Scotland - WOC 2015: Start your engines!

Hello Dear Readers! What better way to welcome you to Scotland than to provide you with a picture of the beautiful countryside. I am posting this after I drove north to join Team USA in Inverness, for the World Orienteering Championships. Over the next several days, I will be acting as the team leader for Team USA and bringing you updates from the athletes and the arena as the races progress.

Gorgeous scenery, heading into the highlands

Team USA is here in Inverness poised and ready for the first competition, which kicks off tomorrow, Friday, July 31. For an overview of the WOC week, look no further than the incredible post over at World of O, where Jan Kocbach has compiled a bunch of resources that will keep you close to the action. I will highlight in particular the link for the official IOF onlinecoverage. It is possible to buy a single (10€) or a weeklong pass (18€) and watch video and GPS tracking for all the races. Furthermore, it will be possible to post on Attackpoint! forums to interact with your fellow spectators, just be fairly warned that very little of what tRicky posts is serious. 

Another wonderful link found in Jan's article takes you to a Team USA overview page. Click on the Athlete photos to read a bit more about each runner.

Friday’s race is the Sprint Qualification. The women's race starts at 18:00 local time (10 AM Pacific/11 AM Mountain/ 12 Noon Central/ and 1 PM Eastern ) the men's an hour later. The six runners representing Team USA and their start times are found below:

Men:

Ken Walker Jr. (CSU, QOC) 19:02

Greg Ahlswede (DVOA, Escondite(ESP) ) 19:17

Ethan Childs (GMOC) 19:33

Women:

Kseniya Popova (HVO) 18:05

Alexandra Jospe (CSU, Trent-O(ITA) ) 18:14

Alison Crocker (CSU, CROC) 18:33

Complete start lists are published here.

To reach the finals, a runner needs to finish in the top fifteen places in their qualification heat. For the Men there will be 3 heats of 42-43 runners per heat and for the Women there will be 3 heats with 35 runners in each. The qualification is predicted to have a 13 minute winning time. The course will have 10 meters of climb over 3.7k/3.4k  Men/Women and the map is 1:4000 scale with 2.5m contours.

A special highlight for tomorrow is that these races will be the first World Championships appearances for Greg Ahlswede and Kseniya Popova.

When cornered and asked for a quote, Greg said, "Months of diligent preparation, and I'm ready to perform to my potential." Kseniya reluctantly offered, "I'm really excited to be here. And that's it."

Wish them luck as they toe the line tomorrow and fight for a spot in the top fifteen.