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Sunday, July 20, 2008

WMOC 2008 (Portugal) - Full Report

This is Jackie Hallett's full report on the World Masters Orienteering Championships:

This event was held in Portugal in the Leira region in Pinewoods planted back in the 13th and 14th centuries to support Portugal’s naval ambitions for world supremacy. With over 3500 competitors Britain was the 5th largest nation with 232 competitors; the Scandinavian countries fielded the most with Norway having the highest number with 686. There were 13 competitors from BOK. The age groups spread from M/W35 to M/W90 but the largest fields for both men and women were the M/W60 category with 622 competitors. The week consisted of 2 competitive events – a sprint and classic. The sprint race had a qualification race in the old town of Leira which contained narrow, often steep slopes or steps. For those who have not competed in sprint races the courses are short, mine being 1.5 km with a winning time of 14 minutes. I think sprint is possibly the wrong word as it is really intense orienteering with a map scale of 1:4000 controls come up very fast and it is easy to miss a turning or to find yourself the wrong side of a flower bed or a wall (which are not crossable). Unfortunately I had a punch which didn’t register and so was disqualified – really disappointing as I would have been second in my heat. The sprint final was quite different as it started in forest, then onto sand dunes before finishing in the old town of Praia da Vieira. The scale of the forest and sand dunes caught many people out but there were good results from Alice Bedwell 5th W 45 and Mark Saunders 9th M45. I managed to win the B course but it was little consolation. We followed this event with a traditional Portuguese dish – sardines. We certainly did not expect the size and amount of sardines as we only ordered enough for 6 even though there were 8 of us. Even so, and delicious as they were, I did have to stop after 4 although a few hardy souls managed 6! A rest day followed or the option of an open race near to where the long distance final would be. Mark Saunders had entered us for this event and upon arriving at the start I discovered my course was 8km. Needless to say I treated it as a practice and just did some controls.

The long distance race has 2 qualification days in lovely pine forested sand dunes with lots of small contour detail. Mistakes were costly but easy to make in the 2½ m. contours with it being difficult to know what was up or down at times. Conscious of being disqualified in the sprint I made sure my dibber beeped twice at every control. I was careful and kept in contact with the map to ensure I always knew where I was. No one was more surprised than me to find I had won my heat. The second qualification day was in similar terrain although we had 19 controls in 4.4 km. I wanted to have a clean run but did not really want to end up as a last starter as the final always has the best athletes from the qualification starting last so I tried to be steady but take a little more time. I wasn’t the fastest on the day but with both days added together was fastest overall in my heat. Many BOK runners had made the A finals which in itself is a good achievement. A rest day followed with time for some sightseeing. The final was in a different forest which has been described as Culbin with attitude. There were some denser areas of younger trees near the finish and some hillier parts but also still some vague areas. Early starters were off at 9am but unfortunately I had a 12 o’clock start as did Alice. I was pleased with my race although I felt really tired in the heat especially in the middle of the course where we had some long uphill legs. I did make a few small errors but was pleased to finish in 6th place overall. It was great to see 2 BOK people on the podium both achieving fantastic results by coming third on their courses– Alice Bedwell W45 and Anne Donnell W75.