WOC Long 2006
 darren
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Posted: 21 August 2005, 3:13 AM
While we are all talking about how to best attack the middle race in Denmark we should also give some thought to the long race.
WOC06 Bulletin 2 has the long finals at 11km/75min winning time for the Women and 17km/100min winning time for the men.
This will be with 2 min start intervals and a forking system (butterfly loops most likely?) to help separate the runners that form trains.
At least we have the winning times for our long races in NZ about even with these, but maybe we need to look at including 2min start intervals and the odd butterfly loop in our long SS races as well. This shouldn't be to hard to do, should it?
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addison
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Posted: 21 August 2005, 7:27 AM
Stuff the butterfly loops, have zebra loops.
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Martin
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Posted: 21 August 2005, 8:02 AM
Before thinking about the long final shouldn't we give the long qualification some thought? In my view that would be the first aim of any WOC campaign - to qualify.
The long qualification races are set at 7km/45min for the Women and 11km/60min for the Men - there aren't many races coming up that are set to these times.
I don't think this was such of an issue in 2005 because there was the Oceania multiday which had some shorter races. There isnt a carnival this summer and events from now until WOC all look to be set to the longer winning time which is appropriate to the final. (including local OYs!)
Surely there are tactical differences in racing 60min as opposed to 100min?
As for the zebra and butterfly loops (both have their novelty) that is up to the setter.
This message was edited by Martin on 21 August 2005, 4:04 PM
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Andrew M
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Posted: 21 August 2005, 8:33 AM
zebra loops?
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darren
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Posted: 21 August 2005, 9:07 AM
I think that the teams overall success at WOC this year (10 out of 18 making the A finals) proves that our international competitivness has risen in the past few years. The majority of our qualifiers made the finals with relative ease (7 or 8? in the top 10) and went on to back up these performances with excellent final results in the 10's, 20's and 30's.
Looking at our route choices, split times and mistake rates compared to the best, indicates we are doing pretty damn well. The biggest gains we need to make are physical. Quite simply the best in the world train at least twice as hard as we do. Sure some of them are semi-pros but we can't use that as an excuse.
I believe the level of elite orienteering in NZ is definitely on the up, thanks largely to the implementation of the SS and Test series with Aussie.
We should be going to the WOC in the future, not hoping to qualify (which was the attitude a few years ago) if we have a great race, but knowing we can if we run our normal solid race.
We should be going there to race the finals, not the qualifiers!!!
So I hear what your saying Martin, but if we prepare for the finals (Long, Middle and sprint) we will easily have the goods for the qual races. We just have to aim higher in our thinking.
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Jamie
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Posted: 21 August 2005, 1:28 PM
We have discussed this many times Darren, often at cross purposes...
I agree with you as long as the field is strong enough to run this distance hard and fast at the speed required of a WOC qualifier - otherwise we don't get the pressure and punishment for our mistakes and physical weakness that is required to push us up to that next level.
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Chris Forne
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Posted: 22 August 2005, 8:58 AM
I agree with Darren that we have to work on our physical side if we are to be truely compeditive on the world stage, however this applies to all distances, not just the classic distance.
And I also agree, that as a country we should be focusing on the finals, not on qualifying. If we train and prepare ourselves to be capable of a top 10, or even top 20 result in the finals, then we should be more than capable of qualifying even if the format is slightly different.
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