University NewsUniversity News
Alicante, 14th June 2012
The University of Alicante is presenting the 18th World University Orienteering Championship, to be held from 2nd to 6th July in the cities of Alicante, San Vicente del Raspeig, Tibi and Santa Pola.
The championship is being presented at the Venue in Alicante City by the University of Alicante's President, Manuel Palomar, the Director-General for Sports at the Valencian Government, Mateo Castelló, the Sports Councilor at the Town Hall of Alicante, Mariano Postigo, and the Chairman of the Spanish Orienteering Federation, Víctor Garcia. The event will also be attended by Carles Cortés, Vice President for Culture, Sports and Language Policy and Rafael García, Director of the UA Sports Service.
The UA President, Manuel Palomar, said that it is an honour to have four people from Alicante in the National Orienteering Selection and, moreover, if two of them are students at the University of Alicante. Also, Palomar has said that "I am very committed to sports and I want it to end up at the entire university community. Moreover, the UA has splendid facilities that allow us to host major sporting events which also act as an economic and social driving force.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Spanish Orienteering Federation, Víctor Garcia, said that "the UA, is a national and international referent and has done a painstaking job”.
The World University Orienteering Championship is held every two years and is part of the programme that performs the International University Sports Federation (FISU). About five hundred people have confirmed their participation at the moment, athletes and delegates, coming from 28 countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United States, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belgium, UK, Ireland, Japan, Russia and Belarus.
The opening session will be held on Monday, 2nd July at 7.30 pm at Park Lo Torrent of San Vicente del Raspeig. On Tuesday, 3rd July, a long-distance competition will take place at the Swamp Zone in Tibi, to continue on Wednesday, 4th in Alicante with the Sprint Competition, in Santa Cruz neighborhood. On Thursday, the competition will be moved to the area of Gran Alacant, in Santa Pola to compete in middle distance and the Championship will end on Friday, 6th with the Relay competition in Santa Pola and the Closing Ceremony will take place at the University of Alicante's Auditorium.
The organization is supported by a team of 150 volunteers, mostly students from the UA.
The habitat chosen for this championship is the Mediterranean forest, where the predominant vegetation is that which best supports a dry summer.
Concurrently with the World University Orienteering Championship, a research programme between the Sports Council and the University of Alicante will be developed, whose main objectives are to understand the sociological profile of the participants in the World University Orienteering Championship 2012, identify health habits of the participating university students, discover the anthropometric profile and performance aspects of such participants, and classify them in sports categories and finally, analyze cardiovascular risk indicators of the participants, through the taking of blood pressure and blood tests.
The Sport of Orienteering
Orienteering is intended to find specific points in a specific field, with a map and compass as the only tools. Usually, cross-country races are scheduled, although there exist other ways of orienteering. It is an individual and timed race, and participants must travel around -in the right order- different control points marked on the map provided to them at the time of departure. Competitors begin the race at time intervals and each participant takes their own route to move between controls using different methods of navigation.
