WOC in Trondheim

Hello all from Trondheim Norway. We have just finished the WOC week and have had a most enjoyable time.

The weather was excellent with sunshine on all days and temperatures that dipped slightly into the low 20s. Trondheim is a beautiful coastal city surrounded by islands. Norway is a very expensive place to visit but I am looking forward to returning to explore the northern section of the country.

The terrain we ran on (WOC runners too) was varied with the first two days on very complex, marshy terrain. You quickly got used to having wet feet and very smelly clothes. The sprint was run in the old town and was great fun. Days 4 & 5 were on flatter, marshier area that featured a last minute dash down a steep hill to the finish. The area featured a huge ski jump and many courses saw legs go under the top of this massive feature. usually there is summer ski jumping but the jump is under repair right now.



The major feature of the terrain besides marshes was the higher land between the marshes. The land was quite bumpy and this was very distracting. As much as you tried it was hard to ignore the bumps. Vegetation also varied greatly with some very thick pine, long green grass and thickets.

The marshes were difficult to cross and one had to be very careful of the pits. Mind you I found out the hard way when after picking up my map I walked straight into a pit and ended up chest deep in bog. Fortunately some good soul jumped the fence and helped haul me out.

We used the emit punching system. It seems to be somewhat clumsy in use compared to SI. The bit you carry (called a brick) is large and can only go into the control unit in one direction and so you have to turn yourself around to punch. The have a piece of paper which you insert under the brick. Each control unit has a spike sticking up and leaves a pattern - good idea if your brick fails but judging by the number of pieces of paper littering the forest it is not very practical.

As far as Uringa performances went Maureen was first overall in her age group and Dick was in the top 10. Gayle and I both struggled with some of the navigation and had no result recorded in the final. Mind you Gayle completed her course on the last day but was after their course closure time as they had to set up the arena for the WOC Relays. I stomped off the map after having brain issues!

Attending a WOC Carnival is always a mixture of great fun and disappointment. You feel the disappointment of the aussie runners as they push themselves to the limit in many cases throwing caution to the wind and yet even then they struggle to get into the top half of the field. Mind you we had a number of runners in each of the finals.

To give you an idea of what we are up against there was a competition being run at the same time as the spectator events. It was for 12-18 year old. Each field had some 30-50 runners and these kids were treated like elites. The majority of each field were Norwegians. Interviews after completing their courses special prize givings etc. I guess only Linda could enlighten us more on the nature of these competitions.

The WOC relays were very exciting and whilst the women went out on the last leg with 3 teams in contention (The Swedish runner blew a 2 minute lead) the mens relay had 6 teams within 100 seconds. It was quite a fight and France blew their third relay in a row and the very happy Russians celebrated like champs in the finish chute.

We were able to catch up with Oystein and Vigdis who were members of Uringa in 1997,98. They live in Trondheim and we visited them in 1999 and were able to enjoy some time together again. Vigdis was a volunteer in the sanitary team looking after garbage etc. Oystein worked on timing and there was a squad of 30 looking after the technical needs of the event. The commentary team had 10 operators sitting behind them spotting worthwhile information.

From Trondheim the 20 plus aussie supporters headed in a variety of directions. Some were off to Scotland for more wet feet orienteering, some sightseeing in Norway and others were heading home, Gayle and I have a week or so in Latvia before heading back to Sydney at the end of the month.

We arrived in Latvia yesterday to 30degrees and a huge thunderstorm.