Countdown to WOC

[Jon X]

Today is 21 July.
Starting in ten days, the World Orienteering Championships (WOC) are being staged in Britain, from 31 July to 7 August.

So not long to go now before WOC comes to Britain for the third time!
And what better day than today to start setting the scene as today is.....

...17 days to the Long final.
17 WOCs ago at WOC 1993, it was in this discipline that GBR won our first ever World Championships medal when Yvette Hague ran through the pouring rain into Classic Distance Bronze at Harriman State Park in the USA.

...14 days to the Middle final.
14 WOCs ago saw GBR's first ever World Championships Gold medal when Yvette Baker-was-Hague – at our last home World Champs in 1999 – flew down the run-in at Dallaschyle to take Gold in the Short Distance.

...12 days to the Sprint final.
12 WOCs ago at Switzerland 2003, Jamie Stevenson won GBR’s first ever men’s Gold medal with a convincing win by nearly 20secs in the Sprint at Rapperswill (some bloke called Thierry took the bronze).

Those are all fantastic milestones to look back on and I hope they will help you start getting in the mood to cheer the GB team on as they seek to show their best for the home crowd at WOC 2015!

There are of course plenty more significant GB performances from past WOCs (not least by members of this year's team) to remember too - I have the info ready to help you remember more of those notable performances over the next week, as well as look forward to this year's races.
Next instalment tomorrow....

[gaw]

Where's the Like button!

[Jon X]

Today is…

...14 days to the Forest Relay
14 WOCs ago was WOC 1999 in Scotland, with two hugely exciting relays on never-previously-used Loch Vaa. Both GBR teams were in medal positions after leg two with the women leading the race by over a minute at that stage...in those days the relay was run over four legs and both teams were still in contention and fighting for a medal on the final leg. In the end the men had to settle for a close 5th place and the women were even closer, ending up in an oh-so-tantalising 4th place with Yvette Baker on last leg crossing the line just 8 seconds behind bronze medallists Sweden.

That 4th place from our last home WOC remains the best GB result in the Women’s Relay, so far...

...16 days to the Long Final
16 WOCs ago was Germany 1995. And two years after taking GB’s first ever medal with Classic bronze, Yvette Hague stepped up again and improved GB’s then-best individual results by delivering silver medals in both forest races.
Alongside Yvette, just six other GBR athletes have ever placed in the top ten in the tough Classic/Long discipline in all the years since the first WOC in 1966 - and as many as three from that exclusive club are part of our 2015 team
Of those three, Scott Fraser ran into 6th place in the Long in Norway 2010 but this year is focused instead on individual sprint and forest relay, whilst Cat Taylor (10th Finland 2013) and Graham Gristwood (9th Hungary 2009) have been preparing for Long again and will be on the start line at Glen Affric for the final race of WOC 2015.

Yvette's silver medal from 1995 and Scott’s 6th place from 2010 are the best GB results in the Long Distance, so far...

[gaw]

Still liking this!!

[Jon X]

Time for today's instalment then!

Today is...

...10 days to the Sprint Final
10 WOCs ago, in Japan in 2005 and on her eighth WOC appearance, Heather Monro’s bronze medal in the Sprint final made her GB’s second female WOC medallist and added a long-awaited WOC medal to the numerous other medals and successes in her orienteering career – which include World Cup medals (amongst over 30 top ten finishes in World Cup races), a World Games medal, a famous run to bring her club Halden SK through to victory on the final leg of the women’s Tio Mila in 2002, plus also a spell ranked as world number one.

Heather’s bronze medal not only made her the second GB woman to take a WOC medal, it also meant she became the very first British athlete (following the introduction of Sprint as a discipline in 2001) to have achieved WOC top ten positions in each of Sprint, Middle, Long and Relay.

To date, she remains the most recent GB woman to win a WOC medal...

[Spookster]

Still liking this!!

Me too!

[Spookster]

10 WOCs ago, in Japan in 2005 and on her eighth WOC appearance, Heather Monro’s bronze medal in the Sprint final made her GB’s second female WOC medallist and added a long-awaited WOC medal to the numerous other medals and successes in her orienteering career

A happy Heather! (and thanks, SLOW website, for the picture)

[afterthought]

By way of a me like too, and conscious of not having an original contribution, a reminder that the splendid maprunner site has a database of past WOC results (and much else.) So if you want to look back over the years, or just checkout who ran for GBR last time or see how the Sweden/Switzerland rivalry turned out:
http://www.maprunner.co.uk/world-orienteering-championships/

Reckoning that spectating is always more fun if you know more about the athletes I also remind about the World of O runner database:
http://runners.worldofo.com/

...and GBR athletes' Project 2015, which flew for a while until 15 months ago:
http://www.project2015.co.uk/

[Jon X]

Today is...

...12 days to the Forest Relay
12 WOCs ago in Switzerland was the first outing for the new shorter relay format with three legs rather than four, and it delivered the hoped-for close racing throughout the men’s relay. France and Finland led by over a minute at the end of the short (30mins) leg one but behind them eighteen teams were closely packed, with a strong run from Dan Marston for GBR safely in that group to send Jon Duncan out right in the mix.

And this day was Jon Duncan’s day. Leg two was the longest leg of the relay and he made it count for the GBR team, catching and passing the newly-crowned Long Distance champion, and moving into second place close behind new leaders Sweden. Keeping his head to the end, he had the calmness to go back on the run-in and re-punch the last control when, amongst the noise of the crowd, he couldn’t be sure that he had heard it beep. Even with those lost seconds, he ran the best time on the leg and set off Jamie Stevenson on last leg to fight for a medal...

...a medal which was far from guaranteed with the front six teams within one minute..
...still far from guaranteed with Jamie in fourth at the spectator run-through..
...but a medal was what Jamie delivered passing host nation Switzerland on the final loop and holding them off to the finish to take the bronze medal.

A quality team performance that gave Dan Marston, Jon Duncan and Jamie Stevenson memorable WOC relay medals to add to the GBR WOC roll of honour, and made Jamie the second GB athlete after Yvette in 1995 to win two medals at a single championships.

And great words from Jon Duncan:
“it is what you train for, what you prepare for, what you dream about - on the right day, in the right race, performing your best, running the fastest time, beating the best orienteers in the world - and winning a medal with your mates”.

12 days to Forest Relay day...

[Jon X]

Today is...

...1 week to the Mixed Sprint Relay
1 WOC ago, in slippery wet conditions at Trento in Italy, Cat Taylor ran through to cross the line in 6th place for GBR in the first-ever Mixed Sprint Relay.

Cat will once again anchor a strong GBR team, this year led off by Hollie Orr on leg one and with Chris Smithard and Dave Schorah on the middle two legs.

This first medal race of WOC 2015 will mark a WOC debut for the DEE duo of Chris and Dave (and in complete contrast, when the gun goes for the mass start Hollie will become the very first GB athlete to have run in both relay formats as well as in the final of all three individual formats).

Chris and Dave are far from the first GB athletes to make their WOC debut in a relay - for instance, Peter Haines was part of the team placed 6th in Norway in 1978 and Yvette Hague ran in the team placed 7th in Hungary in 1983 (as a just-16 year old!). Bettering both of those, Roz Clayton's first WOC race was as part of the 1981 women's team who took a then-GBR-best position of 5th in the relay.

Roz's 5th place from 1981 is the best GB position by an athlete on debut, to date...
The rather more recent 6th place from 2014 is of course the best GBR result in the Mixed Sprint Relay, so far...

One week to the Mixed Sprint Relay...

[Spookster]

1 WOC ago, in slippery wet conditions at Trento in Italy, Cat Taylor ran through to cross the line in 6th place for GBR in the first-ever Mixed Sprint Relay.

It was definitely wet... and exciting!
19-GBR-team by Martin Ward, on Flickr

[Jon X]

Today is...

...9 days to the Middle Final
9 WOCs ago, in Denmark in 2006, Jamie Stevenson (by then living in Denmark and for whom this was in some ways a 'home WOC') added to his collection of WOC medals with a bronze in the middle distance - a great performance that was just a tantalising ten seconds away from taking the gold.

And nopesport was following closely of course, the thread from that day (featuring quality prediction from Kitch) is at
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6576

Jamie's medal also meant he joined Heather Monro as GB athletes with a complete set of top ten results across all of Sprint, Middle, Long and Relay.

In the 2015 team, Scott Fraser and Graham Gristwood are currently the closest to joining Jamie and Heather as both have top ten results in all disciplines except Middle.
Graham (along with Hector Haines, Alasdair McLeod, Cat Taylor, Hollie Orr and Jess Tullie) is selected as part of the strong GB Middle team for this year and will be looking to improve on his current WOC best of 11th...

Middle/Short distance has been the discipline where until now top results have been most elusive for GBR athletes, with only four (Jamie, Heather, Steve Hale and Yvette Hague) having ever achieved a top ten position.
Jamie's medal in 2006 is the most recent occasion GBR have placed a runner in the top ten for either men or women, at the moment...

[Simon E]

For anyone who fancies a go at predicting what Jon has left to say in the next few days you may want to try the new, improved, and much faster, Maprunner WOC/JWOC database.

One major advantage is that you can now link directly to most pages, so for example Yvette's gold medal is here, and all British men's WOC sprint results are here.

[Jon X]

Today is...

...9 days to the Forest Relay at Darnaway
9 WOCs after GB hosted WOC for the first time, with the 1976 classic/long distance finishing in front of Darnaway Castle (the same venue that is host to 2015's Middle and Relay races), it was the turn of the USA to host WOC for the first time.

And it was that 1993 WOC in the USA where GBR results broke through to a new level.
- first a new GB best result by Steve Hale in the short distance, a fantastic 4th place but with a tinge of might-have-been, as he missed the medals by one single second.
- then it was Yvette Hague in the classic distance, taking bronze and standing on the podium to receive GB's first ever WOC medal.
- and then it got better again...

Momentum and confidence are great assets for any team. And in the final race of the 1993 WOC, the men's relay team built upon those previous successes:

Jon Musgrave then Martin Bagness were first up for GB, and after two legs Sweden were leading ahead of Finland and Switzerland. Stephen Palmer took over in 10th place, still in the fight for a top six finish, but 7-8mins down on the leading three teams.
No live tracking or TV controls in those days, just two radio links and a lot of nervous waiting. Up to 7th at the first radio. At the second it was "he is up to 5th, he is past Norway, he's flying". And 5th place was the handover to Steven Hale for the final leg.

And it was an extraordinary final leg. Steve Palmer had run the fastest time of any athlete across the first three legs that day, but Steve Hale seemed to be going even faster...at the first radio he had caught 2mins on Sweden and Russia, passed both, and was in the bronze medal position! Holders Switzerland were leading once more, and had set out more than 6mins ahead of Steve, chasing were Finland more than 4mins ahead. Both surely out of reach but could he hold his 3rd place, for a first GB relay medal?

At the pre-warning Switzerland arrived on cue in the lead, perhaps three minutes before Steve Hale could be expected. But then suddenly, unbelievably, came the words "second, Great Britain, 51seconds down".
Switzerland were safe for the victory, but almost immediately behind there he was, a blur speeding down to the last control, closing, closing, so very close....just 15 seconds behind Switzerland in the finish, glorious, dramatic, thrilling silver medals.
And an amazing final leg, more than 3mins faster than Steve Palmer's fantastic run (with Steve P himself third fastest of the day).

Steve Hale producing the race of his life when it really mattered "It is the first time my competitors have asked me afterwards how such a time is possible".
GBR, for the third time that week, with a best ever WOC result.
GBR heading home with five more WOC medallists than at the start of the week.

Five medallists at a single WOC remains the GBR record, so far....

[graeme]

I was control collecting that day, and I still have no idea how he could run through that stuff, at that speed and find the little buggers which weren't exactly beacons! Nor indeed could the IOF advisor who refused to approve the course because it was "too long". Truly unbelievable stuff, and despite not getting gold medals I reckon that's the best GB run ever.