How to end the studies on a good note? World university champion!

As I finished my studies last year from INSA of Lyon, I’ve got the opportunity to run the World University Orienteering Championships and there hasn’t been any hesitation to accept when the coach propose me to join the team even if the season was already quite busy. Indeed, beside an excellent preparation for the next years, this competition is always a great fun experience. And it’s how we went to Olomouc in East Czech-Republic with a quite young national team having his own French style… 

Concerning my performances, I didn’t really have big expectation as I didn’t prepare so well for it, and a little injury in my eye (classical for me) on the model event could have compromise significantly the performances. But the motivation to do well was still very high, of course! I had a busy enough program like at WOC but this time it went pretty well for the individual races contrary to the relays that were not so satisfying:

Mix-Sprint-Relay: 4^th

Isia and Lucas Basset, and Léa Vercellotti running the 3 first legs of a promising team (almost the WOC French-team) have done a perfect job throwing me on the last leg in a close to ideal situation: I started in 5^th position few seconds behind Norway and Czech-Republic fighting for the bronze medal. I usually really like this situation, but this time, I unfortunately killed all our chances to get a medal right in the beginning of the race while losing time going to wrong forking and doing as a ball in a “pinball-machine” although there was no real difficulty… Even if I tried to push all my energy till the end, it was not enough to close the gap to the Czech fast competitor, and we should accept to finish 4^th just few seconds down from the podium.

The team performance was eventually solid but I was quite disappointed for my mistakes costing certainly the medal for the team. However, it somehow gives me a lot of extra motivations for the coming races.

(Results / Map)

Long: 1^st

On the menu, some big hills sliced with deep valley, a clean fast forest stained with various green areas: Perfect for a tough long-distance with decisive route-choices. In this situation, I should know how to orienteer as the terrain reminds some part of the Pilat-mountain in France. It went pretty well for me: with a usual fast start, I still take time to choose the good decisive route-choice to the 2^nd control. Then, I was very surprise to catch M. Kyburz on the way to the 5^th control; and after that, even if our route choices were not always the best (ex:10 and 12), the speed was fast enough to finish in the lead with a good margin.

Finally, with my 1^st individual title in international competition, I’m very happy, and even if it’s only the “University” champs, it’s a great step for me!

(Results / Winsplits / Map with medalist route-choices)

Sprint: 3^rd

The next day, we had the chance to combine sprint-orienteering and Zoo-visit. I might admit that I haven’t seen many animals though, but the speed and orienteering went good on this physically demanding course. At the end, with a satisfying performance I took the 3^rd place exactly 3 seconds from the 2 fast Swiss guys.

(Results / Winsplits / Map)

              

Middle: As a rest day for me, it was anyway a very successful day for the French team still in a good mound with 2 medals: Silver for Lucas Basset and Bronze for Léa Vercellotti!

Relay:

With good individual results the previous days, we could expect great things, but our competitors also had good teams and even if a good job from my team-mate, my performance was not good enough to get a better result than the 7^th place. Started around 2 minutes from a medal position, I didn’t handle at all the green of the forest and lost already more than 2 minutes on my way to the 2^nd control…

(Results / Map)

Finally, it was a quite successful championship for me and for the team, a good omen for the next season!

Now, the season is not finished yet with the World military championships next week in Austria followed by the Huippuliiga final on the weekend in Finland where I have the task to defend my overall victory of last year…

  

Article from LeProgres news-paper

Articles (In French):
From the French Orienteering Federation / From the French university federation

Documentary from the Czech TV of the WUOC (In Czech)

Pictures:Thanks@ French University team /
WUOC organisers: Klára Fajkusová, Michael Vambera 

World Champs a la Italiana

This year main focus of the orienteering international season was on the north of Italy in Trentino and Venice with the world championships in the beginning of July. (WOC website). As it has been always fun to go training in such nice place and as we could appreciate the warm welcome provided by the Italian, and then enjoy a good competitions week, we can consider to be really privileged ;)

Bronze medal in the Relay + else could have been better

About my performances, I guess it’s always positive to remember the success, but it still very important to analyze the things that didn’t work as well as expected as it’s the best way to improve for the next goal: athlete’s life is a never ending learning system!

- Sprint in Burano-Venise: PM

The WOC sprint was held in a quite special place, and it was also marked by a rather atypical logistic: That how all the runners and coaches were brought on boats to reach the islands hoping not to be seasick before the start. First, Burano (by the way, very colorful and original place to be visited) offered us really interesting navigation in narrow streets for an interesting qualification-race. On my side, by taking it very safe, even despite few longer route-choices, there was no risk to miss the qualification in 3^rd place of my heat.

(Result) 

The final was again much more chaotic for me: After missing to punch the spectator control in WOC 2012 despite a good run, jumping one control before realizing the mistake later during the race last year, I ended disqualified this year again by missing one control! But the miss punch was only the result of a global disaster: The rather simple beginning went quite well, but I got trapped twice by fences loosing 2 times 10’’, that made me already quite angry. Then, after just some 300 m running to the changing map, I entered the tricky Venice area without the necessary calm and focus spirit needed, leading to a lot precipitation, lost control, and a vicious circle… (I’ve jump over the 11^th control, even if I passed it on my way the 17^th : Sometime hard to understand…)

To conclude, even if the performance was catastrophic; we can remember that it was an interesting experience to prepare and to participate to this particular event.

 (Results - Map)

Then, what is good with a rather busy competitions program is that there is not much time to be too disappointed or to complain: you have to focus on the next event!

- Sprint-Relay in Trento: 12^th

As a new discipline introduced this year in the WOC program, it was somehow very motivating to prepare for this event (and relay is always great fun!). Considering that this type of competition is a real ‘drop-out race’, it seems close to impossible to come back in a good position from behind. Furthermore, the storm during the race made the ground very wet and slippery, and even bigger differences occurred in between offensive runners fighting for medals and safer-scared runners trying to avoid falling down. This 1^st sprint-relay hasn't been so good for the French team, but we learn and we are of course eager to improve for next times.

(Results – Maps)

-Long-Distance in Lavarone: 14^th

A great long distance in a hilly, open and fast forest was waiting for us. On my side, the beginning went well until I decided to try special-own route-choices that didn’t pay-off (Ex: All around by the track left to go to the 15^th). Then, a bit tired physically and mentally, the orienteering was far less offensive and efficient that led to a lot of time lost through the end. May be not enough long-distance training or too many competitions before to keep on going the whole course?

The French team had a brilliant day thought with T. Guergiou’s victory and 12^th WOC gold medal!

(Interesting andcomplete analysis by Jan Kocbach)

(Results – GPStracking (Unfortunately, my lost signal doesn’t allow to see my special route-choices)

 - Relay in Campomulo: 3^rd

For sure the most exciting event of the week, the relay didn’t disappoint expectations. With the best team-mate you can dream on (F. Gonon and T. Guergiou), I had the great chance to run the 1^st leg, but also a little pressure considering the team expectation and my catastrophic performance of last year on the main position that killed all the chances of the team after 2 controls of the Finnish forest… But taking it very safe, letting Fabu (Swiss 1^st leg runner) taking decision in the beginning, and doing my job when we had different forking, it went well this year coming back in             the 3 teams’ breakaway group with the Swiss and Swedish runners.

Then, the battle for the victory in between these 3 leading teams was hard, and we had to accept to get the bronze medal. Remembering all the bad luck and disasters of the French relay team of the last few years, and as the 3^rd WOC relay medal for France (and my 2^nd WOC bronze medal), I guess we can be very pleased with this great 3^rd place!

(Highlight video)

(Results – GPStracking)

Promenade on the European roof # Mont-Blanc

After a tough competition week, nothing is better than getting some fresh air on the mountain. That how we got to Chamonix awesome area for some hiking days with the main goal to climb on the top of the “Mont Blanc”. For me, it has been an idea from many years, so when I heard the proposition from E. Jurenikova to go over-there after WOC, of course, I couldn’t refuse! Even with very little experience and no real preparation for me and not so much equipments, we got to the top as a symbol with quite an international team and we even managed to come down “safe and sound”!

Quite breathtaking and unbelievable experience

Now the plan is not exactly to rest yet as there are still some World UniversityOrienteering Champs, World MilitaryChamps and few Finnish national competitions in the program…

Pictures: World Of O runners

                WOC 2014

Back from the European champs with 1 medal and 1 diploma :)

European Orienteering Championships in Portugal:

While having a new situation and especially new training environment this year, it was really interesting to see how well (or bad) it would go to be for the first main goal of the season: Finally, I think that I can be quite satisfied about the performance-level as it seems that I had the speed to be among the best on the sprint, the long-distance, and on the first-leg relay.

- Sprint: 13^th (14’56 / +31’’)

Quite typical performance of the last few years for me: some good parts, but big mistake(s) costing too much time to get a high result (here, at least 1 big crash of ~30’’ when leaving the castle). But at least it was positive to punch all the controls and in the right order, this time…

For more analyses details (for the ones who haven’t seen it yet): everything has been made very well by Jan Kocbach on this link.

- Long: 5^th (1h32’04 / +1’41)

Very pleasing performance for me and best result ever in a long distance at this level: On this physically and mentally demanding race, it seems that I started quite fast (maybe too fast?) but unfortunately I lost a bit focus after about 1 hour leading necessary to mistakes and especially 1 big crash that probably costing me a chance to be on the podium (+~1’15).

Again great analyses by J.Kocbach here.

- Relay: 3^rd

I think that the relay is always a little bit special competition for an individual sport like orienteering because we are fighting for the team and then we share the emotions of the result together. It’s especially motivating when you have great team-mates like we have in France. ;)

Even if I had good statistics in EOC relays before the race with 2 medals from 2010 (Silver) and 2012 (Bronze), each time finishing the 1^st leg in a leading position, I couldn’t start with a very high confidence as my last 1^st leg-relay race was last year at WOC when I spoiled all team’s ambitions after 2 controls… But it went pretty well this time and I could throw L. Basset in a good spot. Then he also did an excellent job as Tero on the last leg and at the end, on a tight competition, we finally got an enjoyable Bronze medal behind the Swedish and Czech teams that seemed stronger this time!

All the pictures from "Club-France de CO" et FFCO

All the maps with GPS tracking can be found here

More info like pictures and videos here.

Articles from the French Orienteering Federation (in French):

About finals / qualifications events.

This EOC has also been marked by several organizational problems that have been hardly corrected somehow. I personally felt quite sorry for the organizers (rather than angry) as we all know how difficult it is to organize an orienteering event and we can imagine how hard it should be for such big event in a place where orienteering is a small sport. Especially E. Jurenikova can know as she organized the EOC in 2012 and she has written some comments and advices that the IOF should probably read (if not done yet) to improve the next organizations: http://www.evajurenikova.com/index.html

At this period, it’s like a perfect time for an orienteer to be in Scandinavia and especially in Turku’s area to get very qualitative and nice competitions. That how, during the Easter weekend, right after coming back from Portugal, I could find the “Kevätyön Viesti” night relay (map with GPS tracking / results) and the “Silja Rasti” (Map with my GPS route/ Results). It was especially interesting to see the good improvements of this winter in Finland and to get ready for the coming Tiomila.

Now the focus is, of course, on the World Championships next July in Italy, but also before on important goals like test-races in France to get to the National team next weekend, and the great Swedish Tiomila–relay in 2 weeks where we can have some great ambitions with Paimion-Rasti after the performances of the weekend ;)

New season, new country, new job, new Scandinavian club, new challenges…

When some people are asking me what (the hell) I do in Finland, I think it could be a good idea to clarify my situation, before writing a little bit about the new (coming?/started?) orienteering season.

•  New situation:

As I’ve finished my engineering studies last year (just before the WOC), it was time to enter into the working life (the real one!). However, I’m still motivated to focus on orienteering as I’m sure there is still a lot to explore, and I’m persuaded (or I hope?) that I can still develop my potential and maybe try to reach great achievements. At least, I still enjoy the activity and to the commitment at training.

That how I’ve considered many different options and looking for several opportunities trying to get the best compromise between getting professional valuable experiences and having good conditions to develop as a sportman. My main idea was to find a part time job in suit with my education (civil engineering) flexible enough to train well and to take part on training-camps and competitions; without forgetting that we need a “livelihood” if we want to survive as an orienteer.

My final plan was to find a part time job as an engineer in Scandinavia where the orienteering culture is big and the clubs have usually good contacts with companies that understand the sport and the demand of elite runners. Furthermore, after 7 years training with the “Pôle France” of Saint-Etienne, it could be a good time to change the training environment to learn some new things and get new motivation. Finally, as I’m still considering orienteering as a Scandinavian sport with most of the happenings over there (and where I still have a lot to improve), the next natural step was logically to move north…

Turku

                => Turku (or Åbo if you prefer or for Swedish speaking) in Finland was my actual choice and destination with a flexible part-time job in Paimio and to train with Turku’s well organized and attractive structure.

Turun Sanomat article

After few months in Finland, I’m quite pleased with this situation: I can’t complain of the winter weather conditions that haven’t been so extreme; but the only problem for me here remains the language (“Terve, Mitä kuuluu” is not enough to have a real conversation…). However, I admit that It’s quite pleasant to be in a country where orienteering (“suunnistus”) is known and considered as a real sport by everybody (not like in France where nobody knows what is it…): For example, it’s quite fun when people, even non orienteer, tell that they saw you on the television, on the news-paper; or to realize that the work-mates followed the results of the last competitions when they congratulated me as the “best Finn” last Tuesday morning …

Qualitative training by M. Lindeqvist

Tough night training

• New Scandinavian club:

Tiomila 2011

Moving in Scandinavian somewhere else than Stigtomta include almost necessarily to change club: OK Hällen has been a perfect club for me at this period of my carrier where I could develop a lot by training in Sweden and when I got the possibilities to run decisive legs in big relays. That is for sure very educational and also great experiences as a person to run for the team! That why I would like to thank sincerely the club members for their really warm welcome and for all the great times spent together, I’m truly grateful for that! I will for sure remember the good team-performances like the SM relay 2012 podium, the Jukola 2013 and Tiomila 2010 top 10...., but also the times spent in Stigtomta area. I would have a special mention to the coach M. Karlsson who has always been extremely devoted and available for us with his particularly positive philosophy!

Anyway, now it's for sure very positive to get new great challenges to be in a new dynamic club: PaimionRasti is especially motivated to develop as a team with a good focus on the improvement of each of the runners. I can find here exceptionally good training conditions and it’s motivating to get new training partners. I’m really looking forward the next relay competitions when it will be exciting to compete with the guys we have been training with the whole winter.

• New season:

The seasons follow but don’t resemble each other!

When most of the winter training has been done in Finland thanks to snow free condition (watch-out the finish clubs at Tiomila this year! ;) ), I’ve still got the opportunity to go to Portugal in order to get some B-vitamins and to enjoy to run only with sleeveless short and without rubber-socks. The destination was Castelo de Vide where we could find really interesting maps and run the NAOM competitions.

NAOM

NAOM sprint (WRE) podium (PIC. A. Blanes)

Sprint training (Drôme)

After few sprints trainings (and test race) in sought of France, it was time to go to Turkey and even compete the first World-cup stage of the season: There, the runners had the great (and not so usual nowadays) benefit of running on unknown terrain not mapped; and we could really enjoy the arena along the beach surrounded by very old ruins (like an amphitheater) showing that some people were living much before us… About my performances: with 2 quite similar results, it has been quite different from the qualification to the final. In the 1^st case, most of controls went well but I forgot to read my map when passing close to the finish finding 2 extra controls before mind + I took one touristic route-choice which was far from the fastest… In the final race, I manage to find only few controls cleanly while I had some troubles on most of the others. Still some adjustments to be done…

World cup result: 14^th  / GPS route / All the other information herethanks to J. Kocbach / even with some analysis

The trip in Turkey was especially the opportunity to try the new Mixed-sprint-relay format during an “unofficial world-cup race”. In this occasion, with my promising team-mates (I. Basset, L. Basset, A. Chataing), we’ve got an instructive experience allowing us to learn some lessons to make some adjustments and to get ready for the 1^st World-championship of this new format this summer in Italy.

(All the info)

The next goal is the European champs in Portugal in April.

From Italy to China by Switzerland and Sweden!

Ø  French-team training-camp in Asiago (Italy) for WOC 2014:

Last month was the time to start to focus on the preparation of the next season with a camp in world champs 2014 terrain: the main goal was to get a good idea of what is waiting for us in some 10 month over-there. We can now say that we will be well spoiled, and the camp-experiences was worthy! Indeed, without talking too long of the beautiful landscape and the excellent pasta every meal, it seems that the terrain of the competitions will be really interesting and quite challenging. The route-choices will be especially significant and a good knowledge of the steep terrain will be essential! Still some work to do…

Ø  World Cup in Baden (Switzerland) :

For the last but not the least events of the international season: Quite interesting competitions were waiting for us in a not that typical Swiss forest thanks to a tricky hilly area full of big rocks, and in the old nice city center of Baden where decisive route-choices had to be taken. The atmosphere there was especially great as a large audience came to cheer for some of their Swiss star taking part in their last international competitions with the Swiss national-team colors.

For me, the performances were quite satisfying but it could still have been better! (As it’s almost always the case in orienteering; but some times more than others…). The long competitions season start to feel tiring (especially mentally).

- Middle-distance: 15^th

I did some good parts, but some precipitations in the tricky area and bad route-choices cost me too much time to expect a good result behind the tough Swiss armada. Looking the split-time, it seems that the speed was not a major problem, but the orienteering had to be clean the whole way!

(Result / GPS tracking)

- Sprint: 13^th

My navigation went pretty well the whole course and that something to be pleased with, but I unfortunately took some much slower route-choices where I lost a lot of time especially in the stairs which are generally terrible in sprint! That how the 1^st control (right by the stairs), the 12^th (left tunnel), and the 14^th (stairs left) have been far too long for me. At the changing map, it was particularly wise to stop when we got the new map just at the start triangle, and take the right route-choice.

 (Result / GPS)

          Finally, I finish the overall world-cup as n°21^st without competing the 3 first races in New-Zealand in January, with some up and down performances during the NORT in June and with catastrophic underachievement at WOC. Nevertheless, we can notice that a number of the best runners don’t compete for the overall world-cup.

(World cup ranking)

Ø  Park World Tour: China

          Few PWT races in China have been a perfect excuse for a new exploration in a new continent for me, and I really think that the trip worth trying! It was even sometime a little adventure when we didn’t know exactly what to expect and when. I can summarize this great experience by some cultivating sightseeing, some exotic places and food, living in comfortable enough hotels when we see the number of stars, far too much time spent in the transports (but it went fine with cool people), a lot of fun times with a nice cosmopolitan group, and even few quite interesting orienteering event: For me, it went just good enough to make the trip profitable thanks to few price-money.

(All the information, maps and results on the PWT website, here)

Ø  Swedish relays:

       October was also the time for the last large Scandinavian relays of the season in Sweden. However, it did come as well as expected for my club OK Hällen as we couldn’t be ranked at 25-manna due to a broken SI-stick despite good chances for a good position top 10), and we even didn’t take the start of the Smålandskavlen due to a team decimate by injuries and sickness…