Relay

The final race of JWOC! The girls' relays started 1 hour before the boys' with Kate and Selena running first leg. Kate would hand over to Jaime and then to Angela, while Selena would hand over to Anna and then to Laura. Kate had a very strong start in the fast terrain but a small mistake just after the spectator control put here back a few places but still finished in 14th. Jaime and Angela both had good runs making for a consistant team performance. Angela crossed the line in 11th but placed 9th because nations may only count their first team as an official placing. The 3 consistant times made for NZ's best female result in the JWOC relay. As the girls' exciting race came to a close as the boys' was heating up with Matt just coming through the spectoator in 2nd place.

Both Gene and Tim had good starts to a very close relay. The good visability meant it was hard for the front runners to escape the pack and the bunch was still very close at control 5. A long leg to the spectator control allowed for a long line for form with the faster runners pushing the pace. The racing remained close all the way to the line with Gene finishing in 7th handing over to Matt and Tim handing over to Scott. Matt caught and passed all the runners in front of him to be leading the relay until he was passed just before the spectator. He handed over to Toby in 3rd just ahead of some other very hot runners. Toby hadn't been feeling great before the race and could not replicate his running form from the previous races. But his very clean race gave NZ a respecable 13th across the line but 12th in the final results. Scott and Nick both had good runs and the NZ boys second team placed well with 28th across the line.

A great finish to New Zealands most successful JWOC!

Written by Gene

Middle Final

Today we had the final for the middle distance. With 6 of the team making the A final there was a lot of excitement surrounding this race. Toby, Gene, Angela, Jamie, Kate and myself made up the 6, while the remaining members of the team all made the B final. A very impressive effort!!!

First up was the B final. I missed out on all the action as the A-finalists were quarantied for the morning before their races. The terrain for the middle final was a lot greener and phsyically much more demanding than in the previous races. Today was all about being aggressive through the green, strong up the tough hills and making no mistakes.

We left quarantine and arrived at a rather familiar place after a short bus ride. The organisers had decided to use the same start area for the middle final and the middle qual. The warm up map was identical so no new areas of map greeted us as we arrived at the pre start. I was very excited for this race and a little bit nervous. I think most of the team felt similar. By now we had completed 3 Jwoc races so the intense pre race nerves had subsided a little, replaced with focus and excitement.

The team performed really well in the finals, absorbing the pressure of some big name competition and the fact that it was the JWOC middle distance final. Angela was a victim of somewhat poor officiating and was disqualified. As we ran into the event arena there was a marked crossing point on the map. However there was an unmarked, but tapped ( to stop runners ), crossing point down the fence closer to the control. Angela mistook this point as the correct crossing point and was subsequently disqualified. A protest was made, arguing that it was unfair that runners after Angela were told by officials to go through the correct gate. Sadly this protest was unsucessful and the disqualification still stood.

Results from the A-final are below. I cannot find the other results and the majority of the team is having a swim to recover. But look on the JWOC wesbite!!!

Jamie 43rd
Kate 49th
Angela DSQ

Matt 15th
Toby 30th
Gene 55th

Tonight we have the medal ceremony for the middle and long distances. Tomorrow is the relay. We are all excited and hopefuly we can do NZ proud.

Over and out.

Middle Qualification

Fast running today, in the forest of Wejherowo. The New Zealand team did great, with three boys, Toby, Matt and Gene, and three girls Angela, Kate and Jaime, qualifying for the A finals. The best team result in a few years.

The courses involved open forest with a patchwork of green and recently felled areas and finished off with a few fast track running legs. It was essential to keep map contact all the way.

Tomorrow is expected to be just as fast but also more technical. We are all excited and will battle our hardest. Those in the B final will also have a tight competition. Laura and Tim start just 1 minute apart.

Angela

Long Distance

The weather was cloudy but not raining so good conditions for racing. The early starters began at 9 and the latest start was at 2:30 which went there was a lot of waiting around. Those who started early would get a good day of spectating while those who started late would spend a very long time in the quarantine area since everyone had to be in quarantine 9.

The Boys’ course was 11.1km and the girls 7.7km. Both courses had some large variation in leg length and also included butterfly loops. In previous years the girls’ course has not had a pivot of any sort so it was a welcome addition to their JWOC long. The boys’ course started 4 medium length legs then a long leg before some more shorter legs including some very dense area. A 2^nd long leg led to the butterfly loop with the pivot control being either 10, 13, and 17 or 10, 14, and 17 depending on which order you were to complete the loops in. The next 5 legs were of a medium to medium-long length and led into a flat park for the final 2 controls. The girls course had a similar structure except the long leg to 5 led into the butterfly loops with the pivot control being either 6, 9 and 13 or 6, 10 and 13. They too had a long leg from the pivot with some medium legs leading them into the park and the finish.

Again New Zealand performed better in the long than in previous years with the top place in the girls being Angela Simpson finishing 21^st and only 6 seconds off being in 18^th. Next it was Kate Morrison in 35^th, Laura Robertson in 90th, Selena Metherell in 98^th, Anna Gray in 102^nd and Jamie Goodwin in 106^th. In the men’s race all of the boys again finished in the top 100 which is a top result for New Zealand. Toby Scott and Matt Ogden both had great races with Toby in 22^nd and Matt in 30^th. Nick Hann placed 90^th with Tim Robertson just behind in 93^rd and Gene closely following in 95^th.

Written by Gene

Sprint

The sprint started late in the day and so we had the whole morning at the hotel, waiting, re-packing our bags… We drove to Lebork after lunch and arrived at the quarantine area. First starts for men were at 2pm, and women at 2:30pm, so some people had a lot of waiting around if they started late. Toby even brought a bed with him. Scott was 4^th starter, so he was the first to leave out of the New Zealanders at 2:03. We were given a warm-up map of the pre-start area so we could have a jog around while waiting for our time. The first part of the course started with a few controls around a park area, with tennis courts, sandy areas and lots of impassable fences. Route choice was important here too. The men’s course then had a long leg over the river and onto the forested hill, with 2 more forested controls to follow. Near the end of the day tracking in the undergrowth helped a lot to lead people into the controls. Some easy legs through a park led to the compulsory taped route under the main road, and then we entered the city of Lebork. Control 11 had a dead-end alleyway to catch out unwary runners, and then there was a 50/50 route around a building to the spectator. Having crowds of people standing around cheering is nothing like orienteering in New Zealand. Back into the quiet streets for some more controls, including another dead-end route which caught out Tim and I. Some more route choice legs led us in a loop around the back of the arena all the way back to where we entered the city. Finally there was a 90m run in to the finish, down a chute lined with people all the way. Although route-choice was not over challenging over the course, there were many traps to punish people who relaxed too much. The heat of the day also had an impact on people’s performance, draining energy. The advantage of running early meant you missed most of the heat, but were forced to watch your name slip further and further down the board as more runners kept coming in. Unfortunately Scott managed to stand on a piece of glass while running and it went through his shoe into his foot. He didn’t think it was too bad though and kept running, only to find his shoe was soaked in blood. He was taken off to hospital and received 3 stitches. New Zealand had a stand-out performance from Angela, 6^th place meaning a spot on the podium! Matt also gained 21^st in the men. All of the men from New Zealand were in the top 80, which is a great result. Overall a great JWOC sprint, especially the atmosphere and results.

Results

Men

Matt 21^st

Toby 30^th

Gene 45^th

Scott 58^th

Nick 75^th

Tim 78^th

Women

Angela 6^th

Race Day

Well here we are on race day! The few of us who have been sick seem to be ok now and there are no other major problems. The opening ceremony yesterday evening went off with a bang, thanks to the cannon! Much better than just cutting a ribbon or raising a flag. This was also our first chance to see all our competitors before race day.

A huge shout out is due for our sponsors for helping us get this far! Their products will prove essential throughout the race week as they have during the training week.

VITASPORT are keeping us hydrated with their powdered electrolyte drink. This with be extra crucial on the long distance day when we are sure to sweat out litres and litres. Drop a comment and keep up-to-date on their Facebook page

COMPASS POINT gave us the last of our gear earlier this week to add to the previous orders and we are fully kitted out with our desired shoes, compasses and all other bits and pieces of O gear we need. Check you their online store at www.compasspoint-online.co.uk.

USL (UNIVERSAL SPECIALITIES LIMITED) have supplied us with top quality sport products including strapping tape and warm up rubs. Most of us have also had a massage in the past week thanks to their massage lube.

LEPPIN and POWER BAR have given us essential racing and recovery nutrition which will play an important part in our hard racing over all the distances over the next week. Their products are also perfect for recovering after a race and simply for extra nutrition throughout each day.

Be sure to check our results which will be live on the web.

Written by Gene

2 Days Out

After the hot past few days the weather has taken a turn for the worst and we have had misty rain most of the day and it is colder, but still not as cold as New Zealand. This morning we checked out the model event for the long, middle and relay races. The small section of map was interesting and was the final chance for everyone to become completely confident with the terrain and the style of mapping. It was also important to take note of the pits and boulders that were and weren't mapped. The program says that pits less than a meter deep and boulders (as rare as they are) less than half a meter high will not be mapped. This was a light or very light session for everyone.

We spent the rest of the day around town and the Hotel. We have been given our SI cards and timing chips for you shoes and are now waiting for the sprint start list to be released. Our team vans have also been returned now and we will be relying on the transport provided by the event organisers for the remainder of JWOC. More teams have arrived at our Hotel but we are still waiting for Belgium and Finland.

Racing is close and I’m so nervous!

Written by Gene

Sprint Training & Model Event

Yesterday we headed to the one sprint map that they have available for training on. It was used for the Baltic Cup races held in May this year and many of the Danish and Swedish team members raced it. The boys ran the M21E course and the girls ran the W21E course, although James made me a special course cos I had looked at the Baltic Cup races quite a lot on my training runs (thanks Lizzie :D ), and Nick was still feeling crook so he didn't run either. Was really good to be able to do training out of terrain for a day and do some faster, quick thinking navigation. Also the proportion of urban areas to forest terrain and the climb is about the same as the actual JWOC Sprint so it was quite a relevant map in that sense. There were some quite tricky long route choice legs that were debated long afterwards, particularly legs 8-9 and 16-17 on the men's course and 9-10 and 12-13 on the women's course.

Spent the rest of the day sorting out our team posters and stocking up on food for the week since we don't have the vans after today (so we are reliant on the event transport for the rest of the week and our hotel is too far away from the town to walk there).

Today we spent the morning sorting out our accreditation and handing in which start block we want to start in for the sprint. We all got given JWOC b

ackpacks complete with a mini statue of some 'famous' guy that we all get to keep...think his name is Jakub Wejher. Then off to the model event where

most of us just walked around the controls, doing a final check of the terrain before we start racing. We noticed that many of the pits are unmapped, despite looking quite big.

Most of the team are off printing out the posters, but apart from that we have just spent the day relaxing around the hotel and resting up our legs for the first race on Sunday! :D

We have the Sprint model tomorrow and the Opening Ceremony in the evening. Start lists should also be posted online sometime tomorrow evening as well.

Swimming after relay training

Mass start for relay training

Biala Rzeka-Last training in the Forest

Today we possibly had our last training in the forest as we are sprint training and resting the next few days. We were typical NZ orienteers getting completely confused driving to the actual map, some say we were saving our navigational skills for the training.
A few went for a jog around the tracks or in the open forest and some did a small course to gain that extra bit of confidence running through terrain. The forest was pretty fast although rather steep and a few small, green rough patches. We actually did a long training here on Sunday with a 1:15000 scale, but today we all used a 1:10000 map for middle style training.
We saw the Bulgarians training on the same map, and also Johanna (Swedish team leader) collecting in some controls which the Swedes must have been using, but we didn't even need controls because we are just so awesome ;)
We have some new friends at the hotel now. Denmark, Australia and Japan are all in Hotel Victoria with us, and we are expecting to see Belgium, Austria and Finland in the next few days :)
In the afternoon today, we had a 4 hour shopping trip in the Mall just on the edge of Rumia. It was very successful for finding all our Banquet uniforms (which look wicked!), much faster than last year.
Tomorrow we have our first sprint training in Poland, finally...so we shall update you on how that all goes tomorrow :)
We shall leave you with a few photos from the last few days....

James, Scott and Johnny(GB) out for a jog

Angela, Anna & Laura chilling out in the sun after training

Kate, Angela and Laura :)

Yesterday

Yesterday we went out training at Kapino with the focus of the exercise being middle distance race simulation. The map was quite green and had many different route choices that forced you to go through it. I wasn’t feeling too good so I skipped a few controls in the middle of the course. I ran the last few legs in the green and found that some of the tracks were very vague and hard to find and that generally the straight line route through the green was better. I was surprised at how fast you could run through the green but it is very difficult to read your map whilst running. At our team meeting we talked about this and found that it was faster to take the straight line routes through the green but often would be more difficult approaching the control. After lunch we went out to Borowo for relay training. James set the exercise so that it was mass start and you would race head to head for 4 to 6 controls and then wait for the rest of the group before racing through the next controls. There were splits out on the map and because you had the same split as someone the first control didn’t mean you would have the same one the next control. We put all our maps on the ground at the start and all started together.

Running into the finish of the first set of controls I tripped and my leg landed on a log. I had to walk back to the start because it was too sore to run on but hopefully it will get better in the next couple of days. After the others had finished we went swimming in the lake next to where we parked. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing air hockey and bowling against the Australians.

Tim

Training, training, training

The last few days have been full of training as we're trying to familiarise ourselves with this terrain. Most of the team have seemed to come to grips with the area pretty well and our general consensus is that it's easier terrain than the past 3 years - but it pays not to be complacent!

We had two trainings on Saturday, one being a middle training focusing on visibility and lines through the terrain and the other being a short control-picking exercise with a focus on exit direction. Despite the terrain seeming reasonably straight forward mistakes were still made and I particularly found that I was at risk when I wasn't strong on my compass, checking off spur directions, for example.

Yesterdays training was on a map which bordered the actual JWOC long distance map and we used the relevance to focus on route choice. We often met up at various controls to try out different routes. Were the long track routes faster than the steeper straight routes? There wasn't really a definite answer and it varied from leg to leg but the straight routes were generally still fast in this terrain, just more physical. The more time we spend on the maps the more the decisions should become instinctive.

Obviously, we haven't spent all our time just training though. We've spent heaps of time just chilling around the hotel. It's a pretty nice place and us boys have explored the hotel pool (with water slide, sauna and steam room!) and the 10-pin bowling alley. We were all pretty terrible though! The girls went into Gdansk yesterday for a look around and to pick up Anna's bag which has finally arrived. The Australians and Japanese have arrived at our accommodation with the Danish, Finnish, Austrian and Belgians still to come later in the week.

At the moment everyone is just lazing around the hotel (except for Toby and Laura sitting their exams - poor things!) and it's a beautiful day outside. I think we're planning on taking on the Aussies at 10-pin later so hopefully we can improve from the other night and smash them!

Anyway, we're all finally getting over the jet-lag and everyone is enjoying themselves.

Pozegnanie for now!

Written by Scott

Made It!

After 35 hours of travelling we made it to the hotel at 11 at night barely able to keep our eyes open. We had a much needed sleep and then it was time for our first experience of Polish food. Sausages eggs and a huge variety of cold meats and cheeses with breads – very similar to many other European countries. The was also some not so authentic cereal and yoghurt.

Down to business, it was time to get out in some Polish terrain to see what it was like. We had seen many maps before and seen pictures of the super -fast open forest but we still had to learn more about the tracks, rides, and the green areas. All the maps are really close to Wejherowo so after a short car ride listening to Flight of the Conchords, Nicola Manfriedi and many more on the JWOC CD with some amazing forest flashing by we were at our first training. The terrain here is amazing when coming from New Zealand because there are very few areas with limited runability. In white areas visibility can be up to 300m and the runability is super-fast. Nothing much underfoot to worry about which makes it easy to read the map on the run without tripping on anything. There is also a lot of green on many of the maps representing small trees (less than 2m high) or in some places a different tree that is growing much closer together. In most cases it is best to avoid these areas by using the fast open forest and tracks.

We’ve been having trouble getting the wireless working at the hotel, the reception isn’t good and it only seems to connect if we’re in the bowling alley café (yes our hotel has a bowling alley but the internet doesn’t work…) so hopefully we can get a few more posts up when we get the system working a little better. Watch this space!

Some super fast forest

Our first days training map

And we're online!

Finally, a blog! This is where we will be keeping you all up to date with our adventures in Wejherowo, Poland over the next few weeks. At the moment little has been posted... we are all training too hard to get near a computer... but come back soon for updates!

Peace.