WOC IN UKRAINE PREVIEW

Ukraine Maps

Victorian Orienteering Championships 2007

Castlemaine area

Middle Distance: October 20 Map: Deadman’s Flat 1:7500

Long Distance: October 21 Map: Spring Gully 1:10000 Pre-entry both events: closes Sept 22, 2007 More Details: www.vicorienteering.asn.au/ Tel: 03 9017 3617 email: don.fell@bigpond.com or ruthg@netspace.net.au

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Ukraine hosts WOC2007

The World Orienteering Championships (WOC) were held in and around Kiev, Ukraine, during August 16 – 26. As you read this the competitions will be completed and the results known. How did the AUS Team go? We will have in-depth coverage of WOC2007 in the December edition of this magazine.

WE can be sure that the competition was fierce, the maps and terrain complex (see Hanny Allston after winning the 2006 Sprint World Championship in Denmark opposite page) and that some relatively new faces stood on the podiums for the first time, as Hanny Allston did herself in the Sprint, and then with fellow Relay runners Jo Allison and Grace Elson, last year.

Hanny, Grace Elson and Jo Allison on the podium after last year’s Relay World Champs.

We can also be sure that the event as a whole was a spectacle for the spectators who were there and for the millions who followed coverage of the races on the Internet. Media coverage of WOC events has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years, due mainly to vastly improved Finish arena designs and to technological advances like automatic radio controls and GPS tracking which enable commentators at the Finish to give real-time coverage of competitors’ progress around the course. Their commentary goes out not only to spectators nearby but also to many more enthusiastic orienteers following the events on the Internet. All this is great for advancing public recognition for our sport, but requirements for hosting World Orienteering Championships are becoming more complex and onerous. In order to make World Cup and WOC events more attractive to media coverage the International Orienteering Federation (IOF) expects nations which apply to host future World Cup and WOC events to guarantee some form of TV coverage, whether live or news clips for replay. That probably means that we will not see another WOC or World Cup in Australia (or New Zealand) in the foreseeable future. That’s a pity, but it’s also progress and it is to be hoped that Orienteering here in Australia can benefit from the spin-off of greater media recognition. That’s our challenge for the future.