? Denmark and Finland are well reprensented, as well as France and Switzerland. I guess Scandinavia has lost its dominance of the O world.

And another Simone-like victory for Simme!

JDW beat me to it. Simone got her smack back, for sure.

These French guys are taking no prisoners. And the Swiss are machines.

Ditto on the nice run for Eddie B. I hope he found some platforms out there.

Perhaps this fine performance by Swisscheese will put to rest any thoughts that his WOC result was a fluke.

OKO posted the sprint maps on his page:


http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~oysteios/

Loking at the men, I have to ask, where are the Swedes and the Norwegians?

I don't know what is up with the Swedes.

Norway didn't send Rostrup, Sandvik, Kristiansen or Nordberg. I'm pretty sure that Sandvik and Nordberg are injured. Nordberg's web page says that he is in Florida or all places.

Speaking Annabel, here's a recent photo of hte club that helped get her addicted to orienteering. http://www.geocities.com/o_sdoc/sd_osuit_grp.jpg
She even endured many cases of poison oak while getting addicted to O, in SDO, as she was too competitive to go around the stuff despite her known reaction to it. Motivated. And doing pretty well now. Very impressive.

It _looks_ like Holger's growing a beard:
http://www.wcup2005final.info/Long/image115.htm

Didn't see any NA's in the Long photos...

Off hand does anyone know where to get the forearm type control description holder Holger's wearing in that photo? Berman's don't carry them and I don't see them listed on the other US online O vendor sites.

I've seen reference to a control card holder that can be worn wrist or arm, but without a photo its hard to tell if its the same thing. thanks..

Am I reading the map wrong, or does the sprint final map really have 12.5m contour interval? (I don't see a legend, I'm just reading the spot heights.)

Good run for Mike too! Sandra had some great splits, she clearly has the speed now, and was running very well for much of the course.
As for the Swedes: the WOMEN are doing just fine! 3 in the top 10 I believe. That is nothing to sniff at.

check out Scarborough site for control description holders.

They are definitely doing just fine, and anyone wanting to follow the Eric Buckley Orienteering Method to Success should be taking note.

Yes, the contours are pretty funky. I think it's 2.5m interval up on the hill, but beneath the road they've just drawn the index contours, so 12.5m. I've seen interval changes on a few maps ... there's one in south Wales where sand-dunes are right up against a big bland hill, so the interval goes from 2.5 to 5.

Hi everyone...back from Italy. Yes, for the sprint maps, the contor intervals were 12.5 to keep the map from being brown, and allow for the complexity of the stairs/passageways, etc. It was pretty intense.

The dog leg was not necessarily a dog leg...depended on the route choice...I took the safe way to the last control. I know both Sandra and I were a bit bummed about our quali runs in the sprint because we both had mistakes...and even more disappointed by the final because we both had big mistakes in the beginning. It was tough!! But a lot of fun too. Great runs in the long you guys! Kick butt in the relay! Sandy did not run the sprints because of an injury during the middle quali - which is why she did not run the final even though she qualified.

With only the relays left it appears that Sweden did not win any individual medals at this World Cup. In fact only one Swedish man placed in the top 10 in the three finals. That must be a first!?

Nice run by all the guys in the relay, espacially Eddie (51 minutes vs. a best of 42). Beat Japan, just got nipped by Germany, and not much behind several other countries.

Definitely!

And how about those Swiss men! I haven't seen than before.

So no medals at all for Sweden. Hmm, I suspect alternativet.nu will be busy over the next few days...

Niamh O'Boyle (IRL) qualified for the A-final in the middle.

The Long and Relay terrain was sweet. First time I ever used French Creek style terrace hopping (and successfully) in a major intl event. The terraces were bombers. We had at least 3 controls that were "middle terrace." The forest was amazing - some of the fastest I've ever run in, but it was pretty steep. Lots of pictures to post tomorrow. Here's a team photo from Italy. It was cold out. Can you make out who is who?

From front to back -- Boris, Karen, Sandra, Eddie, Randy.

Check out this video Tero made of one of the sprint legs.
http://tero1.free.fr/news/php/example1.php?subacti...

The sprint in Cervara was unreal! Simply amazing. We went back there on the rest day just to walk around. I have tons of photos. I wonder when Tero made that video, as we never saw the sun after 1 PM last Monday. The place was cool, foggy and raining on the day of sprint final and raining on the rest day when we went back (after a drizzly day at the long, and followed by cold rain and fog for the relay - this after a rainy, muddy day at the middle on Mon, and some rain following the sprint qual on Tues). It was a wet week. By the way those cats were in Cervara, near the big church at the end of the leg in Tero's video. And that Italian woman jumping out of the way was par for the course :)

Andrew Quin (IRE) stopped to help an injured French gal in the relay leg 1, so his time is artifically long there. A couple of other folks stopped too - a Spaniard. I was just punching a control where she hurt it and saw her clutchng her knee. It was on a slippery sidehill and I thought she just turned it - didn't realize she was cut. An Austrian guy was there too and he told her he was going to the finish to send help and told her to stay there. Apparently she had fallen on a rock and cut away a large flap of skin to the bone. The Austrian guy had seen the injury and it freaked him out (he told me later), but I just saw her clutching her knee. Andrew stopped at the finish and sent an ambulance for her. The prognosis was 20 stitches but no serious ligament/tendon or bone damage and she was able to walk ok, so thats good. Anyways, Andrew deserves more credit hat his time shows.

Wow, that video is awesome! He must have added fake sunshine, though....

Are there maps online from the classic somewhere?

Way to get those platforms Eddie!

The rest of you people who have dismissed French Creek's best feature may want to reconsider, seeing how integral these things are to success at the world elite level...

Oh my god. I'd seen the map and tons of photos, and had what I thought was a good impression of the course. That video makes it seems much more vivid. It's hard to imagine a better city-sprint.

How do you run down rough windy staircases with a video camera and stay upright?

Here's a scan of the Men's Long (classic). My routes aren't drawn yet.

livata1.jpg
livata2.jpg

(scans are 300 DPI)

Sorry for the geeky map question, but were the passages on the sprint map drawn to scale? In the Tero video I kept thinking the mapper had drawn them wider than scale for readability---The real passages were just so narrow sometimes.

I posted my Italy WC pictures here. The "L" versions are not posted, only the TSM ones. The Sprint Final terrain begins on page 3. The town on page 1 is Jenna, which was the Sprint model. I don't have any photos of Subiaco, where the sprint qual was held. All of my photos of Cervara di Roma (Sprint Final) were taken on the rest day - two days after the final was held. Page 2 competiton pics are at the Long. The foggy/rainy pics of runners at the end were taken at the Relay (relay pics start with the first foggy ones of the women's start, which was 30 mins before the men). Boris took lots of pics too - hopefully he can post them somewhere. The town in the upper left of page 6 is Cervara di Roma - Sprint Final . As you can see its on a steep hillside. The town has no streets - just stairways, alleys, sidewalks and pass-thrus.

Oh yeah, lots of my pics are here

i'd like to add that in terms of maps and terrain quality and variation it has to be one of the best weeks of international competition... semi-open, tricky orienteering with micro-route choice all along the legs in the middle; stick the technical light green forest of the sprint qualie and the town of Cervara together and you'd get one of the best sprint races possible; the long was wonderfully runnable and physical and had very very little path running and was lovely lovely forest...

The town legs in the sprint qualie annoyed me - I haven't really studied the map yet but the legs seemed unnecessarily straightforward in a twisty up and down stairs sort of a way.

As for me, I horsed up the Middle, perhaps due to lack of fitness and race fitness (previous race - Aug 19th)... for the Sprints I ran much better, a bit more fitness or smoothness and I'd have qualified easily enough I think. And madea couple of mistakes in the final, but a respectable run nonetheless.

And in the Classic I had what I class as one of my best runs ever if not The best. For about twenty of the controls I lost less than 5 to 10 seconds max. Total mistakes (and I'm counting the hesitations, possible route choice errors etc.) I think come to well under 4 minutes... it was so sweet. If I weren't so happy about the race and weren't well below peak fitness I'd be well depressed at being so far down the results table :)

Congrats to the girls on making finals, Eddie for his classic, Boris for winning so much (Limoncello-y) beer!!!

Do you guys know who did the maps for these events?

Janos Soter of Hungary made the latest updates - 2005. Same guy who did Rocky Ridge in York, PA (and some other US maps). He stayed at Brad's house while he was mapping there.

Thanks for the news. I thought he might have been involved. Now if he can only get a visa back to the US. He was rejected at least twice in recent years. QOC was inviting him.