Winter’s arrived here in Christchurch, which means it’s about time to head to a warmer climate for some Orienteering in Europe!  This year I’m heading to Switzerland initially for the Post Finance Sprint (World Cup rounds 4 and 5) in St Gallen then the World Champs in Lausanne. Due to the Olympics this year the World Orienteering Champs has been brought forward to July, along with JWOC and WUOC, putting the International Orienteering season a little bit out of sync with the multi-day events throughout Europe so unfortunately I wont have time to stick around for any of them.

WOC in Switzerland has been on my radar for about 4 years now, I feel like I’m running fast at the moment, the Orienteering is a bit out of practice but with a little bit of training it can be honed quite nicely, and with the experience I have built the last two or three years I feel I’m in good shape.  Now its just a matter of getting over there and putting it altogether and running a race that I can be happy with and then hopefully the results will speak for themselves.

I intend to keep this blog thing up to date while I’m over there…so check back in if your interested to see how it all goes!

So the rough schedule is (including links to the live results websites):

19th June – Leave NZ for Switzerland

20th June – Arrive Switzerland, head to St Gallen for some training prior to World Cup/Post Finance races

23rd June – World Cup Round 4 – Post Finance Middle Distance race

24th June – World Cup Round 5 – Post Finance Sprint Race (unfortunately to make the A final you have to be ranked in the top 40, so it will be B- final for me…)

25th June – Head to Lausanne for some training.

29th/30th June – Go to Davos for some more training in the Mountains?

6th/7th July – Back to Lausanne for even more training

14th July – World Champs begins (Sprint, Spectating for me)

15th July – Long Qualification

16th July – Middle Qualification

17th July – Middle Final

19th July – Long Final

21st July – Relay (spectating again), and Banquet, WOC finishes up.

23rd July – Fly home

25th July – Arrive back in NZ