The Lionel Messi of orienteering?

[ER]

Thierry Georgiou won the long distance race in the National Savoie championships being held on an area adjacent to the WOC 2011 areas by 9 minutes. The race was being used by some countries including the Swedes as a selection race and by others including GB as training. Ok he was on home terrain but 9 minutes!
Results not yet up. Info from World of O. Seems a beast of an area.

[Jethro]

From the Irish WOC Blog :-

First reports from Aix-les-Bains are of a number of non-finishes from the elite teams. Ireland’s Toni O’Donovan reports:

“It’s been a pretty tough weekend with physical, technical terrain. The race today was a bit of a monster. Roz and Aislinn finished for the girls with only Marcus, Andrew and Nick finishing the boys race. Toni picked up an injury yesterday so went straight from the start to finish after collecting her map, David made it to 5 before going over on his ankle and at various points throughout the course there was attrition. Other teams faired in a similar way with, for example, the British team having even fewer finishers than the Irish team. A few have been particularly surprised by the rough nature of the terrain with more brashings and felled areas than expected. We’re back in Le Revard tomorrow to do some more training in the area…..”

and OJ's Attackpoint :-

Long distance, Le Revard. Started positively but my positive feeling ran out when I made a massive mistake and got lost. It's ages since I've been lost and it was quite a novelty for a while. Then the novelty wore off. Carried on around the technical part of the course but decided to call it a day and re-run my mistake leg on the way home. Ran the butterflies too for good measure.

Tired and jaded, which is not a good recipe in this terrain. This was a bit of an eye-opener, plenty of work to do.

Sounds brutal! Hope junior survived!

[graeme]

So much for middle-distance specialists
What's he running at WOC?

[Jethro]

Doug did make it round! 81st in 2hrs18m22s.
Resultshttp://www.nationalesavoie2011.fr/images/stories/listes_inscrits/resultats_NationaleSavoie_HE_DE.html

Middle results [url]http://annecyso.fr/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/2011_05_28_SEMNOZ_Benevent_CDL_MD_Résultats.html[/url]

[NickC]

Imagine what some of us "mere mortals" felt running at the accompanying French national event
Loose stones and rocks underneath, in most areas, brashings plus some old limestone pavement meant path running where possible even if a very long way around were quicker.

Just look at the winning times - hardly any courses remotely close to expected winning times.
Roll on the 6 days alongside WOC in August on this terrain. No sprints for "normal" runners.