"Les voyages forment la jeunesse "

It’s a famous French motto that we can also use in orienteering as we travel a lot to find primordial experiences to improve our skills. Indeed, a main particularity of our sport is to looking for new terrains and new maps to train and compete on; that why I’ve been in many different places the whole winter.



First, as every winter, we have 2 weekend of training camp per month with the French team from November to March: where we’ve been on the top of the Jura mountain, In the Fontainebleau forest full of big rock-block (paradise for climbers), in Auvergne volcanoes tricky areas, on the larzac plateau (famous for the Roquefort ewes and the rock labyrinths in orienteering), in the web of ravines close to Sisteron, around the big depressions of the Figeac area, and we have even been visited some villages in the Provence for some sprint trainings…




Furthermore, we have been looking for warm weather in Portugal with the French team where we run some challenging competition: POM and we could already see the competitors the most in shape after the winter. Then we could also train in soft sand dune forest to improve our technique in open terrain to be well prepared for terrain like we can meet for EOC.




As it was not enough, I’ve added some extra training camps: I had the opportunity to ski one week on the famous WOC plateau of La Feclaz (it’s also very nice when it’s fool of snow). I spend also some days in Alicante region for some competitions and trainings on the sea side with relatively warm weather (where it was really good to be when there was cold record in all over the Europe). Lately, we have also been in Pegerinos in the North of Madrid with some French team colleagues to find interesting terrains and really nice to train in.



Furthermore, it was important to show that orienteering is not only walking in forests to looking for mushroom (and it’s not that easy to prove it in France!). So we also run some local mountain-running competitions:



Now it’s time to compete!
In the end of March, it was time for some selection races for the next European Champs. That why we have been close to Bordeaux. It went quite well for me and I took my ticket for Dalarna in Sweden next May. (Results: Sp, Md, Ld; )
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Finally, we came in training camp in Switzerland to be ready for the WOC next summer. To reach this goal, we’ve done good works like: vegetation specific trainings, some fast trainings with other national teams where we could show French style (results), and of course: morning jog every morning to wake up the bears of Bern. We had also the opportunity to run some Suisse national competition with strong competitors to see where is our current level and also what improve: Indeed, there is some work left... (Suisse National competitions: Results Sunday Monday/ GPS of monday)
Now, after staying mostly in south Europe, it’s time to turn to Sweden for the famous Tiomila and the EOC.
Last but not least: never forget this other French famous motto: ''En avril, ne te découvres pas d'un fil''! (video news)