Portugal and Swedish / WOC rule changes

Pic: Joey Simkova

Portugal
Last week I was in Portugal with IFK Mora, on a preparation camp for EOC. We ran some competitions the first weekend - supposedly the most relevant for EOC, albeit with complex rock detail which will not be the case in 4 weeks. First up was a long distance, and I was pleased to finish 2nd, 2 minutes behind Bergman. He ran 70 minutes, and I had 72 for the 16km course, which gives an indication of how fast EOC terrain can be! It was even quite wet in marshy areas and in the valleys. 2d-rerun of the race here. Results here. I feel a little more confident about tackling the 23km at EOC long distance now.
The next day was a WRE middle event, but I chose to take it as a low intensity training. Then we had a fantastic 6 days training around Coruche, with some relay training, some night training - almost all my maps are on my map archive page here.

Rule changes
It seems as though I may be able to run both British and Swedish Championships this year after all, as SOFT have changed the SM rules again. I have to check the details, but as I still have a registered address in Sweden and live there for part of the year, I should be eligible to run.

I also support the NORD proposal to split WOC into alternate years with urban and forest parts, and to revise the World Cup into something that athletes actually can afford to and want to go to! Proposal here. I also think that there should be qualification races for all athletes to ensure an equal chance for all in the finals, so that there is no 'headstart' for those runners whose federations have money to send them all to the best World Ranking gathering events (such as one-off races costing around 1000euro like the Turkey World Cup?). Countries outside the top 10-15 nations will also be able to develop athletes better, as there is actually a reason to go to WOC other than to just run sprint!