WOC 2017 Long Race

Monday was a rest day. It rained. A lot. I eventually managed a trip to the supermarket to stock up, but other than that we stayed in most of the day and did important press and website things. But by early evening it had brightened up and we set off to the Medal Ceremony for the sprint races. The band was no match for C-Jam, so we did a loop up the hill and round the University again to take a few photos, and look at the grassy bank from above. Yes, it is still very steep.

A rather better crowd turned up than for the opening ceremony, and it felt like something was really happening. The GB sprint relay team managed to make it onto the stage to receive their certificates for 6^th place, and the resulting tweet is our most popular yet, even if the picture does show up as four pairs of legs on most phones. I was slightly surprised by the choice of prizes for a World Championships when Per announced that the buckets would be presented by some local dignitary, but these disappointingly turned out to be bouquets. So that was the rest day done: now for some real exertion.

Tuesday and it’s the Long race day, which is always a long race day if you see what I mean. Up at 6.45, left the apartment slightly too late at 7.10 and ended up running to catch the bus. The WOC bus left 10 minutes late today. The journey to the Long race area was filled with an Estonian orienteer providing running commentary of things we passed (Tartu airport, storks, NATO convoy, more storks, ex-Soviet ballistic missile site, nice runnable area of pine forest nothing like we would be running in today) and 75 minutes later we arrived in a field with a large stork’s nest in it, or at least a 30 metre high observation tower designed to look like a stork’s nest.

Of course the first thing to do was climb the tower to get a view of the area. Forests and lakes as far as you can see. We then made for the press tent just in time for the press briefing and map hand-out. The map is huge, and the courses have several very long legs with significant route choice. They also have an arena run-through followed by two orange standard controls before the finish. Not what I would have planned.

But before the OC runners start coming it is our turn to see what the forest is like. The spectator race is in an area that adjoins the WOC map. The most noticeable thing walking to the start is the paths that they have had to cut through the open areas (!) to get the children’s courses through. I set off and take brave straight route to control 1. Thick and bushy with low visibility, muddy, lots of marshes which look more like lakes, lots of fallen trees, open areas full of thick vegetation, felled areas filled with raspberry bushes: pretty much just as expected. Control 1 goes OK, control 2 is a disaster caused by forgetting what a compass is, control 3 includes a small detour to the wrong corner of an open area, but after that things improve. 75 minutes for 6.5 km isn’t great but it could be worse. James struggles a bit, and is just over 2 hours for 9.3 km.

Then it’s a solid four hours of photography, trying desperately to get shots of all the GB athletes. This just about goes OK, even if nearly every photo shows them looking exhausted, since they’ve just run up a 25m hill to get to the arena for the run-through, or up the same 25m hill to get to the finish. British results are as they so often are: not bad but difficult to get excited about. Ralph loses time on the long leg to control 2 but then has a good run from there to end up 18^th. Holly seems unhappy at the finish but ends up 16^th. Jess is much happier with her run to be 17^th. Tove Alexandersson and Olav Lundanes retain their titles. The long day ends with a long bus journey home,  and we get back 12 hours after leaving. All that remains is to sort and post the pictures, write the BOF report and even have something to eat. And so to bed, but not for long because we’re going back to the same place tomorrow to run on the WOC map itself.

Estonia added to the list

Peter Hodkinson finishing in 13th place

Day 2, and the first day of the Estonian O Week, closely followed by the WOC Sprint Final. But first it was a trip to the WOC Event Centre to pick up our media passes, and to the supermarket so we had enough food to give us a chance of getting through the first few days. There was the usual fun of trying to work out exactly what we were buying, and what colour milk you needed (or indeed, what was milk at all), but so far the only mistake seems to have been buying tinned sweetcorn and finding the apartment doesn't have a tin opener.

The Spectator Race was based at the Tartu Song Festival Grounds, with the start and finish in an enormous concrete amphitheatre. The area was a mixture of ornamental parks, lakes, buildings, scattered woodland, a BMX track, a frisbee golf course and what felt like a skating rink to run on, but was in fact just the walkways around the main stadium. My 2.8km course had 26 controls which meant things happened quite fast. This was enough to cause a few map reading problems, especially given the amount of mapped detail that was less than obvious on the ground. But after 18 minutes and 56 seconds I had skated my way to the end of the run-in and added Estonia to the list of countries that I have orienteered in.

It was then a 20 minute walk back into the centre of town to arrive just in time for the start of the Women's sprint race. Ed Nicholas made a brief appearance, said hello and then dashed off to do important stuff. A lap of the Town Square finally located the Media Centre, and we managed to grab a start list and maps before heading out to try to get photos of all the British runners. This went OK for Alice and Jo (did these the easy way, as they left the start) but we then decided to head out into the area to get some action photos. We found a suitable control, and I worked out the best camera angle. Runner 36 came past: Megan is 38 so will be here in about two minutes. Three minutes passed and runner 39 arrived. It turns out that runners 37 and the camera-shy 38 had taken a different route choice. We quickly headed down the hill to get her on the second loop. As we set up in front of the TV control by the main University building we saw runner 36 followed by 37. And then my camera battery decided to die just as Megan came into view. I just managed to get back to the Media Centre, find my spare battery and rush out onto the balcony overlooking the run-in as she appeared round the corner to punch the last control. The photo made it to the BOF website, even if it is a bit of an awkward angle, but very few people will know the tension involved in getting it.

So then it was the men's turn. I thought I had learnt my lesson, so I got Peter as he started. Just need a photo of Chris now. Let's go for a shot of him running up the hill. Oh look, there's a good camera angle from behind the fountain and flags. Indeed there is, but if you get there 10 seconds after the runner has gone through then the resulting photo lacks a little something. I decided I couldn't muck around any longer, so stationed myself by the last control. This turned out to be a good spot, and I got some great photos of Peter finishing. Oh, and one of Chris as well.

Then it was another quick lap around the hill to see a few of the later runners on the last loop, and finally back to the Town Square to get a picture of a Finnish flag with Daniel Hubmann's legs coming out the bottom of it as he sprinted down the run-in to victory. This press thing is not turning out to be as easy as I'd hoped. But things improved when we finally tracked down some British team members, and I spent fifteen minutes interviewing Peter, Chris and Megan. They had all clearly had a fantastic time and were more than happy to tell people about it. Spirits are high in the GB camp, and tomorrow could be a good day. Mind you, it's almost tomorrow already, given how long it has taken to write various articles for various websites and sort through nearly 300 photos, some of which even show GB runners. And I even managed to set up Routegadget for the HH Saturday series that was taking place in Highfield Park at the same time that we were running in the Spectator Race.

That list in full for those desperate to know, in order of appearance: England, Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, South Africa, Swaziland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, Netherlands, France, Northern Ireland, Canada, USA, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Russia, Finland, China, Hong Kong, Australia, Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Iceland, Estonia

I also get half a point for Portugal, where I did the IOF Event Advisor Course, but never managed to run an event.

WOC and roll

C-JAM putting the WOC in rock and roll

I consider myself something of a connoisseur of WOC opening ceremonies, even if I need to look up the spelling before committing it to keypad. I particularly remember some corner of a far-flung Norwegian hillside that was forever and forever and forever Norway. That and the sky-diver at WOC 1999 in Scotland.

What we have just had in Estonia is going to be right up there with the most memorable. The large town square seemed almost devoid of people, even some minutes past the official starting time. After we'd been there about 20 minutes our recycled GB flag on a stick from WOC in Scotland 2015 was in third place in the "biggest flag in the crowd" category behind the Swiss and Swedes, mainly because these were the only three flags that I could see. Gradually more people drifted in, and then a distant thumping sound signified something might be about to happen, The thumping sound grew gradually larger until a lorry appeared in the far distance with two extremely large speakers on it blaring out some random Estonian tune of the moment, and a long trail of flags and orienteers behind it.

And then something happened to confirm this really was WOC. Per Forsberg bounced onto the stage and started announcing the teams as they made it into the square. Ever the professional, not once did he succumb to the temptation of querying the delay in proceedings with a trademark "I think he's too late". The parade was somewhat underwhelming. As ever the number of athletes was quite small, since people don't want to stand around all night when they have races to run. But at least we could watch as teams like Cyprus, Chile, Egypt and North Korea marched past. The teams formed up around the fountain at the top of the square with Tartu Town Hall in the background, and the assembled crowd (which by now just about deserved that term) formed around them.

After that we had the normal sorts of speeches (although commendably short) from IOF President
Leho Haldna, who turns out to be from Tartu, and then impressively from Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid. She managed to drop in various interesting facts about Estonia, including the surprisingly low population of just over a million.

So very quickly we had talked the talk and raised the flag and we were on to the entertainment. Which turned out to be a cello quartet called C-Jam. Who played cover versions of rock songs. Starting with "Highway to Hell" by ACDC. Followed by "Whatever You Want" by Status Quo. And finishing with the age-old string quartet crowd-pleaser "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. Watched by the North Korean orienteering team. In a town square in the middle of Estonia. Next they'll be telling you that Donald Trump is President of America.

Top that Latvia (WOC 2018 if you hadn't heard). All that remained was for the teams that had made it to take various team photographs and then it was off home to recover in time for tomorrow's sprint races (one for us mortals, one for the superstars).

As I Was Saying

Mystery OOM Map Extract

So, parkrun. Any future in it? Five years ago I tried it for the first time. Since then it has grown and grown, and my personal tally now stands at 32 races and I'm wondering how long it will take me to get to 50. We are spoilt for choice around here, and Verulamium has been joined by Ellenbrook Fields, Panshanger Park, Cassiobury, Gadebridge and Fairlands Valley, all within 20 kilometres of St Albans (and all mapped Hertfordshire Orientering Club areas as well). Still a simple concept, brilliantly executed.

Meanwhile back at orienteering, another of the things I wrote about was OpenOrienteeringMap. This is still going strong as well, and has a solid user base in this country, and the unbelievable ability to generate an orienteering map of just about anywhere in the world. A small prize if anyone finds me and can say where the map extract is from. Anyway, Hertfordshire Orienteering Club now have a Tuesday night series of 45 minute score events throughout the summer, most of which use OOM. You can see examples on HH Routegadget site, like this race in St Albans, and this one in Hertford. Numbers at these Tuesday night events are gradually moving up, and what started with 10 as a good turnout now sees 20 or more most evenings. What's even more encouraging is that quite a lot of these are complete newcomers to the sport.

And that has conveniently dragged Routegadget into the conversation. Back in 2013 I was somehow talked into trying to implement a Javascript version of what was originally a Java application. (Nerd humour alert: Java is to Javascript as Ham is to Hamster. Or Car is to Carpet. Or various other versions I'm sure.) Routegadget needs a few pages of its own, so we'll leave it there for now.

But now we must return to where this blog started: the World Orienteering Championships. This year WOC is in Estonia.  I've never orienteered in Estonia. James fancied going somewhere to fill up the long summer holiday. And so we're off to Estonia on Friday to follow the GB team, and sample the delights of some maps that have quite a lot of brown (with some interesting contour detail) but possibly more green and blue than is ideal. Time to get back into spectator-geek mode. Watch this space.