Gallia est omnis divisa in tres partes

To get in the mood for something that might make an appearance tomorrow, we start with a Latin quote. “All Gaul is divided into three parts” according to Julius Caesar ('De Bello Gallico', Part 1, but wasn't Part 2 much better?) Wilson Hinkley, a geologist, noted that these were igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. But for our purposes, we are more interested in the three parts that WOC countries can be divided into when you look at the overall WOC medal table. (I realise this analysis struggles to cope with the break-up of countries since the late 1980s, but I think it is still a reasonable way of looking at things).

The first part consist of four countries, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Finland, who between them have won 480 WOC medals (158 gold, 167 silver and 155 bronze). They expect to win medals (note the plural) at pretty much every WOC, and when they don't there are questions asked.

The second part consists of five countries; Russia, Czech Republic, France, Denmark and, to be a little generous, Great Britain. These countries have won 115 WOC medals (41 gold, 34 silver and 40 bronze). They pick up a steady stream of medals, but it is still reasonable cause for celebration when it happens.

The third part consists of the remaining eight countries: Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia, Austria, Soviet Union, Australia, Belorussia, Germany and Italy. These countries have won 23 WOC medals (7 gold, 5 silver and 11 bronze). In many cases they are down to a single athlete putting it all together when it counts (such as Hanny Alston for Australia and Lucie Böhm for Austria). When these medals arrive it is party time for real.

What does this tell us about WOC 2017? The same four countries will take most of the medals. It will be a surprise, but not much of one, if GB can grab a medal. And we might see some new teams make it into the third part.There are two obvious candidates. First could be Belgium, with Yannick Michiels in the Sprint race. Secondly I’d go for Canada, where EmilyKemp continues to put in impressive performances and has been close before. After that who knows, but maybe an Estonian on home soil could do something special. But remember I spent a long time predicting that China would become a force to reckon with, and it hasn't really turned out that way.

So for the GB supporter you are left hoping we can reinforce our standing in the second tier of the table, but knowing that medals at World Championships are hard to get. If you look at the British medals to date there are some that we always knew would happen (Yvette and Jamie), some that we hoped would happen (Heather finally getting there in Japan, and Scott) and some that were a bit of a surprise (in which category I would put all three Men’s relay medals). This week I'd say there are two clear chances for a GB medal: Kris Jones in the Men's Sprint (if has recovered from recent injury), and the Mixed Sprint Relay team. Unfortunately the competition in both these races is very strong, lots of other countries think they will be taking the medals, and top six on the day could still be an excellent result. Of the other outside possibilities I'd go for the Men's Relay, after two years of being fourth.

Later in the week I'll look at how to work out how well we are doing even if we don't win any medals. The easy starting point is to see all runners qualify for the final. Job done in the Sprint. But for now, let the games begin.

Another Full Set

How many runners have claimed a WOC medal in all four disciplines, counting Short and Middle as equivalent for these purposes? Remember Sprint only started in 2001 so many people never had a chance.

A quick think about it brings up the obvious candidate: Simone Niggli. After that I was struggling, but some analysis showed that Minna Kauppi has also got one of each. And then at yesterday's Middle race a third person joined the elite group when Vroni Koenig-Salmi claimed silver and completed a full set of Sprint, Middle, Long and Relay medals. The photo shows her on the way to Gold in the Sprint in 2001 in Finland.It also shows what may be the least attractive control site in WOC history: Tampere Greyhound Stadium toilet block, NW corner.

So who else could join this group in the near future. Looking just at runners at the 2008 WOC with three types of medal already we find people missing teh following types of medal:

• Sprint: Heli Jukkola, Marianne Andersen
• Middle: Andrey Khramov, Emil Wingstedt , Matthias Merz
• Relay: Yuri Omelchenko
• Long: Jamie Stevenson, Pasi Ikonen, Thierry Gueorgiou

The Sprint and Middle are over, so those five have missed out. I can't see the Ukraine sneaking a relay medal so it surely won't be Yuri. Pasi and Thierry aren't running the Long so it won't be them. But it just could be Jamie. One extra thing to cheer him on for on Saturday.

(Just for completeness, Valentin Novikov would have needed a Long and Sprint medal.)

And one final statistical excitement from yesterday. The men's race was only the third race in WOC history that Norway, Finland and Sweden all failed to win a medal. Unfortunately for me this was the first time it had happened when Great Britain didn't claim the associated gold medal.

Looking for a Level Playing Field

I'm fascinated by the question of which countries do best in which races. I guess this is partly driven by the British love of the underdog, so any "unexpected" success is to be applauded. Come on China (as long as you don't beat the GBR runners).

So it's time to look at the numbers. Take all individual WOC finals since 2001 (when the Sprint race was introduced). Allocate 50 points to the winner, 49 for second and so on for all finishers. Add up the scores for each country. Then to allow for the fact that I have included the 2008 Sprint race result already, normalise by looking at percentage of the total number of points scored. What do you get and what does it mean?

What you get is the table at the bottom of this post. What it means is much more open to question but let me offer some thoughts. Little if any of this is statistically significant, but it's fun anyway.

1) The totals column shows that world orienteering falls neatly into four groups.

• At the top we have the big four: Switzerland, Sweden, Finland and Norway. They are in fact remarkably evenly balanced on the calculations used here.
• Then we have a group of eight countries with consistent solid results: Russia, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Denmark, France, Lithuania and Australia. Russia are probably making the move towards the big time, but I'd need time to do some moving average calculations to back this up. Lithuania and Australia are possibly surprise nations at this level.
• The third group consists of Estonia, Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Bulgaria, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Romania, Spain and New Zealand.
• And then there is a fourth group of everyone else, none of whom are even yet close to making the move up to the third division.

2) Looking at the Sprint race column:

• Finland, Norway, Russia, Estonia seem to do worse in Sprint races than their overall performance. Norwegian and Finnish results appear very bad indeed in comparison with the other two disciplines.
• Great Britain, Austria and possibly Japan, the United State, China, Croatia and South Africa seem to do better in Sprint races than their overall performance

3) Looking at the Middle race column:

• Great Britain, Denmark, Bulgaria, Hungary and Belgium seem to do worse in Middle races than their overall performance.
• Finland, France (the Thierry factor), Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and the Netherlands seem to do better in Middle races than their overall performance

4) Looking at the Long race column:

• France, Lithiuania, Australia, Poland and Japan seem to do worse in Long races than their overall performance.
• Norway, Russia, Estonia and Germany seem to do better in Long races than their overall performance.

5) Switzerland and Sweden are notably consistent across all disciplines.

6) A final note of hope for the smaller nations: the only appearances of a "big four" nation in the "worse than normal" list are Finland and Norway in the Sprint race. This is the discipline where you probably have the best chance of success, whatever that means.

It's the Middle race tomorrow. Watch out for Finland, France, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus and the Netherlands I reckon.

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.

WOC 2007: Some follow-up questions

Today's question: Who is the most successful orienteer in World Championships history? It's clearly open to debate but later in the week I'll suggest some ideas once you've had a chance to think about it.

Now for the answers to yesterday’s questions.

1) Which are the only two WOC races where Sweden, Norway and Finland all failed to win a medal? And which country won gold in both these races?

The first occurrence was the unforgettable gold medal for Yvette Baker at the Short Race at WOC 1999 in Scotland. She was followed home by Lucie Bohm (Austria) and Frauke Schmitt Gran (Germany). The second occurrence clearly needs a British gold again so must be the Sprint Race at WOC 2003 in Switzerland. Second was Rudolf Ropek (Czech Republic) and third was Thierry Gueorgiou (France). Remarkably the leading Scandiwegian (SWE-NOR-FIN for those not in the know) was no higher than 9th.

(Having just checked Google it shows only 649 occurrences of Scandiwegian. That is just about to go up.)

2) Name every country that has ever won a medal at WOC.

The full medal table is here. It breaks down into three major groups. First there are the big five: Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic. Then come the a group of countries with regular medals but not in such large numbers: this covers Great Britain, Denmark, Russia/Soviet Union, Hungary and France. Between them this top 10 have won every WOC relay medal ever. And finally there are a few outstanding individuals who have picked up a small number of medals for the Ukraine (Yuri Omelthcenko), Austria (Lucie Bohm), Germany (Frauke Schmitt Gran) and Australia (Hanny Allston).

3) Which country has won a women's relay medal at every WOC?

Sweden. Probably an easy one to guess but still an astonishing run, or streak as the Americans would have it. I'll leave you to ponder on the concept of the Swedish women's relay team streaking.

4) Which of the previous three questions will have new answers after WOC 2007?
Time for some inspired guesswork hiding as detailed analysis. Men's middle and men's sprint look outside candidates for no SWE-NOR-FIN. Even the men's relay could go that way: what about three from Russia, Switzerland, France, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Great Britain grabbing the medals. Difficult to see any new medal countries, but if one does appear it will surely be Eastern European. I suppose Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania or Slovakia could sneak in. Or what about a surprise Italian medal. I don't even know if Mamleev is fit and in the team. Will the Swedes sneak a women's relay medal? Switzerland and Finland look real threats, so could Russia, Norway, the Czech Republic or even Australia help to break the sequence? History of course says no.

Latest news from Kiev is that the heat-wave has arrived, with temperatures expected to be in the 30s. At least that will make a change from Scotland last week.

WOC 2007: Your starter for 10

1) Which are the only two WOC races where Sweden, Norway and Finland all failed to win a medal? And which country won gold in both these races?

2) Name every country that has ever won a medal at WOC.

3) Which country has won a women's relay medal at every WOC?

4) Which of the previous three questions will have new answers after WOC 2007?

Answers to the first three questions will come in a post later this week. You might want to look around the Maprunner WOC Database to confirm if your guesses are right before then.

The answer to the fourth question will take a little longer...

Having completely failed to write anything interesting about the JK, various British Championships, FROLICS, and a whole host of other races it is suddenly WOC time again. Helen has decided that a week in the Ukraine will be fun so we will set of on Saturday for yet another week of hard spectating and sightseeing. Kiev promises to be a bit more exotic than some of the other WOC locations, but having already survived two separate trips to Russia and a week at WOC 1991 in Czechoslovakia we at least have a vague idea what to expect.

Watch this space for reports throughout the week (assuming I can get internet access) and a few more WOC questions and answers as well.

A Few Quick Facts...

Who is the only British orienteer to have been British M or W21 Champion at Long, Middle, Sprint and Night distances and also won the JK?

This is the sort of question that fascinates some people (like me) but until recently would have been incredibly difficult to confirm. But a debate on Nopesport somehow ended up providing lots of interesting facts, and I found a few spare moments to put everything in one place. So now there is one place where you can find a list of winners for all major British orienteering events, (at least for M and W21). There's clearly a lot more that could be added, but I reckon this is a pretty good start.

And the answer to the original question is of course Heather Monro, seen in action at the World Cup at Battersea Park in May 2005. I'll make the questions harder next time.

And finally... As winter at last begins to appear in the south of England I'm off to sample the delights of Hong Kong at the Asia Pacific Orienteering Championships over Christmas. Look out for event reports in the near future.

WOC Database Updated

I've now managed to get all of the WOC relay results in to the Maprunner WOC Database. The individual runners from each team are still missing, but all the team results are there. There has been quite a lot of interest from around the world, so I'll keep adding things when I have time.

A few interesting things I spotted whilst getting the relay result queries to work:

- Great Britain had their worst-ever relay results for both Men and Women in Denmark 2006.

- No Swedish relay team has ever finished lower than 4th (discounting disqualifications in 1997 and 2001), and they have won 41 medals out of a possible 46: truly staggering. At least I assume the Swedish men were disqualified in 2001 in Finland, since they don't appear at all on the results list on the IOF web site.

- Five countries have won 128 relay medals between them. That's over 92% of the possible medals. Five further countries have won the remaining 10 medals.(Try naming these 10 countries before looking up the answer here.)

Running to catch up

After a period of silence it's time to try to catch up. There have been all sorts of things I have been meaning to write about, but just never seemed to get round to. The moral is to do it little and often, rather than trying to write carefully crafted pieces as you would elsewhere. Let's see what you missed:

• The World Rowing Championships, which were held at Dorney Lake near Eton. We went along to one of the qualifying days just to get a feel for what the World Championships of another sport are like. Lots of similarities, lots of differences, but it must be said that orienteering came out OK by comparison with what is meant to be a much higher-profile Olympic sport, and one which clearly has a lot more money involved. WOC 2006 definitely had a bigger screen than them!
• The World University Orienteering Championships. GB showed yet again that they have potential, even if not quite in the expected places. The men had an average week, but the women got it all together and won the relay. Again.
• The BOF Major Events Conference. I was drafted in at a late stage to present the planning sessions, and spent an enjoyable weekend in Slimbridge with the key officials from BOC, BRC, JK and National Events in 2007 and 2008. This reconfirmed the dedication of people to putting on high-quality events, but also reinforced that we still aren't finding enough new people to take on major roles. I was the youngest person there. We even managed to get a few more things sorted out about JK 2008, which will be in the south east.
• The WOC database that I have now got to a stage where it is producing quite interesting results. More coming soon about that one...

WOC Results and Statistics

I've commented previously that it turned out to be very hard to find a good source of results for WOC. I'm looking at setting something up to allow a bit of research into how results have changed over the years and produce some statistics. Watch this space. Whilst doing this I have finally found a fantastic site with everything I needed. This is maintained by Bryan Teahan on behalf of the New Zealand Orienteering Federation.

And as a taste of what might be coming, how about this table. It is a full list of all GB runners who have reached the top 10 at the World Championships. Congratulations to Graham Gristwood and Helen Bridle who put themselves on the list in Denmark this year.

Pos	Name	% behind	Race	Year	Country
1	Jamie Stevenson	0.00%	Sprint	2003	Switzerland
1	Yvette Baker	0.00%	Short	1999	Scotland
2	Yvette Hague	4.30%	Long	1995	Germany
2	Yvette Hague	1.20%	Short	1995	Germany
3	Heather Monro	7.00%	Sprint	2005	Japan
3	Jamie Stevenson	0.50%	Middle	2006	Denmark
3	Yvette Hague	5.90%	Long	1993	United States
4	Steve Hale	3.90%	Short	1993	United States
4	Yvette Baker	1.60%	Long	1999	Scotland
5	Jamie Stevenson	3.40%	Sprint	2001	Finland
6	Helen Bridle	7.60%	Sprint	2006	Denmark
7	Carol McNeill	7.60%	Long	1979	Finland
8	Heather Monro	4.40%	Long	1999	Scotland
8	Jamie Stevenson	4.90%	Long	2004	Sweden
8	Steven Hale	4.70%	Short	1999	Scotland
8	Yvette Hague	7.30%	Long	1997	Norway
9	Graham Gristwood	4.50%	Sprint	2006	Denmark
9	Heather Monro	10.00%	Middle	2004	Sweden
9	Sarah Rollins	10.10%	Sprint	2003	Switzerland
9	Yvette Hague	9.10%	Short	1993	United States
10	Heather Monro	15.50%	Middle	2003	Switzerland