The Australian team to compete in the World Orienteering Championships which begin this Saturday 5th July in Italy have all been getting some quality training and also some good competition experience in the Italian terrain in the past week.
All team members competed in the three day Alpe Adria event which was held in the very physical and also technical terrain of the Cansiglio forest in the foothills of the Dolomites north of Venice. The sprint event was held in the town of Conegliano on Saturday evening and the local authorities closed the roads in the centre of the town for the event.
The Alpe Adria event included a long distance race, terrain relay, sprint distance event and a middle distance event. The Australian terrain relay teams both Women and Men had wins in the relay- a morale boosting performance leading to the WOC relays on Saturday 12th July. The women’s team of Jasmine Neve, Hanny Allston and Vanessa Round had a comfortable 8 minute win after a very fast second leg from Hanny. The men’s team (Simon Uppill, Lachlan Dow and Julian Dent) was always in the lead after Simon running the first leg came back in first place.
Hanny (5th) and Simon (7th) had good results in the long distance event and Hanny followed this with an even better performance in the Sprint winning this event by 9 seconds with Lizzie Ingham in second place. Rachel Effeney had a 5th place, Felicity Brown 9th and Jasmine Neve 12th in this event. In the mens event Julian Dent was 5th, Lachlan Dow 13th, Simon Uppill 14th and Chris Naunton 29th. In the middle event Simon Uppill demonstrated very good form in this difficult terrain with a second place, Julian finishing in 8th place. In the womens event Jasmine Neve showed good form with a 4th place behind the winner Lizzie Ingham and Vanessa Round was 12th.
More details about these events and other team info can be found on the WOC blog
http://australianorienteeringteam.blogspot.it
The team has now all moved to Luserna for the pre WOC camp. The two WOC coaches,Tom Quayle and Wendy Read have arrived in Italy and along with the team will spend the next four days preparing for the competitions which begin on Saturday 5th July.
The WOC program is
Sat 5th July Sprint Qualification– Burano 9:00-11:00, Sprint Final Venice 15:30-17:25 (Women-Hanny Allston, Rachel Effeney, Felicity Brown. Men Julian Dent, Simon Uppill, Lachlan Dow)
Mon 7th July Mixed Sprint Relay– Trento 17:25-18:40 (Rachel Effeney, Hanny Allston, Julian Dent, Simon Uppill).
Wed 9th July Long Distance– Lavarone 12:00-16:55 (Women-Hanny Allston, Vanessa Round. Men-Simon Uppill)
Fri 11th July Middle Distance– Campomulo 12:00-16:55 (Women-Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round. Men- Julian Dent).
Sat 12th July Relay –Campomulo 13:00-16:45 (Women-Hanny Allston, Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round. Men-Julian Dent, Lachlan Dow, Simon Uppill).
Reminder that live WOC will be available including GPS at
http://www.woc2014.info/woc.php
The new structure of WOC in 2014 with no qualification races for the middle and the long distance events means that we are only allowed one runner in the mens long and middle distance and two women in the long and middle distance. This has been determined by our performances at the two previous WOC in 2012 and 2013. As the number of runners we will have next year is partially influenced by how our runners perform this year as well as the performances we achieved in 2013, the outcomes from WOC have both an individual significance for each of the team members but also a team significance for the future. This team significance relates to our performances in the middle, long and relay only.
On behalf of all Australian orienteers we wish all the team the best for WOC this year.