okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Friday, August 14, 2009
Go Portugal!
Portugal's team at the WOC looks interesting. They've only got 4 runners (3 men and 1 woman), but two are juniors. And both of the juniors had some nice results at the JWOC. It will be fun to see how the Portuguese team performs.
I'm not sure how old the two juniors are. I'll assume they are both 20. The other, Pedro Nogueira, is 27. The woman, Maria Sa, is 23. The average team age is 22.5 (less if either of the juniors is younger than 20).
It seems to make sense that having a young team bodes well for the future. If I remember correctly, the Czech Republic had the youngest team at the WOC in 2003. In some ways that young team set the stage for the successes of last year. Dana Brozkova won the long race in 2008. Her first WOC was 2003. Michael Smola took a silver in the 2008 WOC middle. His first WOC was 2003.
I would be surprised if Portugal has two medalists in 5 years. But, I wouldn't be surprised if Portugal has some significantly better results in 5 years. I'll have to remember to check in 2014.
