JWOC 2009: what should you know?
July 2, 2009 by Lucie Babel
The Junior World Orienteering Championships 2009 are starting in 4 days. How many countries are represented? From which stone are made the Dolomites? Was the Trentino region always part of Italy during the History? To make sure you know everything – and even a bit more – right on time, let’s explorate the JWOC world through the letters of its host town: Primiero…
P as… Program
The JWOC 2009 will last from Sunday, July 5th to Saturday, July 11th.
- Sunday 5.07: Opening ceremony
- Monday 6.07: Sprint final (first start at 15pm)
- Tuesday 7.07: Long final (first start at 10am)
- Wednesday 8.07: Rest day
- Thursday 9.07: Middle qualification (first start at 9am)
- Friday 10.07: Middle final (first start at 9am)
- Saturday 11.07: Relay (start at 14.30)
See the detailled program for more informations.
R as… Rocky
The JWOC terrains for middle distance, long distance and relay are typical alpin ones. The forest mainly consists of coniferous woods with good visibility. Steep slopes, many rocks and contour details are also the main caracteristics of those terains, while the runnability can be slowed down by the stony ground and the undergrowth vegetation. The relay will be held in a terrain containing also open meadows and scattered woodlands. The sprint area is situated in the towns of Mezzano and Imer, consisting of many old buildings and little passages, as well as fields.
The climbing will be quite important in each race, with for example more than 400m of climb for M20 on the 7.6km long distance final. This will probably be one important criterion which will have to be imperatively taken into account to make clever route choices.
As our paragraph is entitled “rocky” and the forest of Primiero are full of them, let’s talk about rocks! Primiero is situated in the Dolomites mountains. This name of Dolomites was given by a French geolog to the stone from which they are made, which similarly to limestone find their origin in the sea. Yes, those stones were originally coral… As dolomites are less soluble than limestone, they tend to form these steep and sharps walls of stone.
I as… Italy
Fiera di Primiero is situated in the Province of Trento, also called Trentino, in the very North of Italy. Before World War I, the province was part of the Austrian Empire. After having been an important front of the fight between Italy and Austria-Hungary during World War I, Trentino was annexed to Italy by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The main attraction of this region are the Dolomites mountains – which were inserted to the UNESCO-Patrimony just one week ago – and who contributed a lot to the development of the province by its touristic side.
M as… Medalists
The JWOC will consecrate 18 individual medalists during the week, as well as 6 relay teams. The strongest national team on paper is indubitably Sweden, with 11 of 12 team members having at least one medal at JWOC or NOC, even though the big king of JWOC 2008 Johan Runesson (3 gold and a silver medal) will be missing because of sickness. However unlike last year’s JWOC or NOC 2009, these Junior World Championships won’t be held in a nordic country, but on homeground of alpin countries such as Switzerland, Italy or Austria. How are the nordic countries going to compete in face of these runners for who such terrains are familiar?
The JWOC 2005 were organized in the South of Switzerland, in terrains that could partly be compared to the ones of the Trentino region. Highest team score obtained Switzerland, ahead of Sweden, Norway and Finland. Other year, other runners… the fight will be hard, and interesting to follow.
I as… International
34 countries will be represented at JWOC 2009 for a total of 315 runners. 13 countries have sent a full set of runners (6 men and 6 women): Australia, Czech, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. The smallest team is Romania, with just one man and one woman participating.
E as… Enthusiasm
The New Zealand squad reported regularly about their trainings in relevant terrains, as well as about their arrival in Fiera di Primiero: “JWOC is being promoted much more than last year in Sweden. There are posters and o flags up in shops all over town and most of the lamp posts have JWOC 2009 flags hanging from them.”
This interest for JWOC is certainly going to grow with the arrival of the 3500 participants of the 5 days of the Dolomites, assuring through it the presence of an expert crowd.
R as… Results
We have still no informations about the eventuality of a live coverage of JWOC 2009. This paragraph will be updated as soon as we obtain further informations by the organizers. Ultimate Orienteering will be present on place, as the author of this article is one of the two English speaking speakers of JWOC 2009. We have for now no idea either if the speaker sound will be available online. Stay tuned, we’ll inform you as soon as possible!
O as… Oxygen
Why are we talking from acclimatation to altitude for JWOC 2009? Let’s try to explain it simply. All JWOC terrains are situated between 1000m and 2000m above sea level, an altitude we still considere as “middle mountain”, in opposition to the High Alps.
The density and the pressure of the air is maximal at sea level. Thus, the higher the altitude gets, the less pressure there is: the density decreases, as well as the air concentration. This means a decreasing resistance for human, but this effect is more than counterbalanced by the rarefaction of oxygen for our organism. The proportion of oxygen stays indeed the same at any altitude (around 21%), but as the air rarifies, the quantity of available oxygen becomes smaller. Less oxygen means logically less energy for our body. The organism responds to this reducing availability of oxygen by some general adaptations:
- The runner breathes faster and deeper, sometimes near to hyperventilation. This increase in breathing is a way to bring more oxygen to the organism;
- The heart rate raises. As there is less oxygen in the lungs, the organism has difficulties catching as much molecules in as before and tries to increase the speed at which the blood is transported.
These effects disappear after couple of days spent at altitude. With the time, the organism produces more red blood cells and hemoglobine, which permits it to catch the molecules without needing any higher blood flow (and thus higher heart rate) anymore.
Arriving and training at altitude early enough permits to let the body adapt himself and avoid these “bad surprises” which can occur first. It is also important for the runners to notice how their organism responds to fast running and at which speed they can run without being breathless too early.
Adapted from “Les effets de l’altitude”, http://www.volodalen.com/13physiologie/altitude.htm
