Season’s climax for elite ski orienteers
Posted on | March 1, 2013 | Category: News
The coming week sees the world’s leading ski orienteers congregated in Kazakhstan for the 2013 World Ski Orienteering Championships (WSOC), consisting of four individual formats and two relay events.
Eighteen nations will be represented in the races this year, with 60 men and 40 women competing for the medals. Each nation can enter up to 4 women and 4 men in individual competitions, plus the defending world champions if selected for the nation’s team. In the relays, nations can enter one team (to include at least one woman) in the Mixed Relay and one women’s and one men’s team in the traditional relay.
The first race, on Tuesday, is the individual Sprint, where Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson and Finland’s Olli-Markus Taivainen will be striving to defend their titles won in Sweden two years ago. On the following two days the individual Middle distance and Mixed Sprint Relay events will be held, with the traditional Relay races and the Long individual (mass start) at the weekend.
The WSOC venue is the Lesnoye Sports School at Ridder in eastern Kazakhstan, with the school’s ski stadium being used as the finish area for all the races. Ridder was the base for 4 races in the SkiO World Cup in 2008, and Kazakhstan was a venue for World Cup races last year too. Ridder is at the foot of the Altai Mountains; the competition area is on a long slope – the higher up you are, the steeper the slope – with many shallow spurs and gullies and a well-developed complex network of cross-country and biathlon ski trails. Most of the competition area is forested, and it lies between 560 and 720 metres above sea level.
Reports and leading results will be posted each day on the IOF website, and more detail can be found by going to the event website, most easily accessed by clicking on the event logo on the right-hand side of the IOF website’s Home Page.
WSOC 2013 programme
Monday 4 March Opening Ceremony
Tuesday 5 March Sprint
Wednesday 6 March Middle Distance
Thursday 7 march Mixed Sprint Relay
Friday 8 March Rest day
Saturday 9 March Relay
Sunday 10 March Long Distance (mass start)
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