WMOC Final

I had a poor run in the final, making a 10 min error at control 8 which dumped me third from last!

On the up side Liz Campbell dominated W50 to win Gold, Mark Saunders had a good run to finish 19th in M45, Jon Musgrave did extremely well to finish 17th in M45 seeing as he picked up the wrong map at the start and Anne Donnell finished just outside the medals in W75 in 4th.

Link to Route Gadget

WMOC Qualifying Event 2 M45-Heat 2

Link to Route Gadget



WMOC Qualifying Event 1 M45-Heat 2

Link to Route Gadget



Results

WMOC Model Event 2

I’m feeling more confident after today’s model event although I still made a couple of errors. I find it difficult to make the judgement of whether to run the line or to run out to the nearest linear feature. Some controls in flat areas are very difficult to hit and if you are 50m to one side you probably won’t see it even in white. With such low contour detail mashes and vegetation boundaries will be key along with accurate compass and distance judgement.

Again the map doesn’t look very inspiring although it was better than it looks.

WMOC Model Event 1

It was nice to have some controls out in the terrain. I made fewer mistakes but still found the terrain vague and extremely tricky. The map looks fairly straightforward but the ‘white’ belies the density of the underlying vegetation. It’s very easy to run within a few meters of a control and not see it.

Special mapping symbols are brown X’s, which are anthills, and linear brown dots show the direction of planting ditches.

I have travelled to Ruka in Finland for The World Masters Orienteering Champs. The first qualifying event is on Tuesday and I’m trying to get as much training in as possible to familiarise myself with the terrain.

The areas I have trained in so far have varied from rough and not very inspiring to fast detailed pine forest similar to Loch Vaa near Aviemore.

Some sections (see bottom S.E loop) have good contour detail and regular ‘Lakes O’ technique seems to work well.

The flatter areas are very difficult to follow. Loosing contact would be disastrous. I’ve been trying to follow marshes and pace count in an attempt to attain acceptable accuracy.

Sorry about the quality of the map image, I don’t have a scanner.

Midnattssolgaloppen Day 4

I got caught out by the map changing scale to 15:000 on the last day and didn't realise until I'd messed up the first control. I had a bad miss on 5 as well. Despite a poor run I managed to hold onto 6th overall.

Results



Kavaloya Island west of Tromso

Midnattssolgaloppen Day 3

Midnattssolgaloppen Day 2

Results

Midnattssolgalopen Day 1

Results