The Middle Qualification opened the European Championships today – with all women runners carrying a GPS. Here you find a quick GPS analysis of the race. As this was a qualification race, focus is more on where the race was lost than on where it was won!

This article is part of the EOC 2012 GPS-analysis series. In a cooperation with the EOC 2012 organizers, World of O/O-training.net will do GPS-analysis after each of the EOC races in Sweden the coming week.

Jansson versus Alexandersson

The above illustration compares the routes of  two of the big profiles of this Europan Championships – Swedish Helena Jansson and Tove Alexandersson – finishing 1st and 2nd in Heat 3. As you can see (check out Jansson versus Alexandersson in 2DRerun for yourself to go further in the analysis), the main difference in this second part of the course seems to be running speed in the tougher parts of the terrain (yellow) and the last uphill.

See also:

• Kauppi versus Broadman (Heat A) – note slow loading as all routes in the heat are loaded. Note how Kauppi runs very straight along the red line all the way.
• Hausken versus Niggli (Heat B) – again includes all runners in the heat. Simone looses time by running around to number 11 – it is further around than in Heat C shown below though.
• Jansson versus Alexandersson (Heat C) – again all runners included.

Looks easy – can be tricky

The courses look seemingly easy when looking at them at the map, but still there were lots of mistakes made – mostly direction mistakes as you can see in the GPS-tracking from the women. A combination of running speed and good direction were the key ingredients to get to the finals. And of course accurate orienteering in the green areas.

One runner who had some problems in the start of the race was Norway’s Heidi Bagstevold. As you see on the illustration above, 45 degrees off already to the first control lost her more than half a minute. A bad compass direction to number 3 cost another 20 seconds – and then the big 3-minute mistake at number 6.  Happy ending for Bagstevold, though: She managed to keep the speed and secure her orienteering on the rest of the course, and made it to the A-final.

Direction

Looking at the spreading of routes on this leg from control 7 to control 8, it is obvious that straight is fastes (green color = fast). Looks like some might need to practice a bit more compass running before the A- and B-finals?

Although direct was faster in almost all legs today – there is no rule without exception. On the leg to number 11 (see below) it seems like the road option to the left is slightly faster. The reason for this is the tough terrain direct.