Received the following from PG at WMOC today --

You'll be glad to know they changed the qualifying rule (on the spur of the moment!) to top half of all not just starters but registered! The "Randy Hall" rule. Had a nice chat with David May about it....

Last year at WMOC, I was denied making the A final, despite finishing in the top half of my heat, because people in the other heat mispunched. Despite alot of whining and protesting, the jury could not be bothered to do the right thing. Its nice to know they finally recognize the problem and are fixing it, and that common sense trumps stupid rules when warranted. Hopefully the fix is permanent and I can't wait to get the details from Peter (and for some reason I can't get day 2/combined qualifier results). Of course, I could always get better and not let these sorts of things foul me up.

In other news, Spike wrote about orienteering in Mongolia (or the apparent lack of it). I've have information on "Mongolia's first ever international orienteering race" -- April 3 or 4, 2006, in a "fantastic national park, the Gorhi-Terelj", a few hours from Ulaan Baatar, with "varied forests, plains, cliff formations".

This information comes from a PWT Travel brochure being handed out at the recent Canadian races, and is part of their Yunnan Festival 2006 tour. I imagine more information will be on their web site soon, tho I could not find any information anywhere on-line about this race last time I checked. One thing the brochure also says is "with the beginner/tourist category"; it is not clear whether that is the only category, or if traditional advanced courses will be offered also. Stay tuned to this space or the PWT Travel web site ...

In other Orienteering Exotica news, this February I reported on the possibility of a WRE on the island of Madeira (I guess Americans rather than Europeans would consider this an exotic O location, or at least I do). The invitation is now available online (in English and Portuguese) here. I could only find the program in Portuguese, however. My Portuguese isn't the best, but what we have is model 27 Jan '06, WRE classic distance the 28th, and a middle the 29th. We also have "zonas de vegetação densa", and it doesn't take a linguist to figure that one out, although to be fair, as well as I can make it out, we are alternating between that and more benign terrain. Also the possibility of training on the out island of Porto Santo has appeal.

I've been to Madeira, and it is the steepest place I ever remember visiting. It is like a mountain sticking right out of the ocean. Everything is on a steep hill, and there is no parking anywhere. Most forest I remember was very dense, except for open areas near the tops of mountains. I did an 18K trail run thru some of it -- it looked like an old mining trail hewn on the side of a mountain thru think green forest. It was cool as a trail run, but I remember thinking -- they certainly couldn't have O here. Obviously they have it somewhere. The trip would be more appealing if they had a sprint in the town of Funchal (I've seen maps of this), but since Madeira is such a cool and beautiful place anyway, this is a highly recommended O trip, despite what possibly could be 10% climb and some thick forest.