Belgian national team: physical testrun results

It's still early in the season, but yesterday the 1st important activity of the Belgian national team took place. The physical testrun is very important for the athletes to qualify for the WOC selection races in first place and to qualify for WOC2009 in second place. If they don't run faster than 45 minutes (12km for men and 10 km for women), the runners aren't allowed to participate at the WOC selection races for real (during the weekend 1-2-3/05 in Alsace).

Discussion:
At the beginning of the season several national team members started discussions about this selectionrule. Fast running on paths is just one single aspect of orienteering. This physical test could exclude strong mapreaders or powerfull (off-road) runners from the selectionraces, because they don't have enough speed on the road. Running on terrain is a whole different ballgame from running on pavement. It's even possible that training in the forrest makes you slower on the road, but which aspect is the most relevant for orienteering?
Specifity does matter, specially during an important selectionrace...

An interesting quote from Holger Hott in 2005:
"One difference between orienteering and running is that we run in the terrain and up a lot of hills. It demands a different kind of strength. Runners have a different "rhythm" and run with the same stride all the time. Orienteers have a lower cadence, each step is different, the push off* and surface vary the whole time and balance/coordination is entirely different. Speed is also much slower for an orienteer. Do you really need to be able to run faster than 35 minutes/10 km to be nordic champ in Notodenn? [Notodden hosted the Nordic Open Champs in 2005]"

Click on the photo to enlarge and see the detailed results

Results:
The male athletes had to run six rounds of around two kilometers (each round 30m uphill) and the female orienteers five rounds.

Men: 12km (180m climb):

1. Fabien Pasquasy        39'40
2. Michel Bastin          42'55
3. Ken Peeters            44'04
4. Quentin de Neyer       44'20
5. Jeroen Hoekx           44'28
6. Joost Talloen          44'31
7. Pieter Hendrickx       44'37
8. Guido Lenges           44'51
9. Thomas van der Kleij   45'10
10. Wannes Hendrickx      47'22
11. Robert Theiss         47'28
12. Hans Talloen          48'07
13. Jeroen van der Kleij    NCL
14. Dries van der Kleij     NCL

Women: 10km (150m climb):

1. Kim Geypen             40'29
2. Miek Fabre             43'29
3. Saartje Sallaert       46'17
4. Kim Steegen            47'20
5. Greet Oeyen            47'51
6. Vinciane Mulpas          NCL

At this moment 8 male runners and 2 female runners succeeded to pass the physical testrun. They can participate at the selection races for sure. The others still have a second opportunity at the end of March.
Hopefully strong runners, like Thomas van der Kleij (Belgian champion long distance - 2nd at the Belgian ranking) and Greet Oeyen (also 2nd at the Belgian ranking) will succeed next month, otherwise some of the best Belgian orienteers will be missing at the selection races.

Detailed results physical testrun 2009