 Jenni
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 12:19 AM
Ditto to my last posting!
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rob.g
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 12:47 AM
Stunning results, Lizzie especially, and sure makes up for last year with the injury that stopped her campaign
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robbie
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 12:53 AM
Fantastic results
Lizzie 13
Chris 28
Congratulations to you both
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Jamie
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 12:59 AM
Another long and succesful day for Lizzie (13th) and Chris (28th).
It was hot and the courses were epic. Only phenomenal performances from Annika Billstam and Thierry Georgiou saved the course setters from embarassment.
Chris lost time early but going through the coaching zone with the Pole who had caught him I could tell he was ready to wind it up. The only advice I could think of was to remind him to be a tough bastard. He smashed the Pole by over ten minutes in the last loop.
Lizzie likewise lost early time, dropping two minutes when she failed to attack the control directly enough from her attack point at no 4. She was joined by the Norwegian who finished 4th and ran as an equal against her through to no 18. Lizzies 13th is New Zealands best womens classic result in over 20 years.
I am so excited about the middle final in two days time and then the relay. This team has the class and the depth to put some icing on the decent sized cake this WOC is becoming.
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jeffg
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 3:21 AM
This really is a world class team effort, showcasing the wonderful individual performances. All the best for middle and relay! And that sounded like excellent and effective technical advice Jamie :-)
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Michael
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 3:25 AM
Wonderful result! Chris even won the finish split.
After years of hearing "take a conservative route to the first control" it was bizarre to see the carnage among the women who took the direct route. The winner (and Lizzie) took a readily available track route. Well worth replaying the GPS. The area reminds me that a terrain type we don't have much of is the big slope. Whether having a few point features or being extremely detailed as in this case, its extremely challenging.
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Michael
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 5:09 AM
And while its a sideshow, Bill Edwards is leading M40 in the public events. Ryan Cambridge is doing well in H20E too. Even Jamie is top 20 out of about 100 H21E runners (not counting WOC team members doing the odd day).
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Michael
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 9:06 AM
World rankings have been updated to yesterday. Lizzie=30. Is this the best ever for a kiwi?
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The Clem
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 11:52 AM
Tania managed to get a ranking of 28th in 2007, but by the end of WOC Lizzie should hopefully be even higher.
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 12:50 PM
It's great to see Lizzie carrying on where Tania left off!
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ACW
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Posted: 18 August 2011, 2:18 PM
A Czech woman was running 11th at the final control. Did she really fail to punch at the finish?
Results so far are fantastic. Lizzie - stunning runs Go girls in that Middle race! And Chris! (and Bill).
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blairtrewin
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Posted: 19 August 2011, 3:25 AM
I'm assuming that was the Czech woman who was disqualified for wearing a GPS watch (11th sounds about right).
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Paul I
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Posted: 19 August 2011, 4:35 AM
Fantastic Lizzie, and hopefully those running the middle will be able to keep a cool head in what's sure to be some intense technical racing on NE La Feclaz
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Paul I
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Posted: 19 August 2011, 4:56 AM
Robbie, while you have been warm and comfortable infront of live woc the squid has been on ice. However it is now thawing out.
Besides, it was certain the amazing Theirry would take the mens long. It is a bit perplexed about whether he will do the near impossible hat trick of golds with the middle and relay, or that even more impossibly, some increadible drama developes ending the french dream relay result.
In the meantime some french language tips for the team to help them along... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkbRnDr4hXk&feature=related
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Jamie
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Posted: 19 August 2011, 7:20 AM
Some very late reporting from the sprint
The sprint final day started for me at 6am. As we had to leave our hotel at 7 to enter the quarantine zone the team had asked me to check how far away it was, fortunately not too far!
When we entered the quarantine we discovered it was an old judo dojo, the Russians, Austrians and Japanese were there already trying to catch some more sleep. I continue to be amazed by how global this WOC feels. It is so special that for the first time this year more than 50 countries have sent teams to WOC.
The actual sprint qual race was shaped much as we expected, a cluster of controls through the forested town belt area followed by route choice legs and then some urban orienteering to finish. Where perhaps we were caught out in out preparation was the first leg, long and straight up. Not the sort of leg to attack 100% at the start of a race that relies so much on keeping fresh legs and a clear mind. Orienteering is the art of calculated restraint.
Toby made an early mistake when he didn't read a direct track route to a circle full of dark green and black and so made a conservative route choice.
The race for the team was largely uneventful after this until the urban area where most dropped about 30 seconds to a minute in hesitations and small errors. Toby also exited contention with a wrong control 4 from the end.
At the finish it was complete chaos. No one had a clue how performances were stacking up. Despite an ampitheatre and large crowd there were no attempts to display results other than A4 sheets pasted to a board every 10 minutes. Even an attentive manager could only observe that Lizzie was safe, Ross was borderline and the other three were probably outside the top 15. For those final qualification spots it really comes down to a battle with the athletes from similarly ranked countries like Lithuania, Australia, Austria and Poland and so much hangs on the composition of individual heats. In the end it was unfortunately just our top two athletes who came through, but the others acquitted themselves well.
Then the controversy started. At the team managers meeting following the races it was announced that 38 runners had been disqualified. There were three separate issues: lawns at the end that were marked olive green, an olive green area with no distinct boundary in the last third of the course and an uncrossable wall at the end of the first route choice leg.
For the first and second issues transgressing athletes were disqualified, altough exceptions were made for athletes that "realized" and turned around... for the third issue the athletes were pardoned, when pressured the organizers revealed that this would have resulted in the disqualification of a further 70 athletes!
Penny was unfortunately among those dsqed with the second issue, as she had not qualified we decided not to protest, several teams did though and 4 athletes were reinstated, of these Scott Fraser of GBR went on to finish in the top ten. At the time of writing (the night of the long final) the final results have still not been confirmed and it is quite plausible that many of the dsqs may be overturned.
We rushed into Chambery to get Ross and Lizzie into the quarantine. We had investigated Chambery earlier in the week and it promised to be a real maze, underpasses, alleys and courtyards set beneath three stories of stone buildings. When the course was revealed there was also the added dimension of a castle, visible from the arena with a control in its ramparts.
Usually the term "arena" is a little bold for an orienteering event centre but this was something else.Competitors were displayed above the crowd before on go they descended down a red carpeted ramp into the seething masses. They appeared briefly on the castle during the course then as a finale sprinted up a curved finish chute through a sea of flags.
As manager I again missed a trick. We had not made a point of talking about the long dark alleys and route choice options to maximize map reading time. This didn't seem to affect Ross and Lizzie though, they smoked it. Ross's 25th is his best yet result at WOC, while Lizzies 11th is NZ's best sprint result and second best individual WOC result ever!
The Swedish womens team picked up the first three spots. I was among the crowd hovering at the TV in the teams arena and it was great to see Helen Jansson cheering hard for her team mates as they knocked her down the podium.
I have been trying to watch the coaches and managers of the big teams and figure out what I am supposed to do, this is a little challenging when the big teams have 7 officials. The general theme seems to be a mature calming presence with plenty of spare water and food. That's the goal anyway.
Rightio I'm just going to publish this now. Apologies for the delay.
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