Sprint qualification Gothenburg

4 chutes showing the ages to use each one
enter here at your appointed time.
Take your control descriptions
stand by your map ( in shelves under a long counter)
At the appointed time take your map and follow the tape to the start triangle.
no talking through any of this at all !

Despite my many misgivings we arrived at the event arena today about one and a half hours before we needed to be there.  Our major difficulty was finding our way to the parking spot which we had chosen- which involved one way roads not indicated on our map in the relatively busy city centre and also our inability to tell the gps where we wanted to be due to no name it would accept. We spent a short time traveling along a tram track following a bus and wondering if we should be there or not. We traveled the final step of the journey on a bus virtually full of orienteers.  I'm not sure how that will go tomorrow on a weekday.

The event was held at Eriksberg,  which is an old port area, now refurbished with many blocks of new apartments and also an old engineering works which is now a conference centre.

The arena had a large area of grass , but was fairly small overall.  People found whatever space they could to sit or stand. A long narrow pond only a few cm deep , about a metre wide and about 70 metres long divided the finish chute from the spectators. This finish chute was bordered on the other side by the flags of the nations who were competing .

The weather was quite wet and cold I thought, so we found shelter under a verandah with some Finnish people. Trevor had an early start and I had one of the later ones. The course involved a  walk of 1300 meters to the start and then a start procedure a little different from that usually seen in Australia.

Start area showing four lanes of competitors- maybe 4 to 6 in each lane at each one minute start interval

The courses themselves were pretty simple,  winding in and out of the apartment buildings,  and some park areas.  Trevor and I are just too slow, but we both had clean runs. We both ended up 48th in our heats. Start times have just been released for the finals tomorrow. There will be A, B and some C finals depending on our qualification results. We are both in the B final.

Jenny Cas came 13th, and Blair T 23rd-which has put them both in the A finals. 

Jenny finishing her run with the canal in the background.

Once we were all finished we caught the ferry back to central Gothenburg, and our car parking area.the rain continued to fall on and off, so it was good getting home to warm showers after hours of mostly just standing around in the cold and wet. 

A more relaxed dinner was enjoyed including pot of tea, and we will head for bed soon.  Thanks for reading the orienteering blog-and apologies to those who are not interested in this part of the trip. I'm afraid the next few days may well be pretty  much only orienteering related as we have something on each day up to and including the first of August.  Feel free to tune out to then if it suits you better. 

Love to all at home.  As you will have gathered , we are now sharing your lousy weather. Tomorrow should be 17 degrees but not wet, so overall that should be an improvement.  We will also have to be out there for less time, which will be good.