Monday, July 17, 2006

WOC-11: Sweden, the home of orienteering

I still don't know why I decided to go to WOC 89 in Sweden. Clearly I had some holiday to use up, since I'd certainly been to the Scottish 6-Day a few weeks before. Whatever the reason for going, I remember little of what was certainly the least impressive World Championships I have attended. The weather was unspectacular, the British results were unspectacular, the areas were fairly boring considering what Sweden has to offer, and I spent a week camping next to a Volvo factory. The highlight may well have been the start draw that I attended and that had to be redone after some minor technical problem came to light. And I had a good night out in Liseberg, the amusement park in Gothenburg, on the way home.

Hale and Hague led the way for GB, but again it was solid top 20 results rather than anything more to celebrate. Looking at the results now I guess that four Brits in the top 33 on the men's course was quite a good performance, but it's a bit difficult to cheer results like that. The good news is that this was the last WOC with only one individual race, so from now on there would at least be more chance of medals. Or so we hoped.

Today's news from Denmark is that Jamie Stevenson seems to have won the Danish long selection race. Seems a bit odd, but that is what the results show. Good for his confidence if nothing else, but Jani Lakanen was nearly 5 minutes faster in the Finnish selection race so who knows what is really going on.

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