Eureka Orienteers

Hi All!

The middle distance final was held today on the northern section of the ridge from yesterday’s qualification race. It was another super technical area, with a lot of rock detail. Today’s race differed slightly from yesterday’s in that there was a long leg in each race with an interesting route choice decision, and also perhaps less downhill controls on vague hillsides.

The arena was set up really well today, with athletes running through a long passage alongside the finish chute before the final loop of their course. It was a bit of a brutal run-through with a nasty hill at the end. The terrain seemed very physical, with runners all looking tired on their way through the arena.

The men started first today, with Simon off as second starter. We were all happy to watch him hit the controls cleanly on the GPS, and stick to his own race even when he was passed by Valentin Nobikov (RUS) and Tue Lassen (DEN). He held on to take 33nd place, with some faster early runners falling to pieces at the end. He told me his run was consistent with no big errors.

Most of the spectators assumed that Theirry Gueorgiou would come through to take his 7th gold medal in the middle distance, so we were all surprised when Leonid Nobikov (RUS) ran in to take a narrow win! Theirry said that a big mistake near control #2, where he had misread a track, cost him the race. Gustav Bergman (SWE) was well ahead for most of the day and eventually took bronze.

Jas was the first starter in the women’s race, so we got to see quite a bit of her in the beginning! Sadly after a very clean start she made an error on the radio control at #6 and couldn’t recover, finishing 43rd.

Hanny started next and had a few wobbles on the first 2 before settling down and gaining back a lot of time. She was disappointed with her mistakes but took a very good 33rd!

After Vanessa’s start, we didn’t get to see very much of her as the focus had turned to Kauppi and Niggli. I haven’t had a chance to chat to her yet but it seems she lost some time out there, finishing 42nd.

Niggli made some errors early and it looked as if Kauppi would come very close to her. Minna must have felt the home crowd pressure though, making big mistakes later in the course. Simone ran in to a clear lead, and the exciting race was then between Tove Alexandersson (SWE) and Merja Rantanen (FIN). Tove was challenging Simone early in the course before a strange route choice and error on 7. She eventually took Silver, with an ecstatic Rantanen 3rd.

Tomorrow is the relay, which is in the same arena as today. The men start at 1 55 (Simon 1st, Josh 2nd, Bryan 3rd) and the women at 4 (Vanessa 1st, me 2nd and Hanny 3rd). I am quite nervous and hope I can conquer this difficult terrain!

Wishing you all well,

Aislinn

(Ed:  Men start at 8.55pm and Women at 11pm.  Good luck Aislinn!!)

Hi All!

Today was a rest day, so we all had some time to relax! We went in to Kajaani in the morning to buy some outfits for the banquet, then relaxed before preparing for an Aussie afternoon tea. We had a good turn out of supporters and parents – they’ve been great with their cheering during the races!

Tomorrow (ed: today here – Thursday) is the middle qualification, and the Aussie starts are:

Jasmine 9:13 (ed: 4.13pm AEST Thursday 11 July)

Vanessa 9:19 (4.19pm)

Hanny 9:43 (4.43pm)

Bryan 10:25 (5.25pm)

Lachy 10:47 (5.47pm)

Simon 11:19 (6.19pm)

Hope you enjoy watching the gps!!

Aislinn

Dear Eureka Orienteers,

Today was the sprint day, always a great day for spectators! The morning was the sprint qualification, around an area of small holiday cottages / cabins on the shore of the lake in Vuokatti. The arena was cleverly set up with a spectator control at the back and a long finish chute crossing a bridge at the front.

Our girls were starting first, with Jas out at 9.00 on the dot. She expressed a bit of doubt about the crowds early on (and whether they would be prepared for the runners), but ran a really strong race to qualify in 13th (and had a big smile on her face at the end!). Next out were Vanessa and Felicity, 1 minute apart. It was a quick qualification, with all the girls starting between 9 and 9:23, so we knew pretty early that all the girls were through! Fel had an impressive WOC debut in 9th, while Vanessa finished 13th in her heat.

Next were the boys, with Bryan out first. He ran strongly in his WOC debut, but a tough field put him out of qualifying. Simon came next and gave us all confidence straight away, placing 5th at the end of his run and only dropping down to 8th by the end.

The public racers had a chance to give the sprint races a crack next, and after some organisational disasters (registration queues 40+ minutes long and no toilets), Susanne and I – along with the Aussie support crew members – whipped around the flat but in places tricky terrain. Lots of small buildings made relocation hard for some, and some fences which had been specially placed on the map made route choices a puzzle. There were people everywhere, which made punching controls a challenge, and called for some ducking and weaving, but it was good fun and I ran pretty well.

The opening ceremony began at 4:45, before a late sprint final. It was a short one, and after some formal speeches and a small dance display from some local girls, the exciting part of the day began. The Arena couldn’t have been better – the Sotkamo ‘Finnish Baseball’ stadium (I’m yet to learn the difference from normal baseball) was full to brimming, and had both a long start chute and finish chute running across its length. Two screens kept track of starters, finishers and radio controls, and we even got a taste of Copter Cam video (David Brickhill-Jones’s company – a flying camera apparatus). The coverage was fantastic and you could also reach some nearby controls to see the competitors mid-course.

Vanessa was our first starter, and ran a great race to grab one of her best WOC results (and her sprint debut!) in 32nd. She said that it was hard at all times to know whether you had chosen the right route – many impassable fences made the map a maze of black lines and it was always a possibility that you had misread a ‘trap’. Otherwise she reported having a run without big mistakes.

Jas was next, and despite getting control #1 cleanly (no mean feat with the pressure from the crowd in the stadium at the start), she struggled with #2 and found it hard to settle down. She ran into 41st place.

Felicity had a brilliant finals debut to take 31st, 2 seconds ahead of Vanessa. She told me she had a slightly hesitant race but made no big mistakes, and was very happy with her run. She said she actually kept expecting there to be more traps than there were!

The noise in the stadium was amazing when Finn Venla Niemi took the lead, but the spotlight was always going to be on the legendary Simone Niggli. Despite Simone having a commanding lead mid-way through the course, a fast-finishing Annika Billstam (SWE) gave the Swiss some worries. Simone eventually took the win in an exciting finish, just 8 seconds ahead.

Simon looked cool as always at the start, and put in a really strong race to take his best WOC result in 30th. He scolded himself for losing 10 or so seconds at the second last, running past the entry to the stadium, but he otherwise put in a really consistent run. He wasn’t the only one to make the mistake, with Lizzie Ingham costing herself a top-10 result, and Jerker Lysell (SWE) dropping quite a few places in a tight field.

It’s always great when the home country takes a win, and the cheers when Morten Bostrom was a definite for the gold medal were deafening (after a mistake from Mathias Kyburz (SUI) cost him crucial time). It was a great day for the Brits, with Scott Fraser taking the silver (and 3 top-16 results), while Jonas Leandersson (SWE) took the bronze.

Tomorrow we all head out to cheer on Hanny in the Long Final, and hopefully see some more exciting finishes! She starts at 1 10pm Finnish time (8 10pm Victorian time).

Apologies for the long email! I hope you’re all well and the Victorian winter is not too harsh!

Aislinn

Hi again Eurekas!

I apologise for emailing a little later than usual, but as yesterday was an extremely tiring day and today is a rest day, I thought you wouldn’t mind!

My long final day started with quarantine at a school in Cudy, before we were taken (by army truck, of course) to the pre-start. My nerves were running very high, having never before run in a WOC final. It was exciting and also a little scary to be fitted with a GPS tracker and to be filmed at the start, where an electronic start gate let me out onto my course.

The terrain was similar to the long distance qualification, except with quite a few more contour features and some climb, making for a more interesting course. While there was still a great amount of tracks and vegetation changes, an extra challenge was posed by several deep creek networks crossing the map. The white areas on the map were still highly visible, but often had more cut timber and some slow undergrowth than the Qual.

I made sure to stick to my usual strategies, and got into a good rhythm right from the start of the course. I chose fairly conservative route choices, often taking track choices until the last moment, but made sure that I took advantage of them by running hard on the tracks. The first half to two thirds of the course was fairly clean, with just a small error on 5 where I lost maybe 45 seconds searching on the wrong side of the spur. I found out afterwards that my route choice on the long leg to 6 lost me some time; while I decided to go to the right and stick mostly to tracks, it was faster to go slightly left and cut through the clearer areas. The later part of the course saw me start to make some silly errors with my compass, as I began to feel very tired. On control 13 I lost around 2 minutes searching in a higher creek network, and then on control 15 I drifted off the hill to the left and had to come around to the control. The spectator run through was soon after, and it was a tough one! I would say it was roughly 800 metres long and complete with a nasty uphill section. It was a challenge to get out of oxygen debt to complete the small last loop, but I managed to get through it, making just one error on the last control. I had confused the finish chute with the spectator run through, so I ran away from the control! The atmosphere in the arena was fantastic with a full contingent of Aussie supporters cheering, as well as some New Zealanders. I had been winning the splits until the end, which I am told made for some exciting watching.

The women’s course played out much as everyone had expected, which was not so sad! The Swiss supporters were of course ecstatic to see Simone take out her 20th WOC gold, with a margin of 90 second. Minna Kauppi took out 2nd, with Swede Annika Billstram getting 3rd. Surprisingly, Helena Jansson decided not to run, due to illness, and Lena Eliasson pulled out of the course early on. I ended up in 35th, which I am very excited about for my first final. Hopefully if I can continue to improve, I can get an even better result next year.

As Julian was a later starter, he sadly did not get as much air time as me, and we saw little of his GPS tracks on the screen. However, WiFi at the arena meant we could watch him online. He had very competitive route choices, often taking the same routes as Swiss Matthias Merz, who took the silver medal. He seemed to lose little time, with just a few seconds in some early control circles, and a small mistake at control 19. He ran very strongly to take out 30th place, and said that he was mostly happy with the result.

The men’s race had some drama, with Swiss runner Fabian Hertner running strongly to take the lead, before being disqualified for having punched the women’s first control at 13. The Swiss team protested, as the controls were just 30m apart and on fairly similar features, however the protest was dismissed. Olav Lundanes ran in well clear of all his rivals to take a huge lead, and was not even challenged by Merz, who ran into second, 2 minutes down. Latvian Edgars Bertkus continued his fantastic WOC week to take out the bronze medal.

Tomorrow is the relay. Our women’s team is Rachel, Vanessa and I, and the men’s team Simon, Julian and BJ. The women’s relay starts at 11 30, and the men’s at 1 30.

Wishing you all the best, and apologies for the long email!

Aislinn

Aislinn’s Long Final course and her route choices:

Hi all!

Just wanted to apologise for the lack of pictures recently…I’ve been a bit slack with the camera! The races have also been quite quick, there was only an hour or so after my warm down until the last man was running down the finish chute. I can suggest the World of O Facebook page which has some very good pictures of individuals running through the radio control in the long qualification race.

The arena today was very picturesque, an alpine meadow with a great view across a road to the second last control. The final control was on a tunnel beneath the road with a punishing 200m uphill finish chute. The terrain was a lot different to the long distance, with the courses being mostly downhill and on steep slopes. Some areas were flat, with interesting depressions and knolls, while others were sheer-sided with little detail, and yet others were very intricate sections of cliffs, knolls and small gullies. It was much more difficult running, with moss-covered rocks and a lot of cut wood, even in areas marked white.

Once again, I was the first starter, and my race was doomed from the start! Rushing out from the start triangle, I went to the wrong first control, and then lost four minutes trying to find the right one. I eventually relocated off a paddock to the west, but the damage was done and I had the difficult task of calming the nerves ahead of me. Luckily I hit the next four controls cleanly, but again came unstuck on a boulder in green. I was much too high, and wasted three minutes looking in the wrong places. Interestingly, many athletes lost time here, including Mari Fasting, who lost 9 minutes but still qualified, Simone Niggli-Luder, who lost a minute, and Vanessa, who lost 2 minutes or so. I managed a few more smooth controls before losing time on a dark green gully, and then a boulder in dark green. Overall, the run was very unsuccessful, and even my better legs were hampered by loss of confidence and a lack of planning.

Despite my own disappointment, it was fantastic to watch Vanessa qualify (quite easily!), and make up for her near miss in the long distance. Even with her error, she managed to take 12th place and run very strongly into the finish. Suzanne had a similar experience to myself, losing a lot of time on the first control, and also losing some time on the third last. Despite this, the legs in between were smooth and fast and she came very close to qualifying, in 17th.

We all held our breath and crossed our fingers when Simon ran in strongly to put himself in a tentative 15th place. Sadly, he was soon knocked out by qualifying Kiwi Ross Morrison and a few other athletes, pushing him into 18th. He lost a lot of time at the 4th control and some more time in other areas; however his later splits show that he also clawed back some time on the leaders in the later part of the course. His heat was very fast, with 15th place just 3 minutes down on the leader.

Murray fell victim to a treacherous limestone hole, and sprained his ankle very badly. He walked (hobbled?) back into the finish and was taken straight to hospital, where X-Rays thankfully showed no broken bones. It looked to be a very painful injury, however, and he will be getting around on crutches for at least the next few days.

Tomorrow the team will be watching Vanessa run her middle distance race, which seems to be on some nicer terrain than today. I’m a bit jealous to be honest, as training on the middle distance final maps seemed to be the most fun! Her start is at 12.21 (8.21 AEST). Some of the athletes will be getting out into the Swiss 5 Day races.

Wishing you all well and happy watching,

Aislinn