World Orienteering Championships, Aug. 17

by Peter Gagarin

Today was the Long final, the traditional individual race, and it certainly kept with tradition in that it was long and it was hard. The fact that it was a beautiful day for spectating, but way too hot for the runners, just added to the challenge. There were still some brilliant performances, most notably that of Frenchman Thierry Guergiou, winning in his home country to the delight of the largely French crowd. And actually I think to the delight of most everyone, as winning the Long for the first time on his home soil, well, it just seemed like the right place and the right time. The women’s winner was Annika Billstam of Sweden.

For our qualifier for the final, Ali Crocker, it was not her best day, and she ended up being disqualified for not punching at one of the water stops. 

She was close to not starting, her hamstring was acting up after the two hard sprints yesterday, but she got a message from Sandra and then just kept jogging until her start so it wouldn't tighten up. First part of the course was OK, just a little miss at #2, but she knew right from the outset that she had dead legs. 

She hung in there pretty well, took the righthand (lower) route on the long leg, thought afterwards left/straight was better. Trouble at 8, lots of bushes, just didn't see it, cost her about 6 minutes, missed it a little the second time too. Then 17, second time there, you always punch first but this time the way she was coming in to the control the water was first. She took a drink, planning her route to 18, and then just headed off, never punched. 

Then problems with 18, another 4 minutes, came in from the southwest, missed it, out to the road to the north then back in. Time was 1:59+. A tough day, but some days are like that in orienteering, and hopefully you learn from each one. And she is one tough competitor.

So it wasn't a good run physically or mentally. These things happen. Her morale is actually not so bad. And tomorrow is a rest day. 

Results, split, and maps:
http://live.woc2011.fr/

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For those of you who might not have seen it, there was a nice write-up about her by the International O’ Federation (IOF) back in April. Have a look --
http://orienteering.org/already-the-best-ever-american/

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I am remiss in not mentioning up to now the contributions to the Team effort by our Team officials on site — Team leader Beatrice Zurcher and her assistant (and daughter) Sandra Lauenstein. The karma on the team has been as good as I have ever seen it, and Beatrice and Sandra should get a lot of credit for making things run smoothly. It’s not an easy job.

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I had a chance to talk to old friend Tom Hollowell, now president of the Swedish Orienteering Federation — yup, that’s right, an American in charge of Swedish orienteering. The subject came up of the Danish proposal to join up with the USA and jointly host consecutive WOCs in Denmark and the USA. He passed on what he had heard from the president of the Danish federation, that this was a proposal from a special Danish working group that had been set up to study future international development of orienteering, but it had not yet been presented to the Danish Board for discussion/analysis/approval. It seems like USA interest in the proposal is not at all certain. It seems that the same could be said as to the Danes.

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Finally, I can’t seem to locate the results of the WTOC, which had its second and concluding day today. I do know that we didn’t win. I think our placings were primarily in the 40s, with Karl Ahlswede being the best of our gang. Here’s a little of what Karl wrote about the two days --

“Day 1 WTOC, I had a huge mistake in that I thought I had 120 minutes when I only had 111. The bulletin info had said 120 but we were told the night before that we had 111. I am not sure why I ignored that info. So that gave me a 2 point penalty in addition to the 6 I missed all on my own. So while I am not last I am pretty close.

I have a great deal of respect for the top competitors though. First through ninth were perfect and I think that missing one goes down to 20th place or so. Richard only missed 2 but was just a little overtime so he finished with 19 so great job there. Plus he nailed the timed controls which were tough. Sharon finished with 16. Congratulations to her. 

Day 2 of WTOC 2011. Well I redeemed myself for yesterday's fiasco with a 20 out of 22. By my hand count I was 14th for today (so I met my goal of a top 15 finish) but 42nd for the overall competition (which was well below where I wanted to place). Today there were only 2 perfect scores and my very brief claim to fame is coming in ahead of 3 of the 4 Swedes for today’s event.”

Congratulations to Karl at his first WTOC!

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Tomorrow is a rest day at WOC. The support crew / cheering squad will be doing the spectator races. The Middle final follows on Friday and then things wrap up with the relay on Saturday.