Adventure Racing World Championship 2006
'O’ Oh!
Rob Howard / 18.08.2006
As teams come off the long glacier trek at Gear Zone 3 they collect their bikes and ride along the road, down the valley into the town of Korgen. Here transition 3 is set up in a camping ground in the middle of a big loop in the river, and the teams will be have the luxury of being assigned a cabin to sort out their gear and sleep in if they wish to. And that is what both Team Finland and Nike Powerblast chose to do when they arrived. The Finnish team were first to arrive, having taken exactly the predicted 12 hours crossing the glacier. (The race timings have been very accurate on these first 2 days.) The US/NZ team were behind them but it was Lundhags adventure who set off on the orienteering stage first while their rivals slept. They preferred to complete the orienteering first, then sleep afterwards.
There was little comment on the glacier crossing apart from the concensus, “We didn’t see much of Norway!� Heavy low cloud covered the mountains throughout the trek and made the navigation either side of the glacier tricky, but on the ice the route was marked and easy to follow.
The 1:10,000 orienteering map they were given on arrival at Korgen is intended to be a severe test of the navigational skills of all the teams. Scandinavia is famous for it’s orienteering so its natural that Mikael Nordstrom wanted to give teams the chance to try it and he admitted it was both “very technical and very hard� ... but then he’s said that about every part of the course so far ... and he’s been right!
The route has 13 checkpoints, which must be done in order, and was set by Norwegian orienteer Jan Hauger as to the level of a National course. He thinks a top orienteer would cover it in 2 hours, but the predicted time for the best teams here is 4-5 hours and any teams missing checkpoints will be out of the race unless they go back and get them in sequence. Unless they have strong navigators or orienteers some teams will struggle with this section. It’s even possible some will be unable to complete it.See All Event Posts
