Frederic Tranchand Fredo Looks Back on His Unique Year
W O R DS FR E DO
PHOTOS P E TE R H O DK I NSO N
In orienteering, each season, each race, and ever control is very different and always full of great experiences. This is what makes our sport so special. For me, 2019 was especially unique for four main reasons: The first one: I spent 6 months down under, a big part of my training preparation, based in Canberra and enjoying a brand new environment with very mild weather for the time of the year. After 7 years juggling between heavy engineering studies and solid serious training in France, followed by almost 5 years in Finland working part time and training even harder on challenging terrains, this opportunity was a perfect time to make some changes. Stability is essential; but I really believe that training environment changes are very positive, especially in orienteering. It’s a good way to put ourselves out of our comfort zone, and the adaptation makes us stronger! It can also enhance motivation, nice after many years of significant commitment in an activity.
hard times to start with in April, noticing how far behind others I was. However, I stayed confident in my preparation and kept focused on the main goals. The first real test was Tiomila, where I was running the last leg for my Finnish club Paimion Rasti, and my run was pretty solid with the second best time of the last leg. The result probably was unnoticed and irrelevant because our team didn’t have the best day, just in the top 20. However, it was a perfect milestone to prove to myself that I was going in the right direction.
Anyway, I had so much fun down under, super welcomed by the warm hearted orienteering community, I enjoyed every single moment in this beautiful place. I really enjoyed my time in Canberra and all the coaching-teaching-organizing tasks we did for Orienteering ACT, so I can only be positive about this move, whatever the consequences were for the coming season and sport career. Althhough I wanted to do well in the new season, and I was eager to see how it went!
The next big tests were the World Cup round in Finland in June, and it was a big success for me. With a second place at the Middle Distance, I achieved my best result in forest orienteering at this level of competition. Very pleased to do it in the Nordics, on quite tricky terrain, where I was probably not among the big favorites! The next day was the chasing start, and thanks to some bonus seconds, and a very solid beginning of the race, I was able to keep my second position despite adding some spice with some mistakes towards the end of the
The second peculiarity of 2019 was the beginning of the split WOC era. That meant for me an exclusive Nordic forest preparation during the second part of the spring and summer, to have my chance to play a prime role at WOC in August, knowing that the Scandinavian runners would have a certain advantage on this challenging terrain. I admit that I had some page 29
