Relay

We joined up with a Belgian named Gilles for the relay. He had been getting similar results to us, so it seemed to be a good match.
Here is part of the mass start. Dylan is in there, near the front!

Dylan started for us. He had a solid run, coming home in 1h11. Gilles produced a good performance, with a time of 1h08. Alex had some big wobbles, but managed to get around in 1h16. After Gilles' run, we were about 37th. Alex came home in 39th. He managed to outsprint the Irish team on the run in.

We'll put up the map when we get home.

Long Day Out

Today was the long distance final. The men’s course was 10.2km with 400m of climb. We were expecting a tough map with big contour features and few paths. Alex saw a thermometer at the start at 12:30 reading 30 degrees.

Dylan had the better result. He finished in 1:47:39 in 119th place. He limited his mistakes to ‘medium sized’ ones. Soren Bobach, who started 4 minutes behind, passed him on the way to #3. Soren finished 7th in 1:15:15. Johan Runneson won another race, bringing his tally up to 2 golds and 1 silver! Dylan’s route is below.
Alex had a steady result. He finished in 1:51:05 in 126th place. He made a mistake on #3 and messed up the route choice to #7. On his route below, you can see him exiting #6 and then spotting the route on the road. He decided it would still be quicker to take the road. Soran caught Alex at #7 – the beginning of the butterfly. Soran started 16 minutes behind Alex.

The splits are here

Tomorrow we are running the relay with a Belgian Orienteer. He has been getting similar results to the us.

This is a picture of Soren punching the last control. An Eastern European runner (?) is falling over in his wake. Peter was too busy taking pictures of the 'scenery' to get any of us.

Rest day before the long

We had a day with no running or orienteering. We spent the morning walking around the center of Gothenburg. The afternoon was spent studying the old version of tomorrows map and relaxing.

We have both chosen middle start times. We will start between 11:00 and 13:00.

Hot day, not so hot from the South Africans

It was hot and sunny today in Gothenburg. We had the same start venue as yesterday, but used a more technical western part of the map. Here is Dylan sprinting into the finish.
After a decent run from Alex yesterday, he was the 6th starter in the B final. Unfortunately he didn’t click and had two big mistakes. The rest of the controls would be classified minor mistakes. There was more fine contour detail today. He finished in 49:38 in 57th (and last - boo) place. Another one of those learning experiences. A South African finally got a mention by the commentators: “And here we have Pope, Alex Pope, in a time of ... um ... oh ... um ... 49 minutes.” We think the high speed finish had him thinking it was going to be a competitive time.

Dylan ran the C final and also had ‘below par’ run. He finished in 38:10 and in 41st. He had one big mistake and thinks he had a total of 10 minutes of mistakes.

Anyway, Swede Johan Runesson, the men’s silver medallist from the Sprint distance became the Middle Distance World Champion. Venla Niemi of Sweden won the ladies A final.

Now we have a rest day before the Long Distance race. We're expecting a hot and tough race.

Good luck to the WOC team who are leaving for Czech Republic soon. Look out for their blog...

Middle Qualification

The three middle distance qualification races were held at Änggårdsbergen. Alex ran in heat A and finished the 3.9km course in 37:36 and 38th place. The top 20 from each heat go into the A final, the following 20 into the B final and the remaining 20 into the C final. Alex just made the B final, which he is very happy about. He had a decent run, with no major mistakes. His route is below. He says that although he didn't mess up too much it is a bit disconcerting when the Scandinavian girls run faster through the forest.

Dylan ran in heat B. He finished in 44:56 in 48th place. He will be in the C final tomorrow. He says he had a bad day, with plenty of mistakes. His course and route is below.

Here is a picture of our Swedish Taxi Driver friend Karl (as requested from SA). He is coordinating the photos and videos for the host club. The video we watched last night will be on Youtube soon.

The B and C finals start at 12:00 tomorrow and the A final is later in the afternoon.

Apparently the live commentary and results worked well today. The splits are already on Winsplits

Middle Model

Today we went back to Hisingsparken, where we ran the Swedish JWOC qualifier about a week ago. We found the area better than last time, although the amount of rock and contour detail on top of the hills is still very difficult.
We’re expecting a less rocky and less detailed map tomorrow. The three qualifying heats are 4km long with 220m of climb. We’re expecting some big hills and cliffs. Alex is starting 10:30 and Dylan is starting at 10:56.

Here is a picture of the hillside from today.

The Sprint Race

We both had clean runs in the sprint and reasonable results. The winner was still close to 4 minutes ahead!

Dylan finished the 2.8km course in 16:48.3 to put him in 121st place. He made a few route choice errors, but with nothing too costly. He ran past #10 and thinks he lost about 40 sec. His route is drawn on this map:
Alex finished in 17:14.7 to put him in 130th place. He is happy with most of the route choices. He rushed #15 and lost about 30 sec. The Swede who finished 2nd came cruising past at #7, so he lost a minute over the first 7 and then about 3 minutes in the last 9 controls. His route is drawn here:

The splits are on winsplits and there are some photos here

Here we are warming up before race:

The opening ceremony was held at Liseberg, a famous amusement park. JWOC teams were allowed free access to all the rollercoasters and rides. We made good use of that. Here is a view from the observation deck. You can see the wooden rollercoaster.