WOC - Update

Sorry had a couple of days off, getting carried away with the happenings here and also being in the same time zone makes watching the World Athletic Champs a lot easier.

The biggest thing since the last WOC posting has been Chris' 34th place in the Middle Final. A very creditable result, especially when he choose not to follow Peter Öberg when he went past him and instead run his own race (which is more than some other people). Chris said he made some mistakes early on but was flying around the last loop leaving Anders Nordberg in his dust. The course was described as physically and technically challenging, and there were some blow outs by some big names, notice the lack of Scandinavians near the top of the results board. It was again "The Great One" Thierry Gueorgiou that took the victory, ahead of the threesome of Swiss.

(WOC 2009)

Other than that we have had the opening ceremony and a couple of model events. The opening was a standard affair, with a small team march, some speeches and traditional singing and dancing.

All the maps and courses can be found on route gadget, with some routes choices entered, here:
http://live.woc2009.hu/RouteGadget/cgi-bin/reitti.cgi

Here is Chris' map from his Long Qual
Ross doing his last speed session (while being paced in the car)
Bryn punching the spectator control in the Long Qual

(WOC 2009)

The perfected sponging technique

(WOC 2009)

WOC - Long Qual

Again it was the Fornicator show, he easily made it into the final, even with a couple of small hiccups. Ross and Bryn both made mistakes that they are not too pleased about. Me and Maja perfected our sponging by the time Chris came through (which of course lead to his performance). Not much else tonight, will try and get some courses and photos up tomorrow when there is only the sprint model and opening ceremony, as right now we are all a bit tired from the day out in the sun.

WOC - Middle Qual

The Middle Qual was held on a map called Galuzsnya, Kenneth had pretty much guessed bang on where the start was and the general area of the courses as well (he had the 2nd to last controls off)

Chris was the stand out performer today, easily making it into the final on Wed. He had passed Emil Wingsted early on in the course and then enjoyed Emil pushing the pace over the last few controls (Chris has the fastest last 2 splits) as he could have been in danger of missing the cut. Ross could be forgiven for feeling a little hard done by, having the tightest heat of the 3, he made a mistake in the earlier part of the course and despite some fast splits in the middle, never made up enough time to get into the final. I made a few small mistakes, loosing just over a min in total if I was being picky (which I am), but was never really fast enough in this terrain, with the leaders doing just over 5 min/km.

Chris is all excited, Ross and Bryn are looking forward to good days tomorrow, and Me and Maja are on sponge duty, with the temp looking like it will nudge 30 degrees like today, Kenneth has devised some cooling techniques with state of the art bucket and sponges from Tesco.
The course are as follows in heat order:

Ross

Greg

Chris

Serious Stuff

The starts for tomorrows Long Qual are:
9:10 Bryn
9:26 Ross
10:02 Chris
Thats from 7:10 NZT, the live link is here
http://live.woc2009.hu/?p=home

WOC - final training camp day 4

Not much to report today, most of us were having a final hit out, that was on Olasz-kapu, it was another longish drive up through a semi-close nature park, by semi closed it meant we had to pay to drive in. Also having the full team meant someone was in the boot, Bryn drew the short straw on the way there and thankfully I managed to hitch a lift back with the Danes (wasn’t too much of a problem to organise, considering our entire support crew is Danish). This map was a bit older and Chris found lots to scrutinise, it was also mapped rockier but didn’t seem that different to the other places we have been. Again visibility was good, and the biggest help is just looking around and using the obvious features. This afternoon we moved in to our official WOC accommodation, in the Uni Hotel, its much nicer than anywhere else I’ve stayed for a NZ representative trip. We also had our first ‘serious’ team talk with Koach Kenneth, about the competitions and oing, it was good as he put some pretty straight forward, common sense stuff on the table, which I’ve never had come from a coach before, and made some good points about certain techniques for certain controls (don’t want to give to much away...)

(Typical forest, photo stolen from an Irish, but he owes me money so its ok)

Its really starting to feel like WOC is here, we have our accreditation IDs and final bulletin packs and the team seems relaxed and comfortable and I’m getting amped, just the way I like it.

WOC - final training camp day 3

Day 3 in Miskolc and again it looked like it was going to be a scorcher, but was just a mild 28 degrees in the end. There was some set training on a map next door to the Long Distance area, in Slovakia in the afternoon, so I took off in the morning and did some o intervals on Hollóstető, wanting to get a good final speed session in. I did 2 sets, C+D and again had some problems with the ‘40cm’ high stakes, which were mostly about 4cm high, and also with the vegetation. The distinctive boundaries are hard to see, there is a vegetation difference but I have not been able to spot the boundaries or the distinctive trees for that matter, and again the charcoal burning places shouldn’t even be mapped. I also got re-acquainted with Hungarian stinging nettles, they are not too bad but from 01 and today, any clearing is full of them. But on the positive side visibility is good and if it is not too rocky it is fast (super fast, winning times are at 5min/km).

In the afternoon, after a 2 hour drive into Slovakia, in a rental car not permitted out of Hungary, and with Chris having a small panic attack near the border after we told him he needed his passport which he left behind (all EU so of course no border control) we made it to a map called Torzó, that was mainly the karst depression terrain. The long boys went out for a mission, working out if there were any faster route., Bryn was successful, he worked out not getting lost is way faster. The routes on the map show the choices between Ross and Chris, Ross had some problems in rocky slopes (where the pen is) and also in the green where the track did not exist, but still thinks Chris’ way is faster. All in all its much of a muchness as to picking as straight as line as possible through the depressions and staying on it.

Kenneth arrived tonight so we are now the complete WOC09 NZ team, and are also making some news stories since we have Kenneth as our coach, for those that don’t know, he is the full time coach of Halden SK, one of the best clubs in Norway (and Scandi), http://www.orienteering.is/halden-coach-leading-team-new-zealand.4617848.html . Tomorrow we move into the offical WOC accommidation, Me and Bryn are hoping the beds are just as good in the building next door (where we are moving) as both think they are the best things we have slept on in ages, and in a student hostel in the back blocks of Hungary of all places, go figure....

WOC - final training camp day 1

The NZ WOC 2009 team (minus Koach Kenneth) all arrived in Miskolc last night, with Bryn, Ross, Maja and Myself driving from Budapest, and Chris magically appearing at the accommodation (which was a surprise since no one had heard from him since Jukola and we had no idea what his plans were) After some difficultly trying to sort out that had actually booked in for the training camp (an email was lost and our final booking was never received) we smoothed things out and all got our rooms at the pretty sweet Miskolc University, slightly more up market than the derelict mental hospital that was the base for JWOC 01. Today was planned around 2 short and sweet sprint trainings, with the sprint boys checking out the terrain and racing some route choices. The first area was around the cave baths complex with some steeper forest slopes and a flatter park like area. The second a much steeper forest and some urban streets to finish on. The results, 'dirty d' pants are awesome (they are so comfortable and everybody should buy some), Ross thinks Chris is a nutter by the way he was canning it down some steep rocky bits, and the 3 of them are looking fit and fast!

Bryn on fire!

Top young New Zealand elite Bryn Davies, has made a welcome return to form and confidence with a 3rd place at the British WOC Selection Trials. The British are used to outsiders sharing the spoils in their top events, but normally they wouldn't expect those outsiders to be New Zealanders. Earlier in the season it was Ross Morrison taking out top-spot at the prestigious JK sprint event. But this event for Kiwis was all about Bryn and great to see him up there starting to fulfill his undoubted talent.