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Share  Tweet Wednesday 24th August 2016

The World Trail Orienteering Championships, TempO

The World Trail Orienteering Championships began in earnest for the British team yesterday morning (Tuesday 23 August) with the TempO heats held in Strömstad City. There were two heats each of 36 competitors. Each heat had eight stations, (or control clusters), each station having six flags, with five timed control problems per station.

In TempO, there is a time allowance of up to 30 seconds to answer each problem. The total time a competitor takes to answer every station is added together, together with a 30-second penalty for every mistake made: the lowest time accumulated wins.

In the Red heat, Nick Barrable was placed 7th in 260 seconds, whilst Ian Ditchfield scored 411, in 28th place. In the Blue Heat, John Kewley scored 372 and Tom Dobra 296 seconds, placing them 24th and 13th out of  36. The best 18 in each heat qualified for the Final which meant that Tom and Nick made the Final, the first time we had managed to qualify two athletes for the TempO Final.

Photo (above):  Tom Dobra.  Credit:  Joaquim Margarido

Photo (above):  Ian Ditchfield.  Credit:  Joaquim Margarido

Over the lunchtime break there was then a brief International Orienteering Federation (IOF) Welcoming Ceremony for the TrailO athletes, because as the central part of of Strömstad had been an embargoed area for the TrailO teams until after the TempO, they were unable to attend the official Opening Ceremony earlier in the week.

In the afternoon, the TempO Final was held in a different area of the city, finishing in the athletics arena used for the World Orienteering Championships 2016 Sprints and Sprint Relays. The final course had a further five stations, but this time there were six problems per station. Competitors started in reverse order, with the slowest starting first and the fastest last.

The race finished with a final public station in the arena, with planner Bosse Sandstrom indicating to the crowd of spectators whether the competitor’s answers were correct or not.

Photo:  Nick Barrable.  Credit:  Joaquim Margarido

Tom Dobra made six errors on this very tricky course, and was disappointed to finish in 34th place, whilst Nick Barrable had four of the 36 problems wrong in a time of 411 which placed him 28th overall.

The competition was won by the Norwegian Lars Jakob Waaler, who made only three errors in 248 seconds. Sweden’s Marit Wiksell won the silver and the Finn, Pinja Mäkinen won bronze. There were three women placed in the top four as the other podium positions went to Iva Lovrec of Croatia in 4th place, whilst Kreso Kerestes of Slovenia and Remo Madella of Italy (mapper of this year’s London City Race) with a score of 288, shared 5th position. Remo was particularly pleased as he had only just scraped through as the 36th and last qualifier.

For the British TrailO team it was a slightly disappointing end to the day. We have never placed higher than 27th in TempO and at least we managed to qualify two competitors to the Final this year.

Full results from the World Trail Orienteering Championships, TempO can be found here.

Today sees the first round of the PreO (traditional TrailO) in the beautiful nature reserve on the island of Saltö.

Great Britain Team

Competition Format:  PreO

PreO Day 1, Wednesday 24 August

PreO Day 2, Friday 26 August

Open PreO Class
John Kewley (Manchester and District Orienteering Club)
Ian Ditchfield (Mole Valley Orienteering Club)
Nick Barrable (South Yorkshire Orienteers)

Paralympic PreO Class
Dick Keighley (Wimborne Orienteers)
Peter Roberts (Eborienteers)

Team Manager
Anne Braggins (West Anglian Orienteering Club)


The full programme is available on the World Trail orienteering Championships website.

British Orienteering wishes the Great Britain team all the very best as they compete in the World Trail Orienteering Championships, PreO first round today.

 

Item posted by Jennie Taylor, Marketing Manager on behalf of Richard Keighley, Chair of TrailO Development Steering Group, British Orienteering.

 

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