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).

WOC 2007: More of the same but faster

And so we have made it to the final day of WOC 2007, and we start as we began with the sprint. By now the routine is familiar: dodgy breakfast in the Hotel Tourist (porridge, muesli or omelette are the three choices for the "sport" menu, plus tea or coffee if you persist long enough, and milk to put in it if you grab a carton from an adjacent table), a steamy trip in a packed metro, and arrival at a sunny event arena to find Per Forsberg on the commentary gantry getting excited about just about everything as only he can. The men are off first in the sprint, and the Botanic Gardens provide quite a nice setting, even if there does seem to be an awful lot of tape around trying to keep spectators away from places they really would like to go.

For the first time we get to see runners starting, and then there are two spectator controls on the edge of the arena plus a long finishing straight that is to prove decisive as it turns out. Sprint ace Emil Wingstedt starts early after his scare in the qualifier and puts in a good time, but it will not be enough. We then concentrate on the three Brits starting at two minute intervals. They all have excellent runs (GG 12th, Jon 16th, Jamie 18th) and Britain finishes top country based on the finishing position of their third runner. GG gets most attention at the finish as he runs into third position with over half the field already finished. Yet another good day in the sprint for the British.

Sirmais comes in near the end to give a Latvian leader, but is narrowly overtaken by Hubmann and then Johansson. At this point there are seven seconds covering the top five runners. Matthias Merz reproduces his form from the long to open up a massive 19 second gap at the top and there is only one person left on the course. The flying Frenchman appears at the final control and no-one can be sure who will win. Thierry gives it everything to take one second off Merz on the run-in and claim the gold by nine tenths of a second. Pure genius.

The women's race wasn't quite as exciting, but the result was again pretty predictable. Niggli first, Kauppi second, and eight Finns, Norwegians and Swedes in the top 10, joined only by new World Champion Niggli and ex World Champion Allston. Is women's orienteering really that boring and predictable in what should be the discipline most open to other countries?

After everything was over I happened to be in the right place at the right time to buy a sprint race map from an enormous scrum of people, so took the chance to have a jog round some of the men's course. The area was a mixture of formal gardens, buildings and thicker wooded areas with quite a dense path network, all set on quite steep hills. There were some significant route choice options, although it may have been more a case of picking one and doing it well rather than finding a killer route choice. Talking to GG afterwards he said he really wasn't sure about some of the routes he took, but clearly the final result was OK.

As I jogged past the arena at the end I heard an announcement that the WOC Tour prize-giving was about to take place, so Helen and I just managed to get back in time to claim our certificates and cuddly toys for hard-earned second and third places overall. Then it was time for some final sight-seeing on the last afternoon. The nearest attraction was the enormous (over 60 metres) "Iron Lady" statue that dominates the Kiev skyline from the east. We led a group of other orienteers down a path that eventually ended up leading us through a cemetry and past an underground church before emerging on a dirt track through what looked like somebody's garden gate. We later found that everybody else had come down this way as well. The dirt road turned out to be up-market Kiev and was lined with enormous houses complete with CCTV and tinted glass in the large cars parked in each driveway. Finally we got to the bottom of the valley and started the climb up to the status and associated war museum complete with tanks, missiles, guns, boats, helicopters and huge statues of a kind only Eastern Europe ever seems to produce. From there we decided to get a taxi to the other end of town to see the final remaining sights: St Andrew's Church and the road leading down from it lined with people selling all sorts of Ukrainian items ranging from the expected postcards and Russian dolls to the slightly less expected deer skins complete with attached deer heads.

WOC Qualifiers - Hot, hot, hot

So that's the qualifying done, and things can start for real on Wednesday. Kiev is hot, and sitting in the open watching the runners is hotter. Us lucky spectators then get a couple more hours in the hot sun before getting a chance to try out the forests on the WOC Tour races. The long qualifier area was rough and steep, with some significant cliffs and earthbanks to be negotiated. Today's middle qualifier was almost flat, with no more than one or two 2.5m contours needed for any of the features. Visibility was very low, so I have no idea how the mappers could see enough of the area to put in the large number of form lines showing subtle ground detail. Both areas were interesting and quite technical in their own way, but I think everyone is looking forward to some slightly faster running later in the week.

The Brits have had a solid if not spectacular time so far. Most people have made the finals but a few have missed out, mostly quite narrowly. There have certainly been a few surprises, with Moldova and Israel both getting runners to the finals.

For those still pondering on the previous question about the best WOC runner ever, how about a few suggestions. In recent times we clearly have Thierry Guiergiou (three consecutive middle race gold medals, and looking a pretty safe bet this week) and Simone Niggli (10 individual golds and 2 relay golds, including four gold medals at a single WOC twice: there was an entertaining argument today whene Simone was interviewed and corrected Per Forsberg about exactly how many gold medals she already had). Going back a little further Jorgen Martensson (11 long race finals, including two golds and never lower than 15th) or Annichen Kringstad (three long gold, three relay gold, and the second-biggest winning margin in WOC history when she won gold in 1983. A look at the Maprunner WOC ranking list throws up another suggestion. Perhaps I'll go for a definitive answer later in the week.

The Ukraine is turning out to be a game of two halves. Some aspects (hotel rooms with no air conditioning or bath plugs), hotel breakfast (grey omelette: how do they cook it like that?), toilets at events (best not to provide any details), somewhat chaotic transport arrangements) are somewhat behind what you might expect, whilst others (high-tech shopping centre with free wi-fi access) are as good as anywhere you'd find. Tomorrow it's the opening ceremony and a chance to see the centre of Kiev for real. Then the action really starts with the middle final on Wednesday.

A Great WOC, That's For Sure

Is this the real star of WOC2006? The photo shows Per Forsberg, chief speaker for WOC 2006, and apparently a well-known TV commentator on football and athletics in Sweden. Many of you will already be familiar with his fast, loud and enthusiastic commentary, and will also recognise his many catch phrases, especially "he's too late" and "that's for sure". For those who have never heard him, think Jonathan Pearce with a slight Swedish accent.

Per kept up what seemed like a continuous stream of well-informed commentary throughout the whole of WOC. He was clearly supported by an extensive array of radio control times, TV cameras and real-time tracking information from TracTrac, as well as a team of helpers who were picking out the real action. The spectators got only part of this information, with limited viewing of the tracking information. The big screen was the biggest I've ever seen, and was used well to present a mix of split times, finish times and shots from the forest. From what I can tell it would appear that people watching via the internet probably had more information available, since they could access everything Per had. So in some ways this was the first year when watching from home really seems to have been a valid option.

So what did you get from being there? I guess it's the same question for any sporting event. There was a real sense of atmosphere at every race, with an awful lot noise (especially from Swiss cow bells) and huge numbers of flags, especially Swiss, British, Finnish and Swedish. The race arenas themselves were in fact marginally too small for the numbers that turned up, and the main spectating areas were very hard to move through at the Middle and Relay races because there were simply too many people crammed in. Apparently the Sprint race could have used an athletics stadium for the finish, but the organisers were worried that this was too big and would have looked empty. There were excellent facilities at each race, with huge tents supplying food and drink, plus an ice cream van and beer van each day, and the weather overall was warm and sunny, with just an occasional thunderstorm. And of course you have to be there spectating in order to be able to run in the forest afterwards to find how hard it really was.

There were also several points where the reaction of the crowd really added to the suspense. Remember that an orienteering crowd is extremely knowledgeable about what is going on, and has a pretty good idea of who should be doing what and when. The things that caused the biggest gasps or cheers throughout the week were:

• Simon Niggli punching the spectator control 6 seconds down on Hanny Alston. That was the point when the crowd worked out there was a real prospect of a huge upset.
• The tracking display of the long leg on the Men's Long Final, showing runners taking very different route choices. The biggest shock was when Jani Lakanen appeared to stop dead, but we then worked out that this was because we had caught up to real time and he was still doing the leg.
• David Andersson of Sweden punching the spectator control at the Middle Final and then running the wrong way along the tapes and starting the last loop backwards. I'm surprised that the gasps from the crowd weren't enough to tell him something was wrong.
• The many mistakes that showed up on the tracking for the Middle Race and Relay, where what we all thought were the world's best orienteers proved that they were human too. Particularly for the Relay it seemed that nearly everyone had a go at making a serious mistake when in or near the lead.

And finally a thought that no-one else seems to have picked up on yet. The Middle Race was originally meant to be include a Micro O section to add spectator interest. Luckily, in my opinion, the WOC organisers failed to get the financial support to do this. What we saw was a fantastic, and spectator-friendly, Middle Race with no need for gimmicks or compromise. Let's stick with proper orienteering for the World Championships, and let the races speak for themselves.

WOC-13: We interrupt this broadcast...

There I was all set to tell you about the delights of WOC 87 in France when various other things came up which seemed more interesting in the short term.

Firstly I have just had an email from Nick Barrable, the CompassSport editor, asking me to do an article for CompassSport about the spectator point of view. Not a problem, but what interests me is how he spotted that this blog had started, since I haven't publicised it at all yet. Better email him to find out.

Secondly this is a chance for some first thoughts on what might happen in Denmark in two weeks time. The sprint test race in Arhus has just finished, so we now know a bit about the technology that internet spectators can expect, as well as a bit about who is in form. The coverage included a fixed video stream of a camera showing the finish line, with commentary by that well-known Dane Clive Allen. Clive is not the most animated of commentators (certainly not in comparison with Per Forsberg who will presumably be doing WOC itself) but he clearly had a reasonable supply of information available, even if it didn't include the name of the mysterious New Zealander who kept getting mentioned. The real-time results seemed a bit hit and miss, and need a bit of work. The presentation of information itself is good, but results seemed be missing or not working for a long time. At one point I'm sure they had runners shown against the wrong courses, and the M21 results still aren't complete. Anyway, you can see what's on offer at http://live.woc2006.dk/ which will have coverage tomorrow (middle) and Monday (long).

Weather in Denmark looks pretty much like it is here in St Albans at the moment. Unbroken sunshine, with temperatures in the mid 20s. We're camping for the WOC week, so I guess it will be raining by then. The main point of interest on the video was the park road that finishers crossed about 10 metres from the finish line. I assume there was someone controlling the traffic just out of sight, but several times a car shot past just before or after a runner. I also spotted several runners going for the "extended map" technique to cross the finish beam that extra few milliseconds earlier. Does this really save more than you lose by having to slow down to throw your arm forward in the first place?

Least surprising result of the day was clearly Simon Niggli's win, but a margin of 53 seconds over Mina Kauppi is enormous, even if the Finn was on a slightly different course. There was good news for GB, with Sarah Rollins, Pippa Whitehouse and Graham Gristwood all having good runs. David Brickhill-Jones was announced just ahead of GG, but then the commentary said he'd been disqualified. Still no information on the results web site on this, so we'll have to wait and see if BJ has recovered after his JK injury. Final concern for the organising team will be that the men were at least a minute slower than expected: time for the planner to lose 200m from the WOC final?

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get on to what happened when I went to my first ever WOC as a spectator.