World Orienteering Championships 2014Trentino and Veneto, Italy, 5-12 July
ESOC’s Claire Ward competed for GB at the World Championships in the Middle and Long Distance races and also in the forest Relay.
The World Orienteering Championships started in Italy on Saturday 5 July with the Sprint in Venice. There were good results for Scottish based athletes, Murray Strain, who finished 13th and Tessa Hill who finished 12th.
The inaugural Mixed Sprint Relay took place on Monday 7 July in Trento, where Murray and Tessa competed along with Cat Taylor and Kris Jones, and came in 6th position.
Claire ran the Long Distance at Lavarone on Wednesday 9 July. The terrain was described as “…the hills and valleys of Lavarone, in stretches of alpine, pine, spruce and beech forest. The terrain is a mix of areas with good visibility, forest with good running condition, and areas where vegetation is more dense and running speed is reduced.” The Long Distance race was run in showery weather and seemed to be quite tough. Claire made a 4 minute mistake near the start and was well down the field in the first half of the race, but recovered to finish 29th, just over 13 minutes down on the winner Svetlana Mironova from Russia.
Claire ran the Middle distance at Campomulo on Friday 11 July. The terrain is described thus: “The middle distance final is organized in Campomulo, which is part of Asiago karstic highland, at 1500-1700 meters above sea level. The landscape is characterized by many terraces, divided by steeper areas. The vegetation varies from alpine pastures to open forest, mainly coniferous, and the ground surface is very rocky throughout reducing the runnability in the forest. Trenches from World War are very common in this area. The network of paths, tracks and roads is not very dense. Cross country ski tracks exist in parts of the area.” After her disappointment in the Long Race on Wednesday, Claire had a much better run with only minor errors to finish in a great 12th place. Good one Claire.
Claire ran the middle leg in the forest relay on Saturday 12 July (also in Campomulo). She took over from Tessa Hill in 9th place and had a good run to come back in 8th place. She handed over to Cat Taylor, who brought the team up to 6th place, another excellent result. The men's team also had a great result, coming 7th.
Full results and reports are available on the WOC 2014 website. There are also some interesting reports on the British Orienteering website here.
Crawford Lindsay
Club Captain