33rd in Sprint for Brad and great Relay for SA boys

Brad continued his superb form this week, breaking another SA record at JWOC. He placed 33rd in the sprint, just 1:20 behind the winner. He had an early start and was at the top of the leaderboard for quite a while!

Tim and Roark did really well in their sprint debut on a tricky course placing 127th and 133rd respectively about 3 minutes behind the winner. 

Salome had a solid run finishing 105th out of  about 150 girls and 3:55 behind the winner from Norway.

Sprint maps and results can be found here.

The SA mens relay team performed brilliantly on Saturday. Brad ran the first leg and handed over in about 28th place. Tim had an incredible run with the 19th fastest time on the 2nd leg to bring the team up to 23rd place. Roark ran the final leg bringing the team home in 32nd place out of 58 teams!!

Salome joined 2 Irish girls for the relay. She ran the 3rd leg.

Relay maps and results can be found here.

Sprint Time!

Tomorrow is the sprint! Hopefully the team is feeling rested after a day off.

Start times:
Brad: 12:07
Roark: 13:00
Salome: 13:41
Tim: 14:37

Venue: Hradec Králové

Start interval: 1 minute
GPS: All women.
Terrain form: Mostly flat, except for a 10-15m high steep slope around the old town hill. 230–245m above sea level.
Vegetation: Partly park area – grass, flower beds, hedges, scattered trees. Partly urban area of historic city centre with no vegetation.
Runnability: Generally excellent. Grass in parks is cut.
Paths and roads: Urban and park areas with lots of fast routes. Most paths in parks have a gravel surface. City area links consist of asphalt roads, pavements and cobble-stones.

Courses:
W20 3.0 km (measured along best route), 56 m climb, 19 controls. Expected winning time: 14:45
M20 3.6 km, 60 m climb, 21controls. Expected winning time: 14:45.

Old map of sprint area

Check out the online coverage here. It's been superb so far - loads of radio controls and the GPS tracking works well so be sure to track Salome tomorrow!

Hopefully we'll see Brad improve on last years brilliant result of 74th. Salome will be looking to improve on last years 116th place. Tim and Roark will be running their first JWOC sprint and with a clean run they have potential to do really well. Hopefully the vibe will be great and it'll be a memorable day.

Full speed, no mistakes! GO TEAM SA!!
 

Making history in the Middle

Yesterday Brad became the first South African ever to qualify for an A final at JWOC! He had a really solid run and as he puts it "smashed" the last part, getting the fastest splits to controls 13 and 15 on his course! Check out his Attackpoint log for his thoughts on the race.

Brad running hard (http://kade.cz/JWOC2013/kade_middleQ/)

The rest of the team performed brilliantly too! Salome comfortably qualified for the ladies B final with what looked like a very solid race finishing 33rd in her heat.

Tim finished 35th in his heat - putting him in the B final. An incredible result on debut! Roark also did well, finishing 47th in his heat. He'll run in the C final.

So a look at the Final today:

Start times are as follows:
Timothy: 10:17
Salome:10:22
Roark: 10:35
Bradley: 13:59

There will be GPS tracking for Brad in the A final. Check out the online coverage here

Good Luck Team!

Middle Quali preview

Today's Middle Distance Qualification Race starts from 12:00

Tim 12:18
Brad 13:12

Roark 13:18

Salome 13:33

• Venue: Radvanice
• GPS: no GPs tracking.
• Terrain form: stony slopes, 550–710 m a.s.l., crowned by cliffs up to 10 m high. Boulders up to 5 m high. Uneven ground.
• Vegetation: An old coniferous forest. some areas of diffuse thickets and clearings. 
• Runnability: Generally good. In places significantly limited by stony ground, young forest and fallen branches.
• Visibility: Varies from very good to limited.
• Paths and roads: Forest with average network of paths and tracks which generally enable fast running.
• Map: scale 1:10,000

Courses:
3 heats for men and women
W20: approx 2.8km, 90m of climb, 12 controls, expected winning time 22minutes
M20: approx 3.3km, 90m climb, 15 controls, expected winning times 20 minutes

Courses are expected to be a lot more technical today with hectic rock details, cliffs and uneven ground.

Map snippet of Rock features (thanks to Nico)

Example of rock features

The relatively low amount of climb suggests that the courses will be somewhat "downhill" as the old map shows the area is situated on a steep slope. The top 20 in each heat will qualify for the A finals, with the next 20 in the heat going through to the B final and the remaining athletes going through to the C final.

There is no GPS tracking unfortunately but there is one radio control to track the athletes progress. Follow the action live here.

Long Distance

Hills pretty much sum up the long distance.

GPS tracking is really cool to look at and quite funny for some :P

Roark was the first to finish, and set a new best percentage behind the winner in Long distance, until Tim came in, who then held it until Brad came in. Salome also had a decent run and got under 170 % of the winner, which means everyone got under the incentive guidelines. So pretty good results percentage wise but far from what was possible. Roark and Tim made quite a lot of mistakes, as you can see in the GPS. I made one large mistake and then lots of smaller ones. We all took far from optimum route choices on a lot of the legs.

Middle is tomorrow, hopefully better results will come :)
 

Roark finishing the Long (http://kade.cz/JWOC2013/kade_long/)

A look at the Long

Today is the Long Distance Race!

Start times are as follows:
Roark 09:56
Salome 10:38
Tim 11:46 
Brad 14:40

Salome and Brad are both running their 5th JWOC long races, with Tim and Roark running their first. Richard, managing / coaching the team is doing so for the second time after accompanying the team to JWOC in Italy in 2009.

The area for today is Odolov. Moderately hilly to hilly. Coniferous forest. Quite large sections of young forest and felled areas. Runnability: Very good to good. Limited on steep slopes and in young forest and dense areas. Visibility: Very good to good. Limited in young forest and dense areas. Paths and roads: Developed network of forest roads and paths enables fast running.
Map: Scale 1:15,000.

Courses
W20 7.1 km 470 m 15 controls. Expected winning time of 59 min 
M20 9.9 km 620 m 21 controls. Expected winning time of 67 min 

Old map of long area

Live tracking should be at available here.The boys will have GPS tracking! 

GO TEAM SOUTH AFRICA!