 Marquita G
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Posted: 5 August 2015, 12:01 AM
Matt 26th, 3.06 min off the win. He seemed pretty satisfied with that. Tim in hospital with a dislocated shoulder, presumably the result of a fall. Gene B to take his place in the relay tomorrow.
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jeffg
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Posted: 5 August 2015, 2:15 AM
Commiserations to Tim, and best wishes for a speedy recovery.
There was some good video footage of NZ today, particularly Matt who looked confident and strong in the terrain. Awesome.
Go NZ!!
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Michael
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Posted: 5 August 2015, 4:28 PM
Paddling thru the website in the wait to the relay, I'm finding it more helpful than some WOCs and JWOCs. Just found the "extended start list" for the relay, it has the form for every runner (including late substitution Gene) which is up to date as of the middle distance yesterday.
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Michael
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Posted: 6 August 2015, 1:50 AM
They look very good relay results: 14 women 16 men. And with 4/6 runners at their first WOC. Stats-mongers tell us how they stack up.
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Michael
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Posted: 6 August 2015, 6:11 AM
Good promotion-relegation discussion here (thanks Blair): http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/message_1087074#message1087688
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 6 August 2015, 1:46 PM
only just caught up with the relay (other stuff today both keeping me busy in the morning and requiring of SLEEEEP overnight. Spent the best part of the pm watching the coverage after an almost successful 'media blackout'. Very impressed. Very very very impressed. With the teams - steady run from the women for a result near the top of the 'expected' range, but then the men! Must be one of our best men's relay results, at least in the '3 leg team and suddenly there's half a million European countries' era. With the Danish women, that's how you blow a relay apart! (and particularly cool seeing those familiar faces after they've made various visits to this part of the world in recent years) With the Swiss men, but also Magne Daehli who might have a few things to say to the other Scandinavians about how bad a position it is possible to recover from. With that forest. I want to run through that forest!!
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 6 August 2015, 2:47 PM
OK, after a bit of research, men first time in the top 20 since 2009 (Flynn, R Morrison, Forne 19th), only 2 other top 20 results in 3 man relay - which goes back to 2003 ('05 & '03). Equals placing at last Scottish world champs! ('99)(Landels, McLeod, Ashmore, Barbour) and best result since same team were 13th in Norway 1997. Best result ever: 11th in 1991 (Landels, Bill Teahan, Barbour, Jessop), worth noting that was in a field of 24 teams with notably only one Soviet Union (or perhaps CIS by then?) team in the place of at least 6 'ex-Soviets' in yesterday's race, as well as Czechoslovakia rather than Czech AND Slovak teams, but still a stand-out result 24 years later. This was also the year Katie Fettes took 10th place in the long race, and I remember squad management 'presenting' the whole team at the next major event back home (probably a Labour weekend nationals?) in recognition of their overall success.
But anyway, back to my original point: Gene, Shamus, Matt, take a bow - best ever NZ men result in a 3-person relay, 3rd= best placing in NZ WOC history. My source only has placings not times but I'm betting not many of those other top results were around 10mins off the winning time, either.
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 6 August 2015, 3:14 PM
How did the women stack up against history? Even better than I realised, as it happens. Equals the 4th best previous result, again in a field rapidly growing both size and depth. And less of an outlier (there have been a number of 15ths and 16ths, which may be why I'd seen this as a 'good' result as opposed to a 'great' one that it actually is!) Lizzie, Renee, Laura, you can take a bow too!
2005 9th (Robinson, Kane, Rachel Smith)
1997 9th (Wood, Adams, Ambler, Robinson)
1995 13th (Wood, Adams, Gelderman, Robinson)
2015 14th (L Ingham, Beveridge, Robertson)
1989 14th (Martin, Davies, Browne, Fettes)
1987 14th (Dowling, Martin, Browne, Fettes)
There are a few 9th to 14ths before 1987, but as these are in fields of 15-20 teams it doesn't seem particularly valid compare them - sorry Gillian, Val, Trish etc!
Aside: It's a shame we only had the Robinson/Kane/Smith combo together once, while a number of European countries were absent or not at full strength in 05 (Japan), I'm sure that result would not have been a one-off. In fact it was a little disappointing going back and seeing just how rarely we had a women's relay team in that period Tania was at her best.
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Michael
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Posted: 6 August 2015, 3:51 PM
The silence from the team after the brilliant relay results is explained on ONZ - partying:-)) Best wishes for the long.
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 7 August 2015, 4:09 AM
one last race - the long - a true test of grit and endurance where just making it to the end will be a test in itself. And that's just for those of us on overnight spectating duty...
3 in the NZ team today - both Oceania champs spots go to Aussies this time.
Women's start list (70 starters) goes from (NZT)2101 (Ali Crocker, USA) to 0028 (Sara Luescher, SUI). Laura #21 at 2201, Lizzie #59 at 2355, with several of the form runners at these champs (Riabkina, Johansson, Rantanen etc) starting either side. 9.7 km 440m climb, EWT 75 mins.
Men (74) goes from 2136 (Oramas of Colombia) to 0115 (Matthias Kyburz, SUI). Matt Ogden #35 at 2318. 15.5 km 660m, EWT 90 mins
So by the time Lizzie finishes we should have a pretty good idea of benchmark times. Both Matt and Laura have the chance to be leading runners when they finish, but in either case that will take a very good run and should be an early indication of a very good final result - based on some of the names in the start-list before or immediately after (Kylsner, Patscheider, Hao, Nilsson-Simkovic and Brozkova in Laura's case, Uppill, Norskov, Coupat, Panchenko and Lassen in Matt's)
Expect a take-no-prisoners course with spread out times - a 2 hour run could still be a relatively good result...
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MikeB
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Posted: 7 August 2015, 5:05 AM
I've been trying to understand the discussion on Attack Point about promotion/relegation. Am I right in understanding from the tenure of Blair's comments that if the Belgian doesn't beat either Matt or the Spaniard by a significant number of places both countries go up. I'm not quite sure how the whole thing works. Any insight from someone who knows more than me would be appreciated.
It certainly seems it's much harder to get promotion if you don't have the numbers competing so we've done extremely well to be pushing for the higher division.
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 7 August 2015, 5:37 AM
Each year, regardless of points, there's one 'automatic' transfer of countries between Division 1 and Div 2, and two transfers between Div 2 and Div 3. So the top 2 countries in Div 3 will go up to Div 2, and (without referring back to Blair's summary I may have the detail wrong) and the current 3 leaders in Men's division 3 are NZ, Spain, Belgium. If I recall, by a big enough margin over the rest that it would take some very unusual results in the long for anyone other than 2 of those 3 countries to be promoted. So Matt would need to be beaten substantially by BOTH the Belgian & Spaniard to miss promotion.
Additional to those automatic promotions and relegations, if the next best placed country in a lower division scores more points than the next worst country in a higher division, they also transfer, but with the difference in numbers of runners it would take some pretty special circumstances - so whoever finishes 3rd out of NZ, Spain & Belgium is very unlikely to also go up. Unless Matt and the other 2 guys share the long medals between them!
NZ did not get an unfair advantage from having extra places from Oceania champs in the middle - only the best 2 women and best man would have contributed to points, despite having 3 and 2 racing. The advantage we did get was effectively having a back-up plan if the 'favourites' had had a bad day - imagine if we'd only had one place in the men's middle and that had gone to Tim, his unfortunate accident would have left us with no points.
Worth noting that the Belgian and Spaniard runners from memory are not Michiels and Blanes, so while they'll still probably both be quite useful (hendrickx is clearly the #2 Belgian, I can't recall who's running for Spain but they have got pretty good mid-field depth these days), on form you'd favour Matt to finish top of the 3. Just as we all know this is not a sport reknown for always going to form....
I'm afraid this all sounded much simpler in my head, but I hope this clears things up anyway. On the basis of the split-WOC vote last night, we may only need to worry about how all this works for a few more years anyway
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MikeB
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Posted: 7 August 2015, 6:15 AM
Thanks that makes a lot of sense. So by the look of it Hendrickx would have to beat Matt by a significant number of places something like 19 and the Spaniard by 33. So Matt's got it all to work for. It would be a great outcome to advance to div 2. More at WOC next year and with the strength we have coming through now start challenging for div 1. It might take a few years to get there but if we put the right processes in place I think we could.
If we end up in Div 2 it puts a lot more emphasis on an Oceania title as doesn't that allow us another competitor in that discipline either middle or long or both, if we win both. Or does Oceania have to be a World Cup event?
This is a pretty young WOC team Lizzie being the elder statesman and the rest with an average age of about 21/22. I'm not sure how old Immy is but Gene's the oldest Guy and he's only 23.I agree they should be more written about the Promotion/relegation battles going on within the whole event. It adds a lot more spice to the whole thing but I don't think many people really know about it or understand what's at stake.
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Greg
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Posted: 7 August 2015, 6:44 AM
Each Area Champ (Oceania, North America etc) gets an automatic spot, does not have to be world cup, and they are only every second year.
So you think it would be prudent for the next time NZ holds Oceania for both the Middle and Long to be raced in terrain that best suits NZers and gives us the most opportunity to grab extra WOC spots. Something like Woodhill sand-dunes as opposed to rocky spur-gully. Look at the mistake the Aussies made this year having the middle in sand-dune and for the titles to be snapped up by NZers, where the Long was much more Oz-like (rocky spur-gully) and won by Aussies
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 7 August 2015, 10:17 AM
the promotion/relegation conversation here has been mostly about the men. It's worth noting for those who haven't been following the attackpoint thread that the women (newly promoted into Div 2 for this year) are now securely in the middle of the division.
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