JWOC wrap-up part 1

Well we’re home.

We all had a wonderful time and learnt lots. We know that we wouldn’t have had this opportunity without the help and support of many people.

Thank you to the SAOF for the contribution to our expenses and for the O’suits.

Thanks to our sponsors. We appreciate your support.

A huge thanks to our parents. We appreciate your hard work throughout the year and your continuous support.

Thank you to the orienteering community. We value your support of our tuck shop at every event.

Thank you to Richard and Heidi. You helped make our first JWOC an amazing experience!

A big thanks to Nicholas. It was great to have someone with so much experience on our team.

Keep an eye on the blog for the next few weeks. We’ll put up some unseen photos as well as some other fun posts.

Womens Middle Final

Below is the map from the womens B final. Sarah's route is drawn in red.

Relay

The South African Juniors produced outstanding results in the final race in Italy.

The first leg runners set off in the pouring rain. Brad was in a team with Christoph and Matthias of Germany. Their team got off to a flier, with the first leg runner coming in, in ahead of Germany's 1st team. Matthias ran a decent second leg to set Brad off ahead of Germany's 1st team and with some other fast teams. Brad kept his cool and ran a great time. He was only past by Germany 1 with a km to go. The team came home in 30th place.

Salome and Zoe set off in the rain ten minutes after the men. Salome had a solid run to bring her team in, in just over an hour. Zoe also ran well coming back in a time of 1:07:15. Both the Jessica's were off next. Jess L took over from Salome and was chased down by Jess H, who was having a great run. Jess Lund managed to pull it together towards the end though and set Sarah off ahead of Steph. Sarah had a solid run and was pleased with her time of 58:54. Steph had a great run to bring her team home in 33rd place. Unfortunately Salome, Jess L and Sarah's team was disqualified.

The course was interesting with a very technical first section, two coaching zones / spectator controls and a map swap over. Below is the map with Sarah's course on it:

Once the relay was over there was a Team Leaders Race. Nicholas ran against some tough competition and some sneaky Germans. Not sure exactly how he did, but he looked hardcore running down the finish straight and wasn't too far behind some world champs so we assume it went well.

After some insane swapping of clothes (our O' suits were popular) which left Bradley with nothing South African to wear we headed back to the hotel to have supper and get ready for the closing ceremony and the party.

Middle Final

The SA squad had a great day at San Martino today. The coaches had it easy this morning as all the juniors started within 15 minutes of each other. Steph was off first. She had a decent run and did us proud passing a few guys on the finish straight. Jess H was second to start and Zoe was hot on her heals. Jess L was off next. She had a smooth run to take 34th place.

Next off was Sarah. She saw all the SA girls out in the forest, but remained focused and had a smooth run. She finished in 35:57 and in 22nd place with Salome only 2 seconds behind in 23rd place.

Brad had a good run to finish 22nd in the C final.

Here's a picture of our number one fan:-)

Relay Teams

The teams for the relay on Saturday are as follows:

Team 1:
Zoe
Jess H
Steph

Team 2
Salome
Jess L
Sarah

Brad will be running with 2 German guys. He will run the 3rd leg.

Middle Qualification

The star of the day was Salome. She had a awesome run on course 1, finishing in a time of 37 minutes. Jess H also on course 1 enjoyed her run of 45:18. Sarah's time was 45:49 on course 2 with Jess L not far behind in a time of 47:37. Zoe on course 3 ran a time of 48:04 with Steph taking 58:35 minutes on the same course.

The SA girls made history as all 6 are through to the B final although there are only 6 runners in the C final :-).

Brad ran a time of 47:21 and will run in the C final tomorrow.

Snow!!!

Today was a rest day. We went in two cable cars to the top of Rosetta mountain. We had snowball fights and lots of fun.

Long Final

A dry start to the day turning into a wet stormy afternoon. The 2 fortunate early starters (Zoe and Steph...this didn't stop Steph falling in one of the many rivers in the area) managed to skip the rain. Jess L and Salome got a cold but dry start with the rain catching them at half way. Myself, Sarah and Brad were the very unfortunate lot and had to start in the pouring rain, arriving at the pre-start 5 seconds before needed.

The girls course was 5.7km with 275m climb (which was less than in training, to our delight). All the girls did very well and seemed to enjoy it. Sarah had an awesome run with a time of 1:53:49 (putting her first out of the SA girls...and putting a well deserved smile on her face). The rest followe as so: Jess L - 1:54:14, Zoe - 2:15:59, Jess H - 2:25:52, Salome (not DSQ. She had a prpblem with her sport Ident, but did punch in the reserve block) - 2:56:04 and Steph - 3:10:31.

The mens course was 9.7km with 440m climb (a complete shock to the system for any orienteer). Brad did us proud with an amazing result for his first ever long distance. His time was 2:14:48. He even had a chance to see snow and made a snowball...fortunately for the runner behind he decided not to throw it.

All in all, it was a very good day with great results from everyone. The weather...well that is another story, we are just hoping it clears up a bit for our trip in the cable car tomorrow and for the middle races.

Posted by Jess H

Great Sprint Results

The weather cleared up nicely. It was hot by the time the last people started. The courses were tricky and fast. We team had good results all round with 2 exceptional ones.

Steph had a brillint run getting the fastest time of all the SA girls. She blitzed round in 17:31 and came 82nd. Salome was not far behind in 17:49. Jess Lund ran 18:46. Sarah finished in a time of 19:25. Jess H took 22:27 and Zoe's time was 23:36. Here are some nervous people before the start:

Brad ran a good time of 20:40. He said he made a 2 min mistake.

We'll put up the maps with our routes as soon as we can.

The results are here.

Sprint

This afternoon is the sprint. So far it's been a dull, rainy day. Hopefully it will clear up a bit.

The mens course is 3.1km with 90m of climb and 24 controls. Brad starts at 16:44

The womens course is 2.5km with 85m of climb and 21 controls. Our start times are:
Jess L 15:19
Zoe 15:27
Salome 15:38
Steph 15:48
Jess H 16:29
Sarah 16:49

Training Maps

Here are some of the maps we have been training on.

Sprint Maps:



Middle Maps:

A long map:
Relay map:

Downhill rock training map:

Training

On Wednesday we did some training in an area relevant to the long. We had a rest afternoon which was greatly appreciated. On Thursday we did a sprint in Fiera di Primiero followed by some interesting downhill rocky training in Caltena on a 1:2 500 map. On Friday morning we did a course in an area adjacent to the relay area. We all enjoyed the map.

On Sunday we move to our Hotel.

We've had some awesome games of frisbee and volleyball with the Germans, Canadians and Americans.

We will post maps as soon as we can.