From the Swedish O' news page, Alternativer:

"It became clear today (10/2/00) that there will be another championship race at next year's World O' Champs in Finland. Today the Finnish WOC organizers announced that they'd arrange a 'sprint distance' as was decided at the International O' Federation's congress earlier this year."

My understanding is that "sprint O" is the same as "park O".

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), October 02, 2000

Answers

I would not be opposed to holding the US team trials at Centennial Park, a.k.a. 3...2...1...Blastoff!

-- Mook (everett@psi.edu), October 02, 2000.

hi guys, I think that, by definition, sprint-o is short and fast, but not necessarily park-ish. WC event 9 used this format, and you can see from the map that the majority of the course was in forested terrain. more so than a typical park-o anyways.

http://wc2000.phnet.fi/sprintmapmen.html

on the other hand, the PWT stage 2 course is arguably more technical on many of the legs than the ultra-short...although this is quite unusual for pwt events. (possibly the only case)

http://www.pwt.org/2000/kumla/map.asp

pictures from both events here: http://snygga-skor.mit.edu/o-photos/europe2000/part-2/

I think that the sprint-o next year will be more like regular-o than park-o, considering that leadership for the "don't change the woc program!" movement is coming from finland. Also, there is a very good chance that park-o will have its own world champs (IOF or not) in 2-3 years.

-- Ken Walker Jr (kwalker@mit.edu), October 03, 2000.

A bit more info on the sprint O (from Dagens Nyheter, a bit Stockholm paper):

"What is important for 2001 is to establish the sprint, or park orienteering, on the WOC program. We will return with a series and a final for the 2003 WOC," according to Aake Jacobson, vice president in the IOF.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), October 05, 2000.