Discussion: Sprint Final Commentary

Thread for live blogging and commentary about the 2015 Sprint Final.
All times CET -- one hour ahead of GMT
Start List
First Womens' Start 16:51 First Mens' Start 17:56

What are the storylines people are following?

On the women's side, all three medalists from last year are racing. We have a North American finalist. What's the best US placing in the Sprint before?

On the men's side, all six medalists from the last two years are in the final heat. And the heat winners are a guy from the host country, a guy from a country that's never won a medal before (I think), and a guy I sprinted against in San Francisco (and caught crossing out-of-bounds on my GoPro).

Ali's best in the sprint was 2012 in Lausanne. The sprint is a relatively new WOC discipline (The first WOC sprint was 2001) and her result in 2012 is also the best US result so far.

Ok thanks! She finished 20th that year, so that's the spot to beat!

Not much time to blog, but a quick update about Ali as we head out towards quarantine and the start of the Sprint Final. 2.5 hrs until the start of the race! Go USA!

I'm watching the pre-runners - E. Kemp running for Canada! Is he going to lay it down or just jog round...

How much has YannickM improved since NAOC a few years ago?

Sounds like Judith Wyder and Tove Alexandersson will not be running. Very likely now that Maja & Minna will medal, one medal place suddenly up for grabs in what was looking to be a closed race.

Woo, have a picture now. Getting excited ...

I can see video just fine. Anyone have any idea why I can't see tracking too? I have a valid ticket but when I click the follow GPS link it says invalid event or token

I had to reopen another incognito window in Chrome and reenter the ticket. Or clear your cookies maybe.

thanks Igor, that worked.

Did Scott miss 20?

They just showed Alice Leake go over a fence, is that the one shown as uncrossable?

edit: maybe not, now I see a short bit that isn't uncrossable.

They are doing a great job with this production!

GO ALI!

Ali bobbled 2-3 but has been pretty clean since.

Way to go, Ali! Awesome!

Maja Alm!! Incroyable!

Looks like Ali will set a new American record!

Looks like Ali will get 15th. Fantastic!

Ali! Fantastic!!!

Did Ali get any get any screen time or any mention? I missed her start on the TV, but was watching after #2 or so. I never saw her name until they just scrolled through the Top 20 just now.

I didn't hear a mention or see her anywhere.

No mention or sight of Ali on the tv coverage as far as we could tell. :-(

But wow, Ali! And also a very impressive run by Maja Alm!

Ali in 15th!!! Best US result ever! Woooooooooo!!!!!

I didn't see any glimpse of Ali. The Brits are just jealous.

I've been super impressed by the Danes so far!

Ali lost ~15-20 seconds leaving #2, which could have bumped her up to 11th. But I was happy with pretty much everything else that she did!

Congrats Ali!!!

Unfortunately they mostly missed Vinogradova in the commentary also... and she got 3rd.

But, otherwise it's been a lot of fun to watch on TV. The timing is nice, so I can actually watch from California.

When Ali finished, she was in 4th place at the time!

Nick Simonin getting some TV time now.

Wow, Spain?!

I'm impressed at how fast the cameramen can run, let alone the sprinters themselves!

Ali says that after missing at 2 she figured she had nothing to lose, just ran fast as she could. And no more mistakes.

And never noticed the spectators, just focused on the controls.

Super cool!

Woah, Yannick is crushing it.

Yeah, Yannick! 10 seconds already!

Ouch, Yannick!

Ouch, looks like that cost him some critical time.

Poor Yannick....

Yannick lost ~15 seconds leaving 13, so that's really what did it, not the hurdle (though that physically hurt more).

In the arena, the announcer mentioned Ali when she punched an earlier control in 15th, and mentioned that her previous best was 20th.

@ jman.
Don't blame us. TV coverage is done by Czechs.
And commentary by Swedes

But we're jealous anyway!

@Graeme---no need to be jealous, I think it was in Great Britain that Ali got started in orienteering.

I don't know, how it was possible to show women's sprint one hour and didn't find time to show the run of second and third medalists. Both of them.
https://pp.vk.me/c628016/v628016012/10fb1/0KYiKokE...

@graeme - shouldn't you be doing something else?? I'm impressed.

Vinogradova - I think I heard Clive mention once or twice that for some reason she wasn't being picked up at the radio controls - it's likely that's the key info the production team use to decide which cameras/screen to go to next so that might be, if not excuseable, at least explicable... however they did drop the ball with Volynska - I think the best they did was to just keep missing her at key points. Hopefully the producers have a full internal debrief after each race, including identifying what key points they missed and why, but in a sport with enough variables that it doesn't always come down to predictable favourites, and where there's always going to be several things happening at once, it's inevitable they won't capture everything they should. When Mironova took the long title last year, hadn't she basically finished her race by the time the official broadcast began?

Vinogradova got so little mention even from the announcer as she crossed the finish line that I was wondering if maybe they'd seen her miss a control or similar on the GPS tracking.

The reason everyone missed Vinogradova supposedly was a problem with her SI-stick. This took some time sorting out and delayed the official announcing of her time.