Discussion: Hello from world cups in England

HI everyone!
Karen, Pavilan and I have arrived well here in England, enjoying the hospitality of Paul Kebel and racing hard!
The Sprint qualifier was this evening, and we are now getting ready for the relay tomorrow. I have made personal comments in my training log.
Hope your all having fun at West point!
Keep track of our races at www.wcup2005.admin.uk

HI! Just to add a comment to Sandra's, I hope you all can check out the maps for the sprint...they were pretty intense, particularly the sections near the end of the race! What is also not shown on the map are the nearly 1000 steps, which made reading some of the paths a bit more confusing, but also made for a really fun event!

Interesting trying to find out what happened since there is absolutely nothing on the official site and it's now about 4 hours after the races are over. Wonder what they did with the 100,000 pounds of government money?

From other sources, looks like several top names didn't make it to the A finals -- actually making the A finals here was probably a lot harder than at WOC2004 because the best teams had 2 in each heat and only the top 9 qualified. Several Scandinavians didn't make (only one Swedish male did!), ditto for a couple of the Swiss and British men.

Top 6 in each heat are at the Swiss web site.

A bit of video is available on the BBC/Lodon evening news. The introduction is at 13:25 into the program and the O' segment at 15:59. Worked on my computer anyway, so I guess all you folks with Windows/IE will have a problem....

Sandra/Karen/Pavlina, remember the top 13 in the B final get World Cup points. As do the top 15 in the relay tomorrow. Run smart.

From a message on nopesport:
The broadband by satellite failed

The SI team tried to upload results by mobile phone, but that didn't work, either.

Results etc (splits, photos, maps, routes...) should be up in the next hour or so when the team get to a connection.

The SI team are really disappointed - fingers crossed that they can make the connection tomorrow...
_________________

Some stuff is up now:
Here's Team USA. And again (a nice shot with a cathedral in the background). Or is this actually Team Pavlina? No photos of Sandra or Karen. But here is Pavlina again, at the start line this time (mostly obscured by another runner).
Team Canada, or rather Team Smith.

Hello again from England. Hopefully the site is working now and you all are getting some info. The relay was quite interesting...though the woods were heavier running than the planners expected, so winning times were off. This does not bode well for the long race tomorrow. Winning time will most likely be more like 80 mins for the women (instead of 70). Relay race for the women started out quite surprisingly, with 3 teams with a large gap at the spectator control (almost 6.3 km into the first leg)...Fin A, followed by Swe B, and I think the Czech team, with Den A just behind. Then a break before a pack of runners (including a very strong run by the Japan A team). Things tightened up on the second leg, and finished off with the Fins taking it (Minia Kauppi had a strong run, and one shorter leg in the last loop, which helped her to pull away from Simone). Swiss 2nd, Sweden, Czech, Sweden and ? I think. On the mens side, a great performance by the French team, with the other regulars in the top. Maybe a little disappointing for the Brits...it was very tough running, and could be tricky in some areas as well, and lots of forking. Sandra will most likely tell you about her run. She had a bobble to the first control and lost the pack, but then pulled through to pass off to Karen just ahead of the Japan B team. Karen had the Jap B team on her tail until 7th control, pulled away, but then made a 2 min mistake just before the spectator control and was caught up again. Together with the Japanese girl to the finish: passed to Pavi, who had a clean run on the first loop, though was together on and off with the Jap B, but was able to pull away before the spectator control, and finished strong even with one mistake in the last loop. All are looking forward to the long tomorrow. Should be interesting...will be broken up into two loops: the first 4.8, then a spectator control, then the rest 7.6, including a rather strange butterfly formation. 12.4 km, 475 climb in the bulliten, though they have been under-estimating the climb a bit so it may be a bit more. Temps look to be warm, so it could be an interesting day. Good training for Japan! Cheers!

It was a nice atmosphere at the relay today, and certainly motivating to get better, and do better. I am quite dissapointed with my race, had a very weak technical race, making way too many mistakes.Frustrating to know you could be some much better, but I just blew it in the beginning and never got the hang of the terrian. Comments on my training log. Looking foward to the classic tomorrow, I think it will be really tough, but smoother running than today, which is good. Keep watching, we need your support!

Hey guys!! Swisscheese got 4th in the classic event today! Hurray! He was 2' behind the leader, and 30" behind, 2nd place!

Great jobs guys (Americans and Attackpoint family members)!

Looks like Sandra had a very good run in the sprint B final, 12th place, should be good for a couple World Cup points. Results are on the IOF website. British site is still pretty useless, we ought to get Kenny to straighten them out.

Way to go Sandra!!!

Very nice run by Sandra today - within 1 second of the best time on 4 separate splits! That's moving!

Yes, Sandra had a good run today in the Sprint B Final and did indeed earn some World Cup points. She said she could not push as hard as if she was fresh (12.4 km, and 8km the day before took its toll), but was pleased. No big mistakes for her on the run, just one little bobble.
Hurrah for Sandra!!

The world cup races are over... I am back to work, tired beyond belief. The Middle distance race was for me personally a big dissapointment, but also a big motivator. I had a great run!!! Really, if you look at the splits (which if you want the correct perception of my race, please do), for 99% of the controls I had a very quick and excellent feeling. On # 15 I lost 9', can you believe that!! 9' min... my time could have been in the top 30 places.. Okay, I know it only counts if you are fast for 100% of the controls. But, at least I know I am getting close to that type of race (the break into the top half of the field is near!!).
Anyway, it was a good week. Thanks to Paul Kebel for lettings us stay at his house! It was a tough 5 days of racing, but we all kept our spirits high and gave our best every day!
Next goal, Japan!

Wow the competition is tough. In the Men's middle distance, with 28 controls and over 4% climb and what looks like moderately challenging vegetation (not to mention contorl placement), the winning time was under 5 minutes/km.

Mike Smith was just over 7 minutes/km, and Jon Torrace ~8:30, both of which seem pretty good given the map.

On the map that Wyatt showed, my trouble control was # 20, but I was coming from a control not on that map. How embarrassing...

Looks like a fun map!

Is there a move internationally to more controls? The middle distance had 28 controls and the WC sprint also had a lot of controls. Thoughts?

Looks from the map like there are a lot of trails so the course setter may have been forced to use lots of controls in order to avoid large trail running sections. I know Forest was forced to do that for Day 1 of the COCs last year on War Eagle.

I noticed the same thing - lots of controls. This also appears to be the case on various courses shown in o-sport (or "O Today"), where there are courses with 30+ controls. As theshadow mentioned, trails might be forcing this. It also seems like setters are inserting a handful of short 100-200m legs. I assume this is not just for change of pace but to set up a better subsequent leg.

This observation actually motivated me to go through the photos to see what sort of clue card holder people were using. I use the one that wraps around the forearm, but it can be a problem to fit courses with many controls, Seems like many are using the "along the forearm" holders. And it does look like it is covering almost the whole forearm on some!

I noticed that Wil Smith used some sort of black sleeve on his forearm with velcro for the control description holder.

I think it might be one of those Wil power (to the people) kind of things.

Yeah, especially since Wil was in West Point. Mike Smith was in the UK.

Mike Smith has a similar sleeve thing to the one I saw *Wil* put on while standing behind him at the starting line in Westpoint.

Here is a picture of Sandy. The Canada top is much easier to pick out than the USA ones. Too many countries have red, white, and blue in their flags.

There were indeed a great deal of controls (for the long too...33 for 12.4km for the women, even more for the men). We were told that having so many controls is typical of British Orienteering. I do not think it is a trend in the European Orienteering community. While having a lot of controls was fine for the sprint and middle, it was a bit frustrating for the long...there were no 1km or so routes with substantial route choice options, in fact, on the long, I would say there were only 2, maybe 4 controls tops that had route choice options. Otherwise the routes were quite obvious.

It was said in a team meeting that the brits often set course with lot of controls, which might explain these courses. But like Karen said, in the long distance we had 33 controls, and lacked the long legs that are typical in a long distance. I think this was only particular to Britain, and in other international events you would have a more traditional long distance course setting.
About the clue description holder, it was necessary to cut the clues in half and put the 2nd half in the clue description holder first, with the first half over it, then in the race, you just simply pulled the first half out, and kept going onto the 2nd half. They always provided scissors at the call up where you put your clue descriptions in the holder.
I would recommend the type that goes up the length of your arm. You can also buy different sizes, but I don't think any is big enough for over 30 controls, especially when you also have marked route on your course, which take up a line on the clue description.

Jon Torrance used a forearm holder in the sprint. (This is just an excuse to put a link to his picture.)

There is another nice picture of Jon in the relay.

No one has posted this link yet:

http://live.wcup2005.org.uk/

It has maps (including routes) and results.

On April 16, 2002, Spike wrote "5 Things A-Meet Organizers Ought to Do". Number 1 was:

"Publish winners' routes on the internet after the meet. It'd be cool if you could see the courses and routes for the top runners at every A-meet. It'd be cheap and easy for the organizers to do."

I really like the idea, but how do you corral the top runners, especially on a Sunday, when most people leave as soon as they can? Do you just ask as they finish, before you know the top three? Maybe you have about 10 maps for each course there, and a list of "probable high finishers" or something. When someone on the list downloads, you just ask then.

RouteGadget is an ideal tool for this purpose. It not only shows the routes, but when linked with e-punch results, it allows the race to be replayed, even simulating a mass start.

RouteGadget as become quite a hit among BAOC members, and we are now setting up all the local events that use e-punch on RouteGadget.

I even offered to set up the recent Flying Pig courses on RouteGadget. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of runners have entered their routes so far. Have you? I guess, it takes time for people to feel comfortable to share their routes - to step our of the closet as one put it.

Take a look of
RouteGadget

Can someone explain 17-23 on this map (women's long)? (Or is it like the last time I did this and the actual maps had proper numbers?...)

http://www.jk2005.org.uk/WC2005/maps/day3longWomen...

The men's long has one from 12-18:

http://www.jk2005.org.uk/WC2005/maps/day3longMen/t...

Weird.

it's a variant of the butterfly loop forking method, to separate competitors. alternating starters do the loops in alternating order. someone who was there could confirm the sequence, but it looks like you go around one side, back through the middle, and then around the other side, and out. that way you visit two controls twice, instead of one control 3 times (the usual way)

Exactly right Kenny! Either you went through the loope and around the loope afterwards, or you went around the loope first and through at the end. Which mean you visited two control twice. The direction of the loope was however the same for all competitors. does that make sense? Its hard to explain.

On the two map links I posted above (the long courses), is it normal for the course to be so confusing to read (in the sense of "What's my next control)? On both courses, I'm talking about the area around control 1. (Women's 1, 9, 31 and Men's 1, 20, 21.)

I wonder why they set the course that way? It looks like they have enough forest to not have to do that.

what's a loope? answer is here: http://www.furrypants.com/loope/

They may have cameras and/or radio controls at the butterfly loop and the course convergence area (e.g. women's 1, 9, 31)...
As for the loope, y'all might be forgetting that English is now Sandra's second language... I'm happy she still posts here in English - I, for one, would have more trouble following Sandra's discussion if it were posted here: http://www.solv.ch/ It does look like the Swiss are proud of their elite though - am I right in reading that some 22 year old Swiss guy won the Sprint? I should probably go back to the british site.

The maps weren't quite as confusing as they look. The girls had two maps back to back which you turned over half way through the 'loope' and the boys had 3 which they turned over during the loop and then picked another one up somewhere around 30 from memory. The two maps back to back were a bit of a pain because they were quite bulky to fold but the controls weren't so confusing.

English has always been Sandra's second language. The first words out of her mouth when she was a tiny girl were in French, believe it or not.

...and those who know me well, know I can't spell:-)