After recently arriving back in New Zealand for a long summer, I'm happy to announce another exciting development for my brother Duncan and myself in our roles as event organisers: Stage 1 of Dirty D Sprint The Bay 2013 will now be a World Ranking Event :)
The first stage of the 6-race sprint tour will take place in the morning of the 15th of January (less than 12 weeks away). The area consists of a private girl's school and it's surrounding grounds.
Sample of Woodford Terrain
Set on the foothills of Havelock North's Te Mata Peak, the terrain is relatively steep and riddled with intricate building, park and farmland detail. With the World Cup and Oceania Carnival coming to an end only 2 days beforehand, we expect to see some interesting international fields over all grades donning their racing flats on the morning of Tuesday the 15th. Entered participants from around the globe (including 2 current World Champions and a Junior World Champion) are already preparing themselves for the 3 days of intense and diverse sprint racing coupled with a vibrant event atmosphere around the lovely Hawkes Bay region (renowned for it's great weather and wine production).
In other news, Sprint The Bay is now using it's profile to help raise funds for the New Zealand breast cancer foundation. Also, in an effort to promote breast cancer awareness we have now changed the white singlet competition to the pink singlet competition in 2013. Credit card donations directly to the foundation can be made on our NZBCF fundraising page. Please help us support this cause.
Lastly, for a little bit of entertainment, check out this video made for Jamie Stewart, the winner of our photo competition (photos from STB 2012):
This is basically a step by step guide on how to win JWOC. Matt has made a complete breakdown of his middle distance race so that he can share his great experience with everyone. It makes for an exciting and emotional read. See the article here.
Duncan Morrison interviews JWOC middle distance gold medalist and
STB 2012 co-organiser Matt Ogden about his thoughts on the Stage 5 race
New Zealand is now the place to be for orienteering (especially next January) - the recent success of Matt Ogden at JWOC in Slovakia shows that we have a lot to offer the world!
Many international athletes have already committed to coming to New Zealand for the Oceania/World Cup races and we encourage them to plan their journey to include Sprint the Bay as well! As you can hopefully see from the video above, Sprint the Bay is a great experience for everyone involved (not just the elite runners!). Make sure you 'like' the Sprint the Bay Facebook Page to keep up to date with all the goings on and to discuss the event and your travel plans with friends and fellow orienteers :)
New Zealand is an orienteering paradise, with amazing and diverse terrains throughout the entire country, plus great weather that allows orienteering throughout the full 12 months of the year. With the middle of the NZ summer coinciding with the middle of the European winter, it's a surprise we don't get more orienteers visiting for competitions and the great training opportunities we have to offer - the distance factor obviously plays a great role in this as NZ is relatively isolated and not the cheapest country to fly to - which is why a lot of orienteers choose to travel to other 'cheaper' destinations. For a lot of you money may be an issue, but try to think of it by answering the following questions:
Are you an orienteer?
Do you have the desire to visit NZ at some point in your life?
Do you realise that NZ orienteers make the journey to Europe for orienteering every year, most often paying 100% of the costs themselves?
Do you realise that the last time a World Cup event was held in New Zealand was in 1994, so the next time you may get a chance to watch or compete in such a high profile event in New Zealand you will be old or dead?
If you answered yes to either of the first 2 questions, and were at all shocked by the last 2, then you are definitely a candidate for the NZ 2012/2013 orienteering summer - so start making plans!
Unbeknownst to most is that NZ can be very cheap to enjoy once you finally get here! As far as transport goes it's possible to buy a car for your journey (often much much cheaper than hiring a car, and with the possibility to sell it again at the end of your trip). Having your own vehicle gives you a lot of freedom to explore the whole country, you can find fully functional cars with warrants of fitness and registration on websites such as trademe for as little as 800€ (but be careful about it!). Accommodation and food are also very cheap compared to most European countries (unless you expect to stay in a 5 star hotel all the time!). The NZ orienteering community is rather small, but this means that most people know each other, and most are friendly and willing to help out foreign orienteers who make the effort to come to NZ. It's often possible to find free accommodation with NZ orienteering families simply by asking around on our orienteering forum Maptalk.
Come!
(Feel free to ask any questions in the comments section below, or to email us: contact@sprintthebay.org)
Matt Ogden from New Zealand has just won the JWOC middle distance in Slovakia! - A prophecy has been fulfilled. This guy is the saviour of NZ orienteering! Everyone better watch out! - The new Gueorgiou!
Matt Ogden is an Engineering student at the University of Auckland, and is one of the most dedicated athletes in the history of NZ orienteering. His mind is non-stop orienteering, and that's what makes a champion!
Matt is known for his amazing skills in Catching Features where he is currently ranked 8th in the world (at the time of this posting), and also for his role in 2012 as a co-organiser of Sprint the Bay.
Matt was initially selected for the NZ WOC 2012 team to run in the relay, but decided to focus on Oringen this year.
In 2013 Matt will be in his first year as a senior, and with the first world cup races in New Zealand, who knows what he can do with the home advantage! :D
In January of 2013, for the first time in my elite career, New Zealand will be hosting World Cup races in conjunction with the Oceania orienteering carnival :) There will be a middle distance in beach-front sand-dune terrain, 2 urban/park sprints (qual & final) in NZ's capital city of Wellington, and then a middle prologue and chasing start in special detailed farmland terrain in the Hawkes Bay region where I grew up. I hope that having a home country advantage for the first time ever will give me the opportunity to get some of my best world cup results (the last time NZ hosted a world cup race in 1994 it was won by NZ super-star Alistair Landels), I also hope that as many orienteers as possible make the effort to come NZ! - not only the world cup athletes :)
There will be many other races and training opportunities available from December to January to make the long trip worthwhile for European orienteers. Dirty D Sprint the Bay will definitely be a main highlight of this.
STB 2013 yellow singlet
winner Toby Scott
celebrates in style!
If you haven't already heard of Sprint the Bay (STB) - it's a series of 6 sprint races over 3 days in Hawkes Bay (organised primarily by my brother and I) and will take place 2 days after the final world cup race in NZ from the 15th - 17th of January 2013. The STB competition is much like the tour de France, we have various coloured singlet competitions, such as the yellow singlet which is worn by the current overall leader, the green singlet for the sprint leg leader, the polka dot singlet for the hill climb leader and the white singlet for the best junior runner in the elite grade. The STB competition format has proven to be very exciting for competitors and spectators alike over the last 3 years as it adds an extra element to sprint orienteering. Since the first STB in 2010 we have seen our event grow to become one of the biggest annual orienteering events in NZ, and now that STB is an official supporting event of the Oceania orienteering carnival and an NZ super-series event, we have known for some time that 2013 will be the biggest and best for STB - hence we have saved the best terrains for next year! I would love to compete in some of the STB stages like other years, but this time I'll have to focus on the organising side of things.
The main reason for this post is that the entries for the Oceania Carnival/World Cups and Sprint the Bay are now open and early-bird entry deadlines are coming up. The Oceania early-bird entries close on the 30th of June, so if you want the cheaper prices, enter soon! Sprint the Bay early-bird entries close on the 14th of August. STB early-bird entrants go in the draw to win their entry fee back - this year we will give away one NZ entry and one international entry.
Make sure you 'like' the Sprint the Bay Facebook page to get all the important updates and STB news, or just to chat with other orienteers about accommodation etc.
NZ is a long way away for most people, and takes a little more planning than your average excursion, so don't leave it too late! There is competition information for the Oceania/World Cup races, Sprint the Bay and the other supporting events on the STB homepage. If you need to know more, are organising a tour group or just have some questions about coming to NZ, email the Oceania Event Director - Graham Teahan here: gteahan@xtra.co.nz, or alternatively feel free to email us at STB here: contact@sprintthebay.org
This was the second time I've run in the European Champs (the last time in 2008), unfortunately now I'm in the worst shape I've been in for some years, but I decided to race anyway and chance getting some World Cup points in the sprint so I could race in the Post Finance sprint next month - but alas, things did not go according to plan :P
Middle Qualification
My first race was the middle distance qualification. This was perhaps my best race, I didn't make any big mistakes but just lacked the physical condition and leg speed to push hard throughout the race on what was admittedly quite an easy course (Click on the thumbnail to see the full map with route choice and results).
The sprint qual was very disappointing for me. I thought that I might be able to have a good enough run to make the final if I really pushed myself, but I had a bad start to the race. I lost time on the 4th control where the map was a bit poor - there was a canopy I hoped to pass through right before control but it was some kind of bus stop type thing with a solid back-side which confused me. I only lost a few seconds there, but lost my flow as well. I hastily raced off to the 5th control and fell into (queue dramatic music) THE TRAP, after this I stressed and ran really hard along the street and up the hill to the control. I didn't lose too much time on that leg,
Sprint Qualification
but my body couldn't handle the sudden physical exertion that I can usually withstand and I suffered through the rest of the course losing huge chunks of time just on running speed.
Middle B-Final
After failing to make the cut for 2 A finals I decided to whip out my head cam and get some footage of the cool terrain in the B-finals. The middle final was really tough and steeper than I expected, I tried to save something for the sprint so this water-logged video is not as exciting as it could have been:
Sprint B-Final
The sprint final, much like the qual, was a true runners course - which doesn't suit me at all at the moment! It was quite fun in the beginning - it was something new and I had fun rolling down the hill (with great momentum ;) ), but the choice of terrain was rather poor for such an important event and it seemed that they had to force areas that would normally be passable to be impassable just to make the course more interesting. The course was (in my opinion) very boring after the map change, but still probably the best it could have been in that terrain. I didn't like the use of the motor-park with all the purple stripe, I think it was a bit desperate to use that area - it was unfairly mapped: as you can see from the video, my route choice should have been very fast to the 11th control where I planned to run more directly through the yellow part, but I had to weave through the unmarked motor-homes that were actually mapped as purple stripe on the other side of the drive-way - weird. There was no tape around the purple striped area like there should be, you can see an unused roll of tape on the ground just after the 10th control - if it was rolled up before the B-finalists even finished then that's really rude! - especially when the B-final was a WRE! There were other small things that annoyed me such as the last control being placed much too close to the feature (less than 5cm by the looks of it!), but I think I've complained enough - if you want to hear more about the sprint, read Anne Margrethe Hausken Nordberg's blog post about her disqualification. Sorry for all the negativity, but coming from NZ we have to pay top dollar out of our own pockets to run in these competitions, and I don't think it's unfair to expect something better! - perhaps I wouldn't be so bitter and would have enjoyed it a bit more if I could have run a bit faster, and it would have been nice if the B-Final was before the A-Final so there could have been some spectators.
In the end, I didn't go into EOC with any huge expectations - I just wanted some top-level racing experience without re-aggravating any of my injuries this early in the season. Although it was a little depressing to bum out in the quals, I didn't hurt myself much and sitting here a week later I can say I feel a lot stronger already, so mission accomplished! Now that I can run again without pain I seem to be getting faster and faster all the time. Even at 6kg over my normal weight, I'm already nearly able to handle a flat urban sprint, it's quite exciting really! Perhaps I'll even surpass my form from WOC last year! - hopefully in time for NORT, but at least in time for the World Cup races and Sprint the Bay in NZ in January!
Well well well, it's been a while since I wrote anything about myself on here! I'm making bit of a habit out of neglecting my blog for months and then squeezing everything into one giant post! I suppose it seems a bit lazy of me, but I think it was more a case of me just trying to spare everyone from my depressing thoughts as I dealt with illness and injury :) Since May of last year I seem to have bounced from one problem to the next. First off, I somehow managed to contract mycoplasma pneumonia whilst still in NZ. I'd never heard of it before but it came after a really hard training week and proceeded to give a horrible burning/cold pain in my lungs which got worse with exercise. I had to put up with it during the 2011 season - after some antibiotics the bad feeling lessened but it was still there. I don't think it affected my performance too much, but it was an annoying distraction when I was trying to orienteer (especially when I felt tired!). Despite this I managed to get some good results in the beginning of the season (by my standards anyway). I got a 7th place in the Finnish Elite Series sprint in Lohja (splits), and 9th place in the Oringen sprint (splits). Since WOC I've been suffering huge problems with my ankles and Achilles, but they both seem to be doing a lot better now, since I have been able to run again the last couple of months. However, with the starting to run again part, although I thought that I was being careful, it has proven to be a bit too much as I now have to deal with runners knee as well :(
Anyway, enough of that (I told you it was depressing!) and more about last year:
After Oringen I headed to France for the first time to prepare for WOC with my sister Amber. I really wanted to do well in the middle distance, so we did a lot of trainings in relative terrain (see video) which took quite a toll on my ankles - the ground was extremely rocky. Even with strapping I still managed to twist them on nearly every training.
The WOC middle qual did not go as planned. I felt that I was in pretty good shape and was quite confident in the terrain having spent the last 2 weeks there. I decided to just try to have a clean race and stay totally in control and only push when running on the tracks, but alas, I made a beginners mistake early on in the course where I planned too far ahead and forgot to go to the 4th control. Leaving the 3rd control, I ran as if I was going to the 5th. Although something felt very wrong, I didn't realise I'd missed the 4th control until I was nearly at the big track, then I wasn't sure where I was and had to find my way back to it losing nearly 3 minutes. After that I was trying to push really hard to still make the final, but I'd lost too much time and making a bad route choice to the 9th meant that I missed the final by 42sec. See the map here:
I had to try to put this bad run behind me to focus on the sprint distance. This was very hard, I was a bit worried about not making any finals and was more nervous than I normally am in the sprint qual. I made a few small mistakes and was perhaps too careful in some places, but luckily I managed to just scrape through to the final in 14th place (splits, map).
The sprint final started very well. I lost a little time to the 4th control where there was some temporary construction going on (for a concert I think), but only some seconds. I was very relaxed and focussed until 11-12 where I made a dumb mistake (apparently a lot of runners did this) where I tried to continue straight to the control but there was a giant 20m drop to the street below, so I had to turn and run back around the building I only lost 10sec or so doing this, but it felt like a lifetime. I panicked a bit and started to run too fast. Perhaps I wouldn't have been so stressed if I knew that I was sitting in 5th place at that point! (I've had many sleepless nights since then thinking about it!). After the map change I got confused about where the new start triangle was and made a dumb route choice. I ran the next few controls well and then started to get tired and just wanted to be finished (bad thoughts to have in a sprint). I lost the most time (20sec) when I made a really dumb route choice to the 17th control, then got confused on the way to the 18th and lost time there too. I finished in 25th place in the end. This is my best result at WOC by far, but it was hard to be happy about it when it really could have been much better. At least I gained a lot of experience from that race. I learnt that I need to control myself in that situation (eg. 11-12) where I make a small mistake. If I had just put that mistake behind me and remained relaxed I could have potentially finished in 5th place (map, video etc.).
My grandpa ankle after a couple of weeks
My last WOC race was the relay. After seeing how I was running in the sprint final I was quite excited to give it everything on the first leg. I started well, in the first part of the course I was up with the leaders, then I got my food stuck in some bumpy rock thing when I was running down a small hill on the way to the 4th control and heard a loud 'pop' as I twisted my ankle really badly :( I tried to keep running which kind of worked for a while but was really painful. It took over my mind and I stopped reading my map to the 6th then got a bit lost. Once I stopped running and started to walk the pain got much worse and my ankle swelled up a lot. I decided that I wanted to finish the race so the other guys in my team that travelled all the way to Europe (which is very expensive for an NZ orienteer) would get a chance to run. I walked/hobbled the rest of the race, and even managed to pass at least one runner who was searching for the bingo-pit. Our team finished in 23rd place in the end. Not the result I/we'd hoped for at all, but a result nonetheless! (map, results).
After heading back to Finland I tried to run in some of the races by heavily strapping my ankle and taking some painkillers. Not a good idea. I ended up hurting the other ankle too and both my Achilles from running weirdly. I spent a very cold winter doing a lot of cross training - aqua jogging is not for me! Luckily Finland get's a little bit of this white stuff called 'snow', so I got to learn how to cross country ski which kind of saved me from going crazy! In January I chanced running again, starting with short jogs. I was very stiff and a little sore in the beginning, but slowly things got better.
I also have a new toy :D I got a GoPro HD Hero 2 camera in January which helped distract me from injury problems, and using RGmapVideo I've been able to produce some cool orienteering videos since I've been able to run again.
In February Hanna and I went to Portugal with our club Rajamäen Rykmentti for a training camp. The warmer weather in the day time did wonders for my ailments, and it was soooo good to do some orienteering again after so long! The cold nights living in plastic shoe boxes led to me getting a bit sick after a few days, but I still managed to do most of the trainings. The first weekend there was a WRE middle distance in some cool terrain, I made some mistakes but I was happy with the result considering my form at the time (map, results). When I got sick I decided to skip a training and make a sprint map of our camping ground, it was quite a cool area and we held a couple of 'fun' sprint races one evening, see the map here. The video below is of the 'final' race where I ran with my GoPro (Videos look better if you change them to full-screen and high resolution):
You can see all of the other maps from the Portugal training camp here in my DOMA. Below are some of the other orienteering videos that I made of the Portugal training camp (enjoy!):
Tonight at 21.30 (CET), the first start Stage 5 of Sprint the Bay 2012 will be streaming live webcam and results from New Zealand (this page). There were unfortunately some technical issues with sound and live results in the first 2 stages, but things are working well now (although Stage 5 could be problematic with internet reception due to geographical location - we have to wait and see). There have been some impressive and surprising results at this year's Sprint the Bay, especially from the younger generations. Tim Robertson (NZL) and Rachel Effeney (AUS) are the current leaders after Stage 4 at Frimley. The very unique sprint terrain at Stage 5's Sleeping Giant map on Te Mata Peak in Havelock North could see some interesting changes in the overall leads and sub-competitions. See maps from the first 4 Stages here. See the terrain for Stage 5 here:
Oscar McNulty (AUS)
2nd overall, current
White Singlet Wearer
Tane Camebridge (NZL)
3rd overall in Men's
Elite Competition
NZ M20 sprint champion Tim Robertson has unleashed his super-form on the NZ elites and has dominated STB 2012 so far, by holding onto the Yellow Singlet for the whole competition. However, some mistakes in Stage 4 has seen him fall to an 11 second overall lead from Australian junior runner Oscar McNulty, the current White Singlet wearer. Top NZ sprinter Tane Camebridge has also been showing he has what it takes for the overall win, by drawing for first equal with Tim on both Stage 1 and Stage 3. The Green 'Sprint Leg' Singlet and Polka Dot 'Hill Climb' Singlet are being directly targeted by the current wearers Ryan Batin and Paul Jensen respectively.
Current Women's Elite
leader Rachel Effeney (AUS)
In the Women's competition, one runner in particular has completely outshone the entire field. Rachel Effeney from Australia has shown that she's been training very hard since her WOC debut in the sprint in France last year (35th place), by winning outright on all 4 stages so far! The next closest contenders are NZ's National team members Angela Simpson, 1min 40sec behind overall, and Lizzie Ingham, 2min 14sec down. Lizzie and Angela have both been waiting for Stage 5 to make their big move, and they are confident that the massive hills and technical courses will give them the chance they need to get to the top of the leader-board. Rachel has shown great speed so far, winning the majority of the splits (see links to all winsplits here) but does she have the legs for the big hills of the Sleeping Giant?
See total standings in all competitions after Stage 4 here.
Below is a short clip from the livestream at the business end of Stage 4 at Frimley:
After Sleeping Giant, the STB competitors will duel it out in the final stage at the brand new Arataki map. Stage 6 will be streaming live at 2.00am (CET) on Monday morning. See a terrain sample here:
There will be live video, commentary and results at this year's Dirty D Sprint the Bay in New Zealand. The first Stage of the 6 sprint races over the weekend will be the first ever mass start sprint race on such a scale in New Zealand. There will be 60 starters in the Men's Elite grade. This is perfect for spectators (both at the event and on the web in our LIVE CENTRE), since the winning times for each of the four courses are 12-16min. Viewers can enjoy a presentation that is jam-packed with sprint orienteering action.
This year's STB is part of the 2012 New Zealand Elite series.
Hanny Allston, WOC 2006
Lizzie Ingham, WOC 2011
Angela Simpson, JWOC 2011
Carsten Jørgensen, WOC 2006
In the Women's Elite competition we have a stunning field. Hanny Allston (WOC Sprint gold-medallist, 2006) is back from a long break in competitive orienteering, but rumour has it she is still as fast as ever. Our home-grown Kiwi stars will be challenging her for the Yellow Singlet (yes that's right! - Our event mimics the Tour de France system for added entertainment - with yellow, green, polka-dot and white singlet's for various sub-competitions leaders in the elite classes). Lizzie Ingham displayed her super-from at WOC last year in France. She was 11th in the Sprint, 13th in the Long and 18th in the Middle, all extremely good results from a physically and technically demanding week! The other major contender for the Yellow Singlet STB 2011 winner Angela Simpson. Angela has produced some amazing results in the last years, she was 6th place in the WUOC sprint in Borlänge, Sweden in 2010 and an outstanding 6th place in the JWOC Sprint in Poland last year.
Chris Forne, WOC 2010
The Men's Elite field will also show some very tight competition. New Zealand's star male orienteer Chris Forne has finally returned to New Zealand after living in Trondheim for the last few years. Chris has had several top 20 results at WOC in recent years. World famous 'old man', Carsten Jørgensen has entered for STB this year. Carsten has had several top results in his long and illustrious career as an elite orienteer including an individual WOC bronze in Germany in 1995, and a WOC gold in the Danish relay team in Norway, 1997. Carsten is a famed runner in Denmark (and Europe in general), and despite his 'special running style' and 'inevitable ageing defect' he still puts 99% of NZ elite orienteers to shame with his super-steam-train-speed. Many up and coming NZ juniors and first year seniors are extremely stirred by Chris Forne's return, and will be chomping at the bit to show him what's changed in NZ orienteering since his absence, and take him down. There will be a large Australian presence at STB 2012 who will no-doubt be top Yellow Singlet contenders, and also entrants from as far as Switzerland and Finland!
So, make sure you get in on the action - if you're in Europe enjoying the long winter, watching STB 2012 is bound keep your orienteering hunger at bay for a little while longer :)
There will be 6 sprint races over 3 days in sunny Hawkes Bay's sweltering New Zealand summer. The tour singlets for the elite classes which are decided after the first stage and can change after each new stage are as follows: Dirty D Yellow Singlet: For the overall leader - based on combined times for all Stages.
O-LYNX White Singlet:For the overall leader that is a junior runner running in the elite competition - based on combined times for all Stages.
Copy Plus Green Singlet: Worn by the leader of the 'Sprint-Leg' points table. There are 1 to many designated Sprint Leg's assigned to each course (marked on control descriptions and in the terrain), the times for each leg are ranked and given a set of points.
Noel Leeming Polka-Dot Singlet: Worn by the leader of the 'Hill-Climb Leg' points table. There are 0 to many designated Sprint Leg's assigned to each course (marked on control descriptions and in the terrain), the times for each leg are ranked and given a set of points. The points allocated for the hill climb leg differ depending on it's physical difficulty.
Sprint the Bay in 2013 will be held in January directly after the last World Cup race in New Zealand. We expect a big turn out with a lot of international stars. We plan to try and bring an amateur TV production with HD coverage of the events live to the internet.
