New Zealand start for 2013 World Cup
Posted on | January 4, 2013 | Category: News
This year’s World Cup starts with three events in New Zealand as part of the Oceania Carnival. More than 120 athletes from 20 nations have gathered on the country’s North Island to take part.
The last and only time a World Cup race has been held in New Zealand, in 1994, it was won by home runner Alistair Landels – and confidence is high amongst the big home contingent entered here for some very good results again. A huge amount of work has been put into creating a full and often spectacular programme of events for the World Cup itself and the Carnival overall; you can read a full preview in the 2012/6 issue of Inside Orienteering published in December – click on Inside Orienteering on the left-hand side of the IOF Home Page.
The organisers have been well rewarded for their efforts: in addition to the World Cup athletes, the Carnival has received entries from more than 900 runners from 28 countries – an extremely impressive total.
The Opening Ceremony for the Carnival and World Cup has been held today, Friday, and was itself something special, including a traditional Maori welcome and displays of sheep-dog trialling and other rural activities. This was followed by some ‘rural challenges’ for the teams and a huge barbecue accompanied by a folk-music concert.
World Cup starts on Sunday
The World Cup gets under way on Sunday with a Middle Distance race on intricately contoured open and forested sand dune terrain at Waikawa Beach on the west coast. The course planner is Yvette Baker, who as Yvette Hague took the gold medal at Short Distance (the equivalent of Middle Distance today) in the 1999 World Championships in Scotland. The race starts at 9.30 New Zealand time – which means late on Saturday evening in Europe. Spectators should, by all accounts, be able to see plenty of the race by accessing different viewing points towards several spectator controls. Later in the day the Oceania Middle Distance Championships will be held on the same terrain. Good summer weather (but not too hot) is promised!
The World Cup then moves into Wellington for a Sprint qualification and final on successive days, Monday and Tuesday, and the last event is a Middle Distance chasing start on Sunday 13th January.
Thirteen events in 2013 World Cup
In addition to the World Championships finals in Finland in July, there are two more rounds of the World Cup: the Nordic Tour at the beginning of June comprising 5 events in Norway, Sweden and Finland, and the traditional final 2 races in Switzerland in October. In all there are 13 events, and athletes’ total scores will be calculated as the sum of all scores in New Zealand and on the Nordic Tour, plus the best 2 scores from the 3 World Championships finals together with the Middle Distance race in Switzerland, plus the score for the Word Cup Final. Athletes have to run in all 5 events of the Nordic Tour to qualify for points from these events. There is a prize money ‘pot’ of 7,000 Euros to be divided amongst the first 6 in the overall women’s and men’s standings at the end of the series.
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