¡Vamos a los Juegos mundiales a Colombia!

 

 

             The World Games 2013 in Cali are over with a lot of memories in the head for this quite exotic experience!

First, let’s present what are the World Games: It’s a kind of ‘Olympic games’ for non-olympic sports and it’s held every 4 years. We can find there some various sports sometime strange and often unknown as orienteering, sumo, boules, tug of war, paragliding, kayak-polo, korfball, lifesaving, speed roller-skating… But also some ‘artistic sports’ such as dances or different kind of gymnastics, or little some more famous sport like rugby (7), squash, climbing…

If you like statistics: There were 26 official and five invitational sports, more than 3000 athletes and 1500 officials from 101 nations around the world. Only some 4500 volunteers and almost the same number of policemen were mobilized to take care of the events and the participants. Finally, during the 10 days of competitions, they registered more than 500 000 visitors. Finally, we can say that we were very well welcomed!

More information and sports presentations canbe found here

 The atmosphere during the events was enormous and amazing. It was really great to see other sports that we are not especially use to watch or that we didn’t even know before; enriching to meet other elite sportsmen with similar or different particularities on their sport practice; fun to experience the hot atmosphere of the Colombian enthusiastic supporters (especially if some Colombian athletes are in action). It was also very special to be like a real star as it was almost impossible to walk around without being photographed by Colombian fan! (Even if they had no idea who we were and which sport we practice, but maybe just because we represent a national team written on our short…)

But let’s talk about the orienteering competitions because don’t forget why we went there: 3 races were in the event program:

-      sprint: 11^th (+47’’)

The course was held in some building area and park of Cali and it was far from the trickiest course ever seen. The biggest challenge was physically to keep a fast speed in spite of the warm sun above the equator! I felt cooked and groggy from the very early controls of the race but I still tried to push hard and I still manage to take some bad route-choices (maybe to be sure that there were longer and to have some good GPS analysis… Or the Pythagorean Theorem has to be studied!)

     - Middle distance: 8^th (+2’02)

What was really interesting with this course and terrain was that we didn’t know what to expect before the race contrary to most of the main competitions nowadays, so it felt like real adventure or, at least, a feeling of the traditional orienteering. The heat didn’t decrease much from the previous day and it felt like another battle to push physically and we could also meet the rough thorny bamboo in the green forest which was nothing to compare to our nice bramble bushes present in European forest! I felt slow as a tractor the whole race but it was apparently the feeling of everybody under this heat and I also didn’t manage to avoid mistakes while falling asleep and loosing contact… What we should learn from this race is: never give-up (also technically!). With a horrible feeling and some avoidable mistakes, I finished some 24’’ from the second place. (But I got caught by the impressively strong M. Kyburz by 2’!) The French good performance of the day was done by L. Basset with his 5^th place only 8’’ from the 2^nd rank.

-      Mix-relay: 4^th

It was a 4-legs relay with 2 guys and 2 girls where I got the opportunity to run the 1^st leg. All of the French team runners have done an OK (average) performance but we all came with all the controls in the right order that was the main point and it has not been the case of some other good teams on these courses with a lot of controls and short forking. That how, we finished on the foot of the podium, not far from the 3^rd team, which was a fine result.

            Finally, the French delegation has gotten the 3^rd place of the medal ranking with 40 medals (16 gold) but unfortunately, we can’t say that we’ve really helped this result in orienteering…

All results, GPS tracking, TV replay: here

As the orienteering events were in the last part of the program of the World Games, we had the great chance to take part in the thrilling closing ceremony in the Pascual Guerrero Stadium. Over there, with more than 25 000 extremely enthusiastic spectators, we could see some salsa show (normal in the Capital of Salsa) and listen the singing big star Carlos Vives before to see impressive fireworks.

To conclude, with all these amazing experiences: it’s definitely worth the trip!

Here are some videos to get the feeling of the world games

Pictures: CNOSF/French Orienteering team runners/D. Hubman

WOC 2013: I didn’t find the flow!

     

The main goal of the season with the WorldOrienteering Champs is over with no success at all for me, let’s make a quick feedback:

     First and foremost, in order to prepare well this event, I spent some 3 and half months in Finland (in Turku) last summer-Autumn where I could improve my orienteering skill in Finland while getting a work-experience for my studies and learning a bit of the Finnish culture… The great time there was really fun, of course, but it was also encouraging to perform well when competing in Finland.

     On one hand, after last year WOC long distance with an okay but improvable performance (ranked 8^th), and knowing the fast runability of this year WOC long-distance terrain, I was motivated to train for this year long distance as well. On the other hand, WOC 2012 sprint was a huge disappointment (miss punch the spectators control whereas I had the 5^th fastest time), so I was also willing to take my revenge this year. However, with the tight program of this year WOC, it seemed impossible to run and perform well in both long and sprint: a choice had to be decided. With an up and down winter training, and with the good idea to make solid performances in sprint while missing in long distance in early spring, the choice to run the sprint was obvious. Furthermore, the relay team was planned to be decided during the WOC week and I knew I had some good chances thanks to fine previous experiences.

Sprint qualification: 9^th

     The qualification terrain was not as easy as it seems to be on the map because of a visibility limited by trees, hedges and a lot of spectators all around, and everything was looking the same so it was important to keep the contact all the time. The atmosphere was great especially for a qualification event! I was running quite safe despite few bad route-choices before to do a big mistake running along the wrong houses in an incorrect direction. This fault was an important warning signal to refocus and it added some challenges to qualify, but it had no consequence and I mad it to the final finishing in the 9^th spot of my qualification heat rather far behind a fast Danish guy (R. Thrane Hansen).

(Results / GPS )

Sprint final:  43^rd

     With the start-finish arena in Sotkamo stadium full of noisy spectators, it was a quite impressive atmosphere: perfect feeling for a WOC sprint final! The legs felt in top notch form and ready to push hard therefore I was extremely eager to start this race. However, it didn’t start as well as I would like with several troubles right in the beginning (like misunderstanding in which side of the fence is the 1^st control, the route choice to the 2^nd…), but it went even worse when I added on extra loop on the course (Was it maybe too short??)! Actually, I lost contact on the way to the 6^th control (reading the map of the rest of the course) and when I got back on track, I thought I was going to the 7^th. Then, I realized my mistake at the 8^th control when I wondered where to go (it looked like it was 2 times the 9^th control but I finally understood that one was the 6^th control and I had not been there yet…). Of course, it was no chance to do a correct performance from there and it was complicated to focus on something else than this mistake during the rest of the course where I managed to take almost all the bad route-choices. Finally, I finished the race with one of the longest time far behind the very happy home-winner (M. Boström). It’s again a huge disappointment in sprint in important competition after several other crashes (miss punch…) the last few years.

(Replay TV (Swedish TV), GPS tracking, Results, Splittimes for both qualif and final)

(Article French federation)

Relay: 8^th

     In a team with P. Adamski and T. Guergiou, I was, of course, extremely happy to run the 1^st leg of the relay and I felt ready for this mission because of confidence from former experiences. Indeed, contrary to the sprint, my statistics in 1^st leg relay in competition was really good after last 2 European champs (2012 Sweden, 2010 Bulgaria), Swedish champs 2012, Military World champs 2010, and some other good performances in mass/chasing start… With teammate really well prepared to orienteer in this terrain, everything sounded good for a good performance. But I screw it up!

The relay is an elimination race: every team start in the same line and use to run in a front group until some team miss and are eliminated. For us, it already happened on my way to the 2^nd control. Over there, I was still confident few tens of meters before the control where I wasn’t accurate enough with the map and the compass, influenced by other teams. I missed the control and I had big difficulties to relocate putting suddenly the stress level high enough to inhibit to stay calm and to make proper orienteering. Then, taking the left route choice to go to the 4^th, I had some extra time lost going down as fast as possible to the track but going in the wrong direction…

Finally, with an okay last part of the race, I launched our 2^nd leg runner in 15^th position with some 4’20 delay to the leader which was far too much to expect a correct result at the end and it’s again a huge disappointment (especially for the team)!

(TV replay, GPS tracking (all legs), results, Spit times)

(Article French federation)

    

     To conclude, my performances have been really poor during this WOC and I can be quite frustrated for that. However, when we do elite-sport, we know that it’s hard to succeed as well as we would like all the time. But when performances are far from expected, it may have some essential questions to be answered… Anyway, this major event was again a great experience for every participant; and hopefully, it will be other occasions to do a better job: Next chance in 2 weeks with the World Games in Colombia:

Pictures by: World of o and WOC 2013 photographers team (Aapo Laiho, Juhana Pakkasmaa and Kimmo Rauatmaa)

Ready to rumble!?

     One week before the orienteering highlight of the year (the World Orienteering Champs inFinland), let’s do a short statement of the beginning of the season: It seems that my performances have been doing up and down like a rollercoaster during this especially dense period.

Middle selection race in Tibro

As usually, the real season started in Sweden in April: The Silva-leagues competitions in Tibro in the very end of April were selection races for the French team. There, my performances haven’t been very satisfying as I made several big mistakes while having trouble to keep the right direction and searching the controls in the wrong area. Fortunately, I could still show few good result on sprint test races to get selected for the main goals of the year.

 

2-men relay to train for Tiomila

 One week later, the famous Tiomila-relay was hold close to Stockholm where I run the last leg for my Swedih club OK Hällen. However, the team performance hasn’t been as good as expected and my race was quite catastrophic…

After Tiomila, I’ve got the excellent idea to take the ferry boat back to Turku for a good training week in Finland with few interesting competitions. That how I’ve got the opportunity to run the 2 last stages of the ‘Huippuliiga’ (Finnish Elite league of 4 races with the last stage as a chasing start with time-differences decided with the points from the 3 first stages). The second last stage was a middle distance where I did a huge strange crash spoiling all chances to make an ok performance to get any points. 

That why, with no-point in Huippuliiga, I was the 52^nd and very last starter of the chase and starting some 3 minutes and twenty second behind the current leader of the league. This race was quite special with some 50 guys running in the forest within 3 minutes and the first part was a lot about running. Then, from the butterfly, I’ve got the opportunity to orienteer a bit on this legendary tricky map of WOC 2001 in Tampere. 

Huippuliiga chasing start

The orienteering technique was not perfectly clean for me but it was always someone to correct the trajectory until we caught the leading group who missed a control (I was not sure that it was the leaders but it was a good sign to see little digit in there number-bibs). On the last part, I decided to take my chance and I pushed hard from the spectator control to the end and I’ve finally got the victory of this year overall ‘Huippuliiga’ by winning this race. 

This extremely tight and crowded race and my unexpected victory have produced some discussion in Finland and abroad as you can see on T. Djablaja blog. It was a fun experience for me and it seems that “I’ve got my money’s worth” going to Finland after Tiomila but I agree that it's not haw we see orienteering…

(cool TVreplay / GPS / Results)

(Articles from: world of O, Hevoskuuri)

In May, we went one week in Vuokatti for a training camp with the French team in the WOC terrain for really interesting trainings under a great warm and sunny weather.

 Maybe not the most relevant trainings but interesting ones

     The beginning of June, with the NORT and its 5 world cup events through Scandinavia, meant the 1^st very important goal of the season (Especially as the French team didn’t compete the World cup races in New-Zealand in January). For these events, I was of course extremely motivated. Unfortunately I didn’t come there on my best shape ever as I was a bit sick, but it wasn’t all about physic: (Here are all the results, maps with GPS tracking and TV-live...)

·         Sprint in Oslo: 9^th (+36’’)

OK performance on this interesting course but some wrong route-choices cost me some tense of seconds (20’’ to the 7^th and some others on the last part)

·         Middle in Oslo: 16^th (+2min)

I missed a lot already the 3^rd control in a slope losing more than 1’30. Then, it was some fast part mostly together with A. Kyburz. It seems that I still need some experience in this terrain whereas our teammate L. Basset took the 5^th place for his 1^st time in Norway.

·         KO Sprint in Sigtuna [Sweden]: 11^th (n°4 in Semi-final)

As it could be the last Knock-Out sprint ever, it could have been fun to make a good performance over there!

With some stupid mistakes due to bad concentration and passage missed, the qualification to the semi-final was tight for me (21^st/24) but possible thanks to fine parts.

During the semi-final, after an okay part in forest I didn’t manage to make the fastest route-choice in the city part and I missed some power to be among the top 2 of my hit and get a ticket for the final.

·         Sprint in Turku [Finland]: disq!

As I have been living in Turku for more than 3 months last autumn, I was particularly eager to compete there and motivated to make good performances.

The sprint qualification, with its different terrain characteristics (from student residence to forested park), went rather well for me. (4^th +16’’) 

The final didn’t come that well at all: I took some longer route-choices and I had sometime difficulties to read the map to see the passages getting lock with no solution… But the worse thing was to get disqualified because of passing just on the wrong side of a plot showing the passage of a forbidden street (that I haven’t even seen when running)! (Read the article of Tue Lassen for more explication.) It was especially disappointing for me as it’s far from the 1^st time I get disqualified or miss punched on important competitions and it seems that I can’t find the solution…

Tough star!

·         NORT Chasing start in Turku: 19^th (overall NORT)

Starting 10^th, not that far from the 3^rd position, I still had a good chasing start position on this interesting course. However, with 3 minutes lost looking for the 1^st control, my chance to get a good result decreased a lot. Then, I run quite often with groups with no extra power to speed up. It was really not a good day for the French team as my teammate also had some troubles in Forest…

One week later, I went back to Finland for the 4^th time in 1,5 month to run the amazing Jukola with OK Hällen. This event was an important goal for the club. We were focus on it from last year and very motivated to make a good result (as we had never really performed over there). All the team has done a great job and launched me on the last leg on a excellent starting position. Then, despite a poor start, I run with a growing group a big part of the course before fighting hard the last part with K. Nikolov (KR2) and passing some other teams. Finally, we happily finished 10^th witch was a great team performance and the best result of the club ever. (GPS tracking of the last leg)

 

Jukola team

Now, taking the experiences of the best and learning from mistakes, it’s time to make a precise last preparation to get in “top notch form” and do as good as possible in Finland.

Still following the sun!

For every orienteers athletes, winter means training period when we build all our preparation for the next season. That why, it often means several trips to find new challenging terrains and interesting maps, that is essential to improve our skill. It’s also a perfect way to visit fantastic places following the sun (where we would never put a single toe without orienteering reason) and meet great people.

In this article, some experiences are quickly presented:

First and foremost, the shape seemed quite good already in the beginning of the winter and I’ve tried to struggle with some African runners in cross running competitions:

(Results)

Furthermore, we had several weekend training-camps with the French team on different interesting terrain through France (mainly in the south part to follow the sun!) the whole winter (around 2 per month).

• The first one was in the technical rocky forest of the WOC 2011 area close to La Feclaz. There, most can remember that it was really hard not to get lost during the corridor or the night training

 

 

• The next one was in the tricky typical ‘cheires’ of Auvergne where we could also try to stay in the corridor
  

•  Then, we moved in the Fontainebleau’s famous forest south of Paris where we could navigate in between the big builders, also great spots for the climbers
  

• We’ve even got the ‘chance’ to run in some 20 cm of fresh snow in the French Riviera (where people are not especially used to go to find snow), and a KO-sprint training. (This film-maker quality video made by OBT summaries well the situations)

•  The last but not least weekend-training camp of the winter was a specific sprints camp. (Here, you can find maps and even head-cam videos made by professional on the JOGgreat website)

 

In between these camps, some other orienteering sessions were planned with the Pôle France of Saint-Etienne, like this typical one: 3 downhill loops mainly by night:

Moreover, another part of the orienteering as been done abroad (in south Europe to follow the sun, of course):

• Some weeks in Portugal with some really good challenging competitions and interesting trainings

-          The NAOM races 
(Here is the 1st stage 2Drerun)

(Map & Results on the NAOM website)

-          The POM
(Maps / Results : I couldn't run the last stage due to ankle injury the day before)

-          Some exceptional tough trainings made by Philippe Adamski

• MOC in Italy - "Follow the sun"

•  Some sprint training in rather atypical Italian villages: 

• MOC competitions with some forest and spectacular sprint courses

All the news on the MOC-Facebook page

To see how was the sprint in Matera, just click here to watch the video, and listen to the music!

"It's amazing over zere!"

On the other hand, the winter training-period has been quite difficult to handle for me with a lot of injuries that disturb a lot my plans. With some hematomas, heel inflammation, twisted ankle, twisted ankle again, and I’ve lately got the stupid idea to fall down with all my weight from a bench on my tibia while doing strength training(so I’ve got a kind of painful 3^rd knee in the middle of the shin!). But I don’t ‘cry over spilt milk’ because it could be worth, I could train quite much anyway. Just the quality has been affected as I’ve done around 50% of alternative training (Bike, XC ski) this winter instead of 20% basically.

To conclude, I can say that there is ‘no flies on me’ with some work at school in between the trainings and I have even started to look for a job for next year as I’m finishing my studies this year (if somebody is looking for a civil engineer, don’t hesitate to tell)

Now, it's always time to improve and to learn about all these experiences (some mistakes has still to be analysed...) to get ready for the approaching season. As the sun is finally going to Scandinavia after the winter, north is going to be the normal direction to follow the sun!

In addition, here are 2 articles published in the beginning of the winter:

- From a Finnish Magazine from the school I've worked for in Turku last autumn (p12):



 - From a trail-runners web-site (in French)