Relay Maps

Here are Clare's maps from the relay event to give you an idea of the style of the terrain and the courses.

The first map shows two start/finish areas. The SE one is where competitors started out from quarantine onto the courses. The northern one is where your time actually started and stopped for solving controls 1 through 5. Then you could walk off the clock south to the other section where you once again went on the clock to solve controls 6 through 10.

In each map there is a small area outlined by purple dash which shows the approximate outline of where the competitors had to view from while solving the problems. Each team had three members with different versions of the course (A,B,C). These pictures are course version C. Each version uses the same controls and viewing sites, but has a different circle on the map and a different answer.

You can see the many rock features in the area. Some are very massive cliffs. The relay was different, as we were looking down on them from above. The other competitions have been from below. 

Team USA was 18th out of 19 teams in the open category.

A photo from the second PreO day to give you an idea of the cliffs. Can you find the control flag in this picture?

Meet the 2023 WTOC Team

(O) = Open Class
(P) = Physically Challenged Class
(J) = Open Class - Junior age

Sharon Crawford (O) from the Rocky Mountain Orienteering Club has been a fixture at orienteering championships of all kinds for decades. This will be her 14th WTOC. In addition to orienteering, Sharon is an avid hiker and has been conquering peaks her whole life. She has reached the highest point in every US State and is closing in on completing the same challenge for every country in Europe.

Clare Durand (O) from the Los Angeles Orienteering Club also serves as President of Orienteering USA. She is competing in her 9th WTOC. Clare has been training using virtual TempO games and is always striving for a personal best. When she achieves one, she rewards herself with an extremely large chocolate bar.

Daniel Heimgartner (P) from Capital Region Nordic Alliance will be competing at WTOC for the fourth time. He has been working hard as the course setter for the upcoming Trail-O WRE to be hosted by CRNA in Philadelphia in August.

Jarmo Latva-Kokko (J) from New England Orienteering Club is enjoying his second WTOC. He will be starting his senior year at Andover High School in the fall.

Katja Latva-Kokko (J) from New England Orienteering Club will be competing at WTOC for the first time. She will be a sophomore at Phillips Academy in Andover this coming school year.

Mika Latva-Kokko (O) from New England Orienteering Club has previously competed at five WTOC's and served as a team official and on the jury last year. Mika especially enjoys TempO and has come close to making the finals in the past. He his happy to be back competing this year.

Rhonda Liddell (P) from Capital Region Nordic Alliance has been active in Trail Orienteering for a number of years. She medaled at the 2021 OUSA Trail-O Nationals and is excited to be at her first international Trail Orienteering event. 

Anne Maker (P) from Capital Region Nordic Alliance started Trail Orienteering two years ago. She has been training hard and will be doing her best to represent OUSA at her first WTOC.

David Snypes (P) from Capital Region Nordic Alliance is competing at WTOC for the first time. He has appreciated the time that all of the experienced orienteers have taken to help him prepare for his competitions.

Peter Zielczynski (O) from Hudson Valley Orienteering has done trail orienteering since 2004, but will be representing USA at WTOC for the first time this year. He has attended six previous WTOC's as a member of the Polish team. In 2009 he had a great result landing him in second place - but it didn't last, as he fell to 14th on day 2. He hopes to finish in the top 100 this year.

Model Event

Each country was assigned a start block for the Model event today. Ours was 2:30pm, which gave the new arrivals some time to sleep in to recover from travel. The entire team is now here!

Back row: Daniel Heimgartner(P), David Snypes(P), Anne Maker(P), Mika Latva-Kokko(O), Peter Zielczynski(O), Amy Latva-Kokko(team official), Russ Myer(team official), Sharon Crawford(O)

Front Row: Jarmo Latva-Kokko(O-Jr), Rhonda Liddell(P), Katja Latva-Kokko(O-Jr), Clare Durand(O)

The model was a great little training day. The short course gave us all a chance to practice our rock reading and PreO and TempO strategies. After the finish, we wandered back through the course with the solution sheets. The seasoned Trail-O veterans helped out the newer team members and helped them analyze their mistakes and understand how to improve as the week progresses.

Tomorrow's first day of WTOC PreO competition packs 36 controls into a 500m long course. The map appears to be more bouldery and less cliffy than what we've seen so far with lots of boulder field symbols as well. It may be difficult discerning between individual mapped boulders and rocks that are part of boulder fields. You can find the start list here.

TempO and Trosky

Saturday was the PreWTOC TempO competition. The course had six stations each with five tasks. Seven had been planned, but the grass is so high here that one station across a meadow had to be canceled. The organizers couldn't clear enough of the brush to make everything they needed visible. Similar to Friday, the terrain was steep hillsides filled with large and small cliffs and boulders. Quite technical for a TempO. Clare once again had the top US result with a raw time of 319 seconds and seven misses for a total score of 529. They scored the weekend with a combined scoring system that added up your TempO score, your PreO timed control time, and gave penalty points for missed PreO controls (similar to Trail-O relay scoring). In the final scores, Clare placed 70th, Sharon 98th, and Peter 101st out of 116 Open Elite competitors. 

PreWTOC results and maps

The organizers were kind enough to leave open the previous days PreO course and allowed us to go back to analyze things and even go into the terrain to investigate the sites. It's always nice to be able to visit afterwards and look for how you could have improved. I was able to check out number 18, where I was thrown by the mapping of a single large rock as a cliff with boulder above and a gap between (Not how I would map it!).

The offending rock feature and flag

After the competition, the team enjoyed a trip to the site of Hrad Trosky - ruins of a medieval castle built onto two imposing basalt towers. We then visited more nearby rocks for another fun hike. 

The team at Hrad Trosky

Peter is King of the Rock

Next up: The model event for WTOC. The entire team will finally be together and we will bring you team pics and bios.

Cesky Raj Rocks!

Clare, Peter, and Sharon have arrived early and competed today in the PreO day of the Pre-WTOC Orienteering Adventure. The terrain is full of sandstone cliffs and most of the problems involved figuring out which rock each control was on. Clare had the best score of the day with 23 out of 27 correct. This placed her 75th out of 117 participants in the Open Elite class. You can see the map and all of the results on the PreO results page.

After the competition, they took a trip to the Czech Natural Reserve Prachovske Skaly (Prachov Rocks) and enjoyed an afternoon of hiking through immense boulders with narrow passageways and steep rocky staircases. Although the competition area isn't so dramatic, similar rock formations underlie the large cliffs and boulders in the mapped area.

Tomorrow - TempO at the Pre-WTOC

WTOC 2023

The World Trail Orienteering Championships are only a few days away and the team is readying for their travel. This year's event will be in Czechia and you can find all the details at the event website: https://www.wtoc2023.cz/

Some of the team members will also be competing in the PreWTOC TrailO Adventure WRE taking place nearby just prior to WTOC. Follow this blog for all the news from the team!

Team Announcement from OUSA