Discussion: North America's first Sprint King and Queen!

The Flying Pig/US Team Trials is (finally) North America's first full-on Champs/Trials sprint race. Sure we have had big fund raisers like last year's US Champs, Cdn Champs and the Axis Gear Sprints - but this is the REAL thing. With 6 weeks to go - what are the latest odds for the winners?

My bet is on Sandra Z. and Hans F. for the Pig sprint winners.

Sprint course question. When measuring the distance of courses are uncrossable features taken into consideration (ie., measure around a building).

I'd bet on some of the younger set: Leif and Samantha (or Hilary, but I'm not sure if I saw her name down!)

The European sprints I have done have measured straight line distance thru uncrossable obstacles (i.e., don't measure around obstacles). This leads to unintuitive results such as a recent elite course WT of ~7.5m/k in a street setting.

Just to set the record straight - The Flying Pig sprints are part of the Team Trials, but are not a designated Championship. This is actually the second sanctioned sprint in the US. The first was at Alabama in January.

Sara Renner (Canada) took bronze at yesterday's cross country skiing World Champs (women's sprint). Sara is not a threat in the traditional distances but apparently focussed on sprint and it paid off. I strongly believe that North American oreinteers can have the same success in sprint orienteering as well. (Beckie Scott was 4th earlier in the week at the World Nordic skiing Champs).

Having just checked the events page and who now says they're going, I'm not about to bet against Erin for Sprint Queen. King is a tougher call.

Canadian men were 6th in today's World cross country ski champs 6x1.2 km Team Sprint. Canada has had great success at these Champs in the sprint distances. Again, lots of potential for NA to do the same in sprint orienteering...
Does anybody know what Canada has done differently in ski training to have these great successes so quickly (Bmay? theshadow?) and can we learn from this?

As a Norwegian with more than 5 years living experience in Calgary it is no surprise that Canadians are doing better in World Champs Cross Country sprint events than in endurance events. Canadians seem for me to have a passion for stop/go sports like ice hockey with high intensity, and where Canadians can also enjoy the US passion for commerical breaks. For me, "go Canada go" was an important element for Canada doing well at the sprint cross country events. In sprint orienteering, the challenge will to combine the "go Canada go" attitude with the ability to think very fast while running fast. Good luck to challenge us (from Norway).