Portugal O-meeting - POM 2014

[PG]

Preliminary results from the first day are published now.

Good results from Mark Nixon, 11th on Mens Super Elite (104 starters, Thierry Gueorgiou leading) and Jess Tullie, 20th on Women's Elite (94 starters, Simone Niggli leading).

Kim Baxter has a massive lead on W35, Zoe Harding is 3rd on W20; my quick scan doesn't spot any other top 3 Brits.

Today was "intermediate distance". Now we have two middle distance events with Monday a WRE. The final day is long distance with a chasing start for the elite.

[Tatty]

Another good result from Mharky - 11th. Jess Tullie 13th in WE.

[PG]

Not such good results today. Mark 20th (Theirry leading) Jess 38th (Maria Magnusson leading, Simone only 11th). But KIm Baxter, Zoe and Quentin Harding are doing well.

The event quality isn't quite as high as usual. Map printing/symbol size, while not too bad for us oldies running on 1:7500 has been poor on 1:10,000 and 1:15,000, with the gaps in the black in complex boulders and crag areas (where most of the controls are) being hard to spot. The website results have been limited, with no splits or overall results published yet (and the site is down now). And the weather has been more like UK in January; three days of rain or showers and those of us staying at the top of the Estrela Plateau have had to slip and slide back to our hotels with about 10cm of snow on the roads above 1300 metres today.

[Tatty]

Mharky 11th, Jess 18th going into final day.

[JK]

Other news

Win for QH on final day but not enough to take overall win.

Mharky pulled out (ankle I understand, but I don't know how bad)

2nd for CBG in the PreO (AKA TrailO) and got a mention on the IOF pages:
http://orienteering.org/pom-winners-on- ... d-madella/

Replay of GPS:
http://www.tractrac.com/index.php?page=eventpage&id=374

Overall Elite (ME, MSE and WE)
http://www.cpoc.pt/ev/pom2014/POM2014_EliteTotal.html

Overall Others
http://www.cpoc.pt/ev/pom2014/POM2014_OthersTotal.html

JK

[DaveK]

The men's super elite winner -

1 101 Thierry Gueorgiou 79 [6908] KR FIN
45:58 1
35:55 1
34:46 1
1:19:47 1
3:16:26

[graeme]

Women's elite...
Some retired veteran finished 11 mins clear

[Arnold]

In addition to the Elite performances and attendances, I find it very impressive what a great brand POM has become. Attracting thousands of orienteers of all ages (with a healthy balance between young, Elite and "old") to Portugal in February doesn't seem that obvious, but through many years of consistently excellent races they've made it a great success. The climate helps too but it's something for others to learn from.

PS: It's hard not to be in awe of Thierry and Simone. The closest anyone came to Thierry on any day was a minute and a half...

[Sloop]

A pity that their allocation of start times this year has done the brand no favours.
Out of 73 in my class, I was 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th starter in the five races.
I will not pay flights, hotels, car, etc again without a guarantee from the organisers that I will be given a fair contest.

[Gross]

It sure has come a long way from the days of the Mafra O Meet

[cbg]

A pity that their allocation of start times this year has done the brand no favours.
Out of 73 in my class, I was 2nd, 4th, 5th, 8th and 10th starter in the five races.
I will not pay flights, hotels, car, etc again without a guarantee from the organisers that I will be given a fair contest.

Think yourself lucky - I was the first starter in my class on 3 occasions. Once I got over the hump, it was actually fun not to have any 'helpful' distractions; but no sympathy for later starters who may have encountered deep mud on the beaten track!