Mass start Arenbergpark : bulletin 1

The first BELRanking individual mass start event will take place on wednesday April, 16th in the Arenbergpark, Leuven.

Slok has published bulletin 1 as the first entries start to roll in.

A brief overview of the event:

3 courses, the BELRanking course A starts with a mass start at 19h30 for both men and women.

The concept:

The courses will include forking to separate the runners.

Thanks to our sponsors, prizes are available for the best three runners in the men's and women's class. The winner in the A-class earns 15€.

Runners whishing to take part in the mass start competitions, should enter by e-mail to Jeroen Hoekx (jeroen.hoekx@hamok.be). More information about the event can be asked here in the comments or by e-mail to either Thomas/Desmond/Jeroen.

Media representatives should contact our Media Director, Elien Melis (+32 486 516 231) for accreditation.

All this information and much more can be found in the published bulletin.

About Slok

Slok is the leading Belgian universitary orienteering club. With their hometown and training facilities in Leuven, Slok runners are the current Belgian and Flemish Universitary champions.

Slok has well-attended regular trainings on tuesday evening, but more trainings are scheduled on demand.

Previously Slok held training camps in Czech Republic, Spain, Denmark, France, Sweden and The Netherlands as part of their ongoing mission to improve the orienteering skills of the students. Slok won the prestigious Orient'Show Relay in 2007.

Nederlands:

Op woensdagavond 16/04/2008 organiseert Slok te Leuven een oriëntatiewedstrijd in het Arenbergpark. Deze wedstrijd zal doorgaan van 19u tot 21u met als hoogtepunt de massastart om 19u30 (al loopt dit waarschijnlijk wat uit). Het is een officiële wedstrijd die ook terug te vinden is op de VVO kalender.

Er worden 3 verschillende omlopen voorzien van 3 tot 7km, voor ieder wat wils dus. De beginners hebben de mogelijkheid tot het volgen van een korte initiatie en kennismaking met de sport. Zij zullen vooral in de kortere omlopen hun gading vinden. De langste omloop van 7km wordt georganiseerd met een massastart. Dit betekent dat alle deelnemers op hetzelfde tijdstip vertrekken (zoals een klassieke veldloop) en maakt het voor de toeschouwers interessanter om te volgen. Door middel van kijkposten en een speaker komen ook de supporters aan hun trekken.

Tijdens de vorige editie (2007) liepen 150 deelnemers mee, maar dit jaar mikken we hoger. Ten eerste telt deze wedstrijd nu mee voor de Belgische ranking, wat hopelijk betekent dat er meer toplopers aan de start zullen verschijnen. Verder is heel de organisatie wat grootser aangepakt met massastart, kijkposten, speaker, prijzengeld, sponsors,... Ook zal er nu meer reclame en promotie gemaakt worden met als doel meer mensen met deze sport in contact te brengen.

Voor de A-omloop moet ingeschreven worden bij jeroen.hoekx@hamok.be . De kortere omlopen (B en C) kunnen ter plaatse inschrijven. Alle voorlopige info is terug te vinden in bulletin 1.

Slok-website

Paascross Baeckelandt

Op de paascross in het Leopoldsburgse Baeckelandt kwam er vandaag een einde aan de zegereeks van Thomas van der Kleij. Hij moest in de A-omloop (kaart) zijn meerdere erkennen in Jan Oeyen, die toppers als Adrie Van Opstal en Guido Verdeyen inhaalde. Verdeyen had de grootste loopsnelheid, maar uiteindelijk haalde het superieure oriëntatietalent en puttekenszoekvermogen van Oeyen het in een bloedstollende sprint.

De tweede plaats ging zoals eerder aangehaald naar van der Kleij, terwijl thuisloper Guy Thirez met de derde plaats naar huis mocht gaan. Uw dienaar lijkt de laatste weken een abonnement op de ondankbare vierde plaats te hebben en wij zouden dat graag op de al even ondankbare omstandigheden van de vroege lopers steken, maar in werkelijkheid werkt de zaterdagse Sloktraining nog na op het gestel.

In de damesreeksen zagen we weer een Oeyenoverwinning in de A-omloop. Greet bevestigt haar goed conditie richting WOC-selectiewedstrijden. De B-omloop was voor WC-winnares Kim Steegen.

Speciale deelnemers zat: "vergane glorie" Tom Herremans terug in actie, maar nog belangrijker, het debuut van zoon Luca in de kinderomloop.

• Uitslag
• Splittijden
• Kaart (A)

Volgende belangrijke afspraken: de objectifs balises op 29 maart in Chiny, HOCup/VK sprint en tenslotte het oriëntatiehoogtepunt van het jaar: de massastart in het Arenbergpark. Verwacht binnenkort bulletin 1!

Påskeløb - Dagoverwinning Wiet Laenen

Enkele Belgen trokken rond Pasen naar het Deense eiland Fano voor de Paskelob, een 3-daagse gelopen in duinengebied met dit jaar 1808 deelnemers.
De 1e Etappe werd vandaag gelopen.

In de categorie H45A (76 deelnemers) behaalde Wiet Laenen een mooie overwinning, met 3'41" voorsprong on Erik Bobach. Geen onbekende in het OL wereldje, want vader van 3 Deense JWOC vertegenwoordigers, Christian, Soren en Ida. Beide zonen hebben al een mooi palmares bijeen verzameld waaronder goud voor Soren op de Middle distance 2006 te Litouwen.

Verder ook een overwinning voor Bert Mertens in de categorie H21B .
Enkele anderen slaagden er in om een top10 plaatsje te bemachtigen.

De Elite reeksen werd gewonnen door Claus Boch en Anne Weber Øverøyen.

De resultaten van de andere Belgen per club:
Balise 10
Borasca
Botrham OL (Borasca, Trol, hamok)
CO Liege
KOL Belgium

of per categorie

Streetrace Leuven - Studentenmarathon Leuven

Yesterday (20/03) in Leuven (studentcity in Belgium) a streetrace was organised. Lots of orienteeringstudents live in this city, so it was a good chance to test their shape. It was possible to run 3 different tracks: 5km, 10km and 21km.

The results on the official website aren't totally correct. Some 5km-runners are ranked in the 10km-list and also some times are wrong.

If you want to compare with last year, you have to take into account that during the race of the 5 and 10km the organisation made a little mistake, and all the runners run 600m (2 a 3minutes) too much. This explains the faster winnertimes this year..
The results of the winners and the orienteering athletes are visible below.

Deze woensdag werd te leuven 'de studentenmarathon' georganiseerd. Deze wedstrijd werd gelopen op harde ondergrond (allemaal asfalt) en bestond uit 3 verschillende omlopen: 5km, 10km en een halve marathon. De mogelijkheid voor heel wat Leuvense orientatielopers om hun conditie op de baan eens te testen.
Hieronder de uitslagen. Via de links zijn de volledige uitslagen terug te vinden, maar hier zitten nog heel wat fouten in. Zo zijn er enkele 5km-lopers terug te vinden vanvoor in de uitslag van de 10km en ook kloppen de tijden daar niet van iedereen.

Als je wilt vergelijken met de tijden van vorig jaar moet er wel rekening met worden gehouden dat tijdens de 5 en 10km de seingevers in de fout gingen en dat er toen 600m meer werd afgelegd. Dit komt voor veel lopers neer op 2 a 3min extra (ook te zien aan het verschil in winnaarstijden).

5km:
182 deelnemers:
1. Winnaar 15'31
49. Katrien Bruyninckx 24'22

52. Whoopy Franssen 24'46
Volledige uitlsag - all results

10km:
325 deelnemers:
1. Winnaar 32'53
4. Jeroen Hoekx 35'33

5. Ken Peeters 36'07

8. Desmond Franssen 36'38

10. Winston Franssen 37'07
?. Miek Fabre 41'00 (1st! in womens class)
Volledige uitslag - all results

21km:
240 deelnemers:
1. Winnaar 67'00
Volledige uitslag - all results

Belgian Universitary Championship cancelled

Seriously, this is the worst example of dictatorship in action the last years. Let's recap the previous editions (at least, those where I participated, others might add stories of earlier editions in the comments).

2004-2005

Race in Chiny (French speaking part of Belgium), with spare blank maps from the 2002 World Cup, organised by JN Debehogne. You have to draw your controls on a blank map yourself.

Snow, lots of snow. There were starting times. KUL runners start at their early starting times. The other runners just start whenever it pleases them. Winner is Etienne Van Gasse, his comments after the race "c'était un cross", our traces in the snow, you know...

2005-2006

Race in Chiny (French speaking part of Belgium), with spare blank maps from the 2002 World Cup, organised by JN Debehogne. You have to draw your controls on a blank map yourself.

Snow, lots of snow. No starting times.

Map: the same as in 2005.

Start: same start as in 2005.

First control: same first control as in 2005.

Second control: in a bad position, at least 200m off. Ridiculous. (Prébalise was in the correct position)

After the finish: guy at the computer says "Non classé". Of course, a control wasn't there!

The race should have been cancelled because of that, running for 10 minutes where the control should have been is a serious disadvantage.

At the prizegiving ceremony, one of our runners won the "starters" race. JND forgot about it and gave the medals to some random runners of the FRSO regional event.

Those who'd like to exercise their Dutch, enjoy what I wrote back then.

2006-2007

Disgusted by the previous editions, and given the equality of Belgian Communities, since the previous 20 editions were held in the French speaking part, Slok (=KUL) proposes to organise the race at the same time as the Flemish championship, in Helchterenbos. This is accepted by the BUSF/FSUB (universitary sports organisation).

Two weeks before the race (october), telephone call from the rector of ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles), a good friend of JND, to the KUL sports office to say that "a fax was sent in March 2006 to announce that the French Speaking Universitary championship would take place on the exact date of the Flemish and Belgian champs, it would of course be unfair to change the date of their competition, since it was planned much earlier."

The guys at the sports office, of course, could not offend the ULB rector and agreed. No fax was ever received to announce the championship. In fact, I haven't seen a French Speaking Universitary championship on the calendar this year either.

The championship date changed to March 2007, during the interland match. At least we didn't have to draw the courses ourselves and the race was pretty well organised and was not in Chiny.

2007-2008

Race announced early enough.

Race announced for march 29. During Spring Cup. In the middle of the Easter Holidays.

Slok went to Spring Cup in 2006, we wanted to do that again this year. Since 90% of the runners at a Belgian Championship are Slok runners, we asked if it would be somehow possible to change the date of the championship. Response the first time: "non" (don't put election jokes aside).

Senior team meeting, Oudergem, second try, better prepared this time. Right after the discussion of the bad calender planning and after a petition, to check the international calender for important events when planning the Belgian calender, was signed by all athletes of the senior team.

There's a regional event a few weeks earlier in Schlommefurt, maybe that would be ideal. Response: the event in Chiny is already planned as a regional event too, if you guys don't come there, there won't be enough people there.

Sheesh, if the map 's good enough for a Belgian Championship, it sure has to be interesting enough to attract some runners to the regional event.

So be it, Slok is more important than Spring Cup, so race in Chiny, at least on another map. I guess they did not have any spare blank maps of the other map anymore.

The date of entry, was march 10, ridiculously early. (Entries for normal people who would like to run the regional event had to be sent just half a week in advance).

Only 6 Slok runners enter (the same amount as in 2004-2005 by the way, we had a 52 people bus driving with the six of us to the snow-covered Ardennes). The others have other things to do during the easter holidays.

Tuesday, march 18, e-mail from ULG (read once again, JND):

Madame,
Monsieur,
Suite au nombre peu élevé d’inscriptions, nous sommes contraints d’annuler le Championnat Universitaire de Course d’orientation qui devait se déroulé le samedi 29 mars prochain.
La décision a été prise en accord avec la Fédération de Course d’orientation (Monsieur J.N. Debehogne) et M. Jean-Jacques Deheneffe, commissaire aux compétitions à la F.S.U.B.
Nous vous remercions d’en informer vos étudiants.
Salutations sportives.

Come on, this must be a joke?

Nationale 2: Hout-Si-Plout

The second national event of the season took place sunday, in Esneux (Liège), on the new, fine map Hout-Si-Plout.

In the men's elite class, Nicolas Sillien (Pégase) won the 11,6km long course with 450m climbing in a time of 1:22:34. 1:17 behind, Michel Bastin (Ardoc) confirmed his good shape and took the second position. The third place went to Ken Peeters (trol). After the first national event, where he finished fourth, he was quoted as being depressed with a fourth place, but now he switched places with the third place runner of last time.

The winner of the first national event, Bart Delobel (Omega), already lost a lot of time on his way to control 1 and finished in 6th position.

With his victory, Sillien also took the lead in the National Regularity, followed by three runners with the same number of points on place 2.

In the category "injured", we can see the return of Fabien Pasquasy, who did only run until control 6 and then went on to control 20 to finish. He was leading the race by the time he skipped those controls. That other injured elite runner, Thomas van der Kleij, is also working on his comeback. Since he returned from injury, he has a 100% win rate. If we take all his results this year into account (where he ran despite his injury), he still has an impressive 75% win rate.

The women's class was won by Aline Hermans in front of Severine Vandermeulen (both CO Liège). Third place, 3:36 behind, we see Véronique Bastin (Ardoc). In this class, the Flemish women seemed to have an off-day.

In the regularity, Hermans is now leading with the maximum of 60 points.

The junior classes were won by Elien Melis (hamok, D-20), Elisabeth Henkes (Omega, D-18), Corentin Tonneau (Olve, H-20) and Wouter Leeuws (Omega, H-18). Leeuws ran the fastest km-time of the day.

• Results
• Splits
• Map (D21E)

Belgian national championship night-o

National championship night orienteering:
Yesterday evening (08/03) the national championship night orienteering took place in the south of Belgium. 80 parcipators were present and fought for the victory on the map 'Schlommefurt'. In the men elite class the victory went to Bart Delobel, he was faster than Jan Oeyen and Wim Vervoort.
In the women elite class only 3 runners participated. Greet Oeyen won the gold medal, Agnes Sadzot became 2nd and Gisela Hennes 3th.

Results
Splits

National cross country championship:
Today (09/03) in Oostende the best runners in Belgium met each other to fight for the victory in the national championship Cross Country. Once again some Belgian orienteers wanted to test their current shape and started in this competition.
In the long distance race the 1st place went to Tom Van Hooste, followed by an Ethiopian runner who won last year. The Belgian orienteer Quentin De Neyer became 71st. At the end he was even visible on the tvscreen (running in his Asub-outfit) because he was doubled by the leading runners.

In the short distance race youngster Kim Ruell took the victory before his teammate Pieter Rijnders. The Belgian elite O-runner Etienne Van Gasse became 12th (same result than last year), only 22 seconds behind the winner. A really nice result. The Belgian veteran orienteer Guido Verdeyen became 111th.

Men long distance: (10481m - 97 participators)
1. VAN HOOSTE TOM 30'48
2. TASAMA FAISA DAME* 31'46
3. JANSSENS HANS 32'02
71. DE NEYER QUENTIN ?

Men Short distance: (2541m - 260 participators)
1. RUELL KIM 6'33
2. RIJNDERS PIETER 6'37
3. MERDJI TAYEB* 6'48
12. VAN GASSE ETIENNE 6'55
111. VERDEYEN GUIDO ?

Complete results

article about Swiss elite orienteers during their national cross country champs

Lipica Open:
Last weekend the lipica open took place (2nd day chasing start). In the men elite class Mamleev took the victory, he was 1 minute faster than Gueorgiou. Also Geert Simkens (2/4l) participated in the elite class and became 23th. In the H21A Tom Herremans became 4th. In the resultlist you can check how other Belgian runner performed.

Overall results lipica open

Regionales Genk Sportcentrum - Schlommefurt:
Op zondag vonden in België nog eens 2 regionale wedstrijden plaats. De uitslagen en tussentijden zijn hieronder terug te vinden. De regionale in Schlommefurt sloot aan bij het Belgisch nachtkampioenschap en de kaart zal alvast een goede indicator zijn voor het BK lange afstand in Recht.

Results Genk
Splits Genk
Results Schlommerfurt
Splits Schlommerfurt

Interland 2008: long distance

Today (02/03) the Interland took place in the Netherlands on the map Weerterbergen. This is a military terrain with good runnability, some sandtracks and -rides and also some technical areas with small contours. As we mentioned yesterday, the early runners were the ones selected by the teams. Every team selected 3 runners in every class, this was important for the overall ranking between teams. Afterwards the other runners were able to run the same courses.
So in the resultslist you’ll find these 2 competitions separated. We will take a look at the results of the 2 competitions combined. The men elite had to run 10340m and the women elite 7740m.

In the H21E Fredrik Pettersson (nickname Figge and ranked 70th in the swedish ranking) took the victory again. The Linköpings elite runner still made a few mistakes but showed his great running shape. His time was 50’26 and so he came in 2 minutes faster than Nick Barrable from England. The German runner Axel Fisher became 3th, only 5 seconds faster than Mike Sprot.

H21E:
1. Fredrik Pettersson 50’26
2. Nick Barrable 52’38
3. Axel Fischer 54’28

In the women class (course 3) the victory went to the Belgian runner Aline Hermans. She ran the 7740m in 51’11. That was 2 minutes faster than another Belgian runner, Greet Oeyen. The 3th spot went to a Finnish runner: Salla Tiihonen, closely followed by Kirsi Koivuniemi.

D21E: (7740m)
1. Aline Hermans 51’11
2. Greet Oeyen 53’01
3. Salla Tiihonen 54’25

TEAM-Ranking:
1. England 199 points
2. Belgium (Flemish speaking part) 167
3. Belgium (French speaking part) 131
4. the Netherlands 104
5. Westfalen (Germany) 83

Results Interland Team runners

Splits Interland Team runners

Results Interland other runners
Splits Interland other runners
Map (H21E)

Runoway (draw routechoices / routekeuzes intekenen)

(more photos: ultimate-orienteering.com)

Interland 2008: night and middle

On ultimate orienteering you could already read a preview about the interland competition, which started yesterday. Runners from Germany (Westfalen), England, the Netherlands and Belgium (Dutch and French speaking) are present.

Yesterday the night training took place. The victory went to the Finnish runner from Vehkalahden Veikot: Jarno Käyhkö. Last year he run in the 1st team from VeVe at tiomila and the became 8th. Yesterday he was 2 minutes faster than the Belgian veteran runner Wim Vervoort and Tomas Henriksson became 3th. The German and English runners were still absent, they arrived one day later.

Today the middle distance training took place on the same map (but an other part). This time the victory went to the Swedish runner from Linköpings: Fredrik Pettersson (photo). Mike Sprot and Nick Barrable (both from England) became 2nd and 3th. Some runners took it easy because tommorow the important long distance race will take place.

The selected runners (from the 5 different teams) will start first and are visible on the startlist. The other participators (like the Scandinavians) will start later on the same courses.

Results nighttraining

Splits nighttraining

Results Middle distance

Splits Middle distance

Website Interland 2008