I apologise that with WOC already under way at the end of June, the June issue of HP News somewhat fell by the wayside. So here you have a combined June/July issue which not only summarises WOC with its highs and lows, but also JWOC which followed hard on its heels and saw Tommy Hayes […]

Relay day at WOC2016 in Sweden was not particularly auspicious for NZL. However, it was nothing on relay day at WOC2017 in Estonia! Apart from Nick and Laura all the NZl team members either struggled or had disasters on the, admittedly, complex terrain. The day started badly whe  Gene dropped almost 6 minutes on the […]

Today’s middle distance on Elva-Vitipalu saw the most satisfactory NZL performance of the week so far. Nick, recovering from the disappointment of his unfortunate DSQ in the long distance ran a good solid race to finish 39th in 41:11 and was closely backed up by Gene only 29 seconds behind in 41st. Between them these […]

What was a good day at the WOC long distance for NZL was soured at the end when Nick, after an excellent first ever run at WOC, was disqualified for inadvertently trespassing into out of bounds on the short loop after the arena run through. Without this he would have registered an excellent 34th place […]

Having at last had the chance to walk around the sprint terrain in Tartu I completely agree with Tim’s comments that he posted on his blog regarding the courses from yesterday. To qualify – what a magnificant sprint area it was up on the hill: grassy slopes with a network of paths between statues, bridges, […]

Unfortunately WOC sprint final 2017 will not go down as a great day for NZ orienteering. Both Tim and Laura dropped time early on and Lizzie suffered a recurrence of the breathing problems have hindered her sprint performances in the past few years. The courses themselves were very atypical of what Kiwis probably expect of […]

Despite late changes to the courses, following today’s qualification heats, run in persistent rain on largely hilly parkland above the streets of the old town, three of the NZL team – Tim, Laura and Lizzie – will line up in the WOC sprint final early Sunday morning New Zealand time. The truth of rumours floating around […]

Two more days of light training and sampling of Estonian terrain of various types, and here we are on the eve of Sprint Qualification. Today’s model event (the model for all the sprints) suggested a terrain with as much grass as tarmac, not too many buildings, some steep slopes, and the cobbles of the old town […]

Tuesday morning in Tartu, Estonia and finally, with the 9.55pm flight from Helsinki and the 11.30pm bus from Tallinn delivering Ross and Nick, respectively, to the bosom of the team, all NZL team members have arrived for WOC2017. Sadly, the same cannot be said of Nick’s bag which seems to have been highjacked in Moscow. […]

After the madness of April there has been relatively little activity in May up until the last two weeks. These have seen the final WOC training camp in Estonia, on which Lizzie Ingham reports below, and then the first round of the World Cup giving another wonderful sprint performance from Tim Robertson. Both perhaps give […]