okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering


Friday, September 30, 2011

WOC of the past

 

With all the talk about the World Champs of the future, I thought it'd be interesting to reflect on the WOC of the past.

I started orienteering in 1980.  The first World Orienteering Champs after I began orienteering was in 1981 in Switzerland.

The first thing that you might notice about WOC in the past is that WOC was only held every other year.

The winners of the individual races were two of the all time greats - Oyvind Thon of Norway and Annichen Kringstad of Sweden.  Norway took all three medals among the men and a silver among the women.  Sweden took the women's bronze.

Another thing you might notice about WOC in 1981 is that there were only 2 individual races - one for men and one for women.  No qualifiers.  No middle or sprint.  One day, one race, one champion.

The relay champions were Norway (men) and Sweden (women).  The winning times were over 4.5 hours for the men and just under 4 hours for the women.

You might notice that the relays were a good bit longer.  If you looked at the results lists, you'd also notice that "back in the day" a relay team had 4 runners.

If you were to look at the results lists, you'd see 83 men and 72 women.  But, you wouldn't see any runners from some of the nations that you see at most WOCs these days.  There were no runners from the Baltic nations, for example.  No runners from Spain or Portugal.

If I could take one feature of the 1981 WOC and bring it back, I think I'd return to having a WOC every other year instead of every year.

Back to okansas.blogspot.com.

posted by Michael | 7:09 PM

8 comments


Comments:
Hi,

Can you explain more about qualification system for WOC1989 which was held in Sweden. From which WOC onwards qualifications races were on the program? As I got the info. every country without any qualified runner from A/B/C qualification races had a chance to put the best runner in A Final and others run B final. Do you still have any Bilten/IOF rules for this WOC?

BR, Samo
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
No big surprise there were no runners from the Baltic nations, simply because there were no Baltic nations at that time! ;-)
 
I think the qualifying in both 1987 and 1989 worked the same way. The top 25 in each of two qualifying races made the final. If a nation had nobody in the top 25, the nation's best placed runner qualified. If a nation's best placed runners had the same place, the runner with the shortest elapsed time qualified.

Michael
 
Thanks.

I checked, for WOC89 were 3 qualifying groups at least for women. That was info. from our runner. But it is hard to find any data or results from qualifications. In official IOF statistic I found only final results.
 
You can find complete results from all WOC´s at http://maprunner.co.uk/ [O Records -> WOC Database ]
/Leif
 
Thanks Leif.

So only 2 qualifying races in 89. It seems that our runner has a bad memory:)
 
I just stumbled over the WOC 1981 map
 
Post a Comment
March 2002April 2002May 2002June 2002July 2002August 2002September 2002October 2002November 2002December 2002January 2003February 2003March 2003April 2003May 2003June 2003July 2003August 2003September 2003October 2003November 2003December 2003January 2004February 2004March 2004April 2004May 2004June 2004July 2004August 2004September 2004October 2004November 2004December 2004January 2005February 2005March 2005April 2005May 2005June 2005July 2005August 2005September 2005October 2005November 2005December 2005January 2006February 2006March 2006April 2006May 2006June 2006July 2006August 2006September 2006October 2006November 2006December 2006January 2007February 2007March 2007April 2007May 2007June 2007July 2007August 2007September 2007October 2007November 2007December 2007January 2008February 2008March 2008April 2008May 2008June 2008July 2008August 2008September 2008October 2008November 2008December 2008January 2009February 2009March 2009April 2009May 2009June 2009July 2009August 2009September 2009October 2009November 2009December 2009January 2010February 2010March 2010April 2010May 2010June 2010July 2010August 2010September 2010October 2010November 2010December 2010January 2011February 2011March 2011April 2011May 2011June 2011July 2011August 2011September 2011October 2011November 2011December 2011January 2012February 2012March 2012April 2012May 2012June 2012July 2012August 2012September 2012October 2012November 2012December 2012January 2013March 2013April 2013May 2013July 2013September 2013
archives
links