The WOC is in Olomouc, Czech Republic this year. The event website is http://www.woc2008.cz/en/homepage. The program includes Sprint, Middle and Long distances, and a Relay. Some events will be broadcast live, and all events will have online results and progress times.

Australia is represented by a team of 4 men and 5 women: Julian Dent, Kerrin Rattray, Dave Shepherd, Simon Uppill, Jo Allison, Grace Elson, Kathryn Ewels, Jasmine Neve, Vanessa Round. No Hanny Allston this year - she is in NZ concentrating on her teaching studies. Dent and Elson are hoping for top 20 or better in their events, while Uppill and Round could surprise after their podium performances at last year's Junior WOC. The women's relay team has the potential to finish in the top 5 or 6.

The team has a 'trog' (training log) at the Attack Point website: http://attackpoint.org/weeklyactivity.jsp/user_4471

First event is the Sprint - qualifying races in the morning tomorrow, with the final in the afternoon. Sprint orienteering is over a distance of 3.0-3.5kms, usually in an area where fast navigation decisions have to be made. Tomorrow's events will be in the 'old towns' of Prostejov and Olomouc, with tricky navigation in the medieval streets and alleys.

cool!
thanks for that simmo

All three Australian girls (Jasmine, Kathryn, Grace) qualified for this afternoon's Sprint Final. The Men's qualifying has just begun - online at http://live.woc2008.cz/#SprintQ

Simon, Kerrin and Julian are our runners.

It's now an hour later - Simon and Julian have qualified, Kerrin missed out. The finals are at 12.45am EST for women and 2.00am for the men.

The womens final was clashing with the last few kms of the Tour de France, and the Czech tv online streaming wasn't working too well, so I was only monitoring the Aussie girls with the online result table (updated every 30 secs). Kathryn Ewels was our best in 27th place, Grace Elson 32nd. Jasmine Neve at her first WOC had the pressure of being first starter in front of a huge crowd, and she lost time early in the race to finish 42nd. In the absence of Swiss Superstar Simone Niggli (who is taking this year off after having a baby), the Scandinavians dominated, with a Norwegian 1st, Finn 2nd and Swede 3rd.

Didn't stay up for the mens final - lost too much sleep already in the last week what with the TdeF. The race was won by Russian Andrey Khramov from Switzerland's Daniel Hubmann by 2 seconds. Julian Dent was suffering from food poisoning and had given everything in the qualification race - he finished 42nd, with Simon Uppill - in the same situation as Jasmine, 1st WOC, 1st starter - one place behind Julian.

Next races are the long distance qualifying on Tuesday.

Australia's three women representatives Jo Allison, Kathryn Ewels and Vanessa Round all qualified today in their heats for the Long Distance final on Saturday. Unfortunately our lone male Kerrin Rattray missed out, but Kiwi Ross Morrison was the last qualifier in his heat, and will start first at 5.30pm EST in the Men's Final.

Tomorrow is a rest day, with the Middle Distance heats and final on Thursday. Australia will have 3 men and 3 women running, and all will have good prospects of qualifying for the final.

The Middle Distance qualification races are currently happening. Women are running just under 4km and men just under 5km. First 15 in each of 3 heats qualify for the final, to be run later today. It will probably need times of better than 30 minutes to qualify. Currently, with some of the better runners still to finish, Vanessa Round and Jo Allison look safely through. Jo is in 6th with 29.00, Vanessa 10th in 29:37. Grace Elson is also currently 6th in her heat, but in just over 30 minutes.

Simon Uppill is in the last qualifying place (15th) in 30:56, but some of the favourites have yet to finish. Dave Shepherd is 11th in 34:02, but the times in his heat are all much slower, so he may be ok. Julian Dent has yet to finish, but he was 3rd at the halfway radio control only 40 secs down on triple world champion Thierry Guergiou of France. Hopefully we'll have at least 5 qualifiers!

Sadly, Shep missed out, but Julian and all three women made it. The women's final will be broadcast on Czech tv, which you can stream online, at 1.25am EST. Here in Perth, it will be 11.25pm, so I might watch some of it after the TdF. The men will be later, but a replay broadcast will be available.

Great runs by Grace Elson and Jo Allison saw them both finish in the top 20 in the World. In fact, only 1 second separated them in the end, with Grace finishing 16th and Jo 17th, 7 minutes behind the winner Minna Kauppi of Finland. Vanessa Round was a further 4 minutes back in 33rd place, while Julian Dent finished 32nd in the men's class, 6 minutes behind Frenchman Thierry Gueorgiou.

Its a rest day today, with the Long Distance final tomorrow (around 5.30pm EST), and the Relay on Sunday. The Long Distance can be followed online, including tracking of the runners on the map online through TracTrac.

Kathryn Ewels, who will be well-known to mountain runners and Victorian X-C runners, had a fantastic race in the WOC Long Distance final at Boudy, Czech Republic to take 14th place. Kathryn was always in contention for a top 10 place on the 11.9km course with 450m of climb. Jo Allison finished in 25th place, and Vanessa Round 39th. The home country was happy, with Dana Brozkova taking the gold in 84:26, from Marianne Andersen (Norway) 2nd and Annika Billstam (Sweden) 3rd.

Australia did not have a representative in the Men's race (17.3km, 750m climb) which was won by Daniel Hubmann of Switzerland in 106:08.

Results and maps are on the WOC website http://www.woc2008.cz/en/homepage, and a replay of the runners' routes can be found at http://www.tractrac.com/?page=woc2008

Television footage of the event will be broadcast at around 1.00pm EST tomorrow, and can be seen at http://www.ct24.cz/sport/

Tomorrow is the final event, the relay, in which the Aussie women have a chance of getting in the top 6 and onto the podium. This race will be broadcast live by Czech tv on the above link at around 5.45pm EST.

The final event of WOC ended with Australia's women just being edged into 8th place by China. Jo Allison ran a great first leg to put Australia in 6th place, just a minute behind the leaders. Hot favourites Finland had a bad first leg, but came through on the second leg to pass Grace Elson. Kathryn Ewels started the last leg in 7th, but the Chinese who are relatively new to Orienteering had their most consistent run of the week, and their 3rd runner caught Kathryn at the second last control. Finland's last runner Minna Kauppi started 3 minutes behind the leaders in 5th place, but ran a blinder to win by two minutes for her second gold of the week.

In the men's race, there was high drama when two of the lesser-fancied teams - Britain and France - were together in the lead on the last leg. Towards the end of the race, favourites Russia had moved into 2nd, but it looked as though France would win. Then the French runner Thierry Guergiou swallowed a bee, which stung him and caused an allergic reaction, and he was forced to stop. The Russian Valentin Novikov then made a small navigation mistake, and Britain's Jamie Stevenson finished strongly, flanked by his flagwaving teammates Jon Duncan and Graham Gristwood in the finish chute, to take the gold. Australia climbed into 15th place with a good last leg from Julian Dent.

Australia's women had a great WOC, showing that with Hanny Allston in the team, they would easily be in the top 6 nations. The terrain and courses would have suited Hanny, and she certainly would have been in the medals again. Jo, Grace and Kathryn are very consistent, and Vanessa Round showed promise in her first WOC. Julian Dent and Simon Uppill did enough to show that they will be the core of our men's team for the next 5-10 years.