APOC 2004 KAZAKHSTAN

Australian Team success in Kazakhstan

These events were preceded by the Open Cup of Kazakhstan, a series of four races starting with a sprint event amongst the parks and apartment buildings of Ust-Kamenogorsk, then moving on to three days (sometimes wet and mostly cold) amidst the rocks and heathlands of the Blue Gulf. No Australian managed to win all four days, though a few went close. Alex Tarr only lowered his colours once, a 51-second loss to fellow Aussie Jim Sawkins on the last day.

The Rest of the Story

In May, a representative Team APOC 2004 was not just another Orienteering trip; traveled to Kazakhstan to contest APOC 2004. It was a most the choice of venue was enough to raise some successful event for Australia with seven titles won, a great eyebrows. Most people asked two questions about Kazakhstan: “where is it?” and “isn’t there a war going improvement on 2002 in Canada when we only managed one. on there?”. Intrepid Australian orienteers were not Blair Trewin reports: The terrain was some of the most enjoyable deterred. Our contingent was a pleasingly large thirtyto run on anywhere in the world – imagine the Flinders Ranges pine forests studded with complex granite – and the mapping five, the largest foreign group other than the Russians. The first challenge was finding how to get there. Barry Hanlon took on the task, presumably with style was quite similar to our own, unlike the more generalized absolutely no idea of what he’d let himself in for. Plan style common in Europe. A came unstuck when Air Kazakhstan went the same way as Ansett. Plan B, which involved going via Moscow, came unstuck because the Russians wouldn’t The Individual Championships issue double-entry transit visas, meaning we could get to Kazakhstan OUR only winner from Canada, Eric Morris, successfully defended his M21E title. He made a mistake early but recovered well to be but couldn’t get back. That left Plan C, which looked horrendously convoluted but actually worked very well. We went via China, with stops in Guangzhou (southern China), Urumqi (north-west China) second outright, behind 2003 JWOC gold medallist Dmitry Tsetskov of and Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city. The early legs were on the Russia (from St. Petersburg and hence ineligible for the APOC title perfectly respectable China Southern Airlines, and the last leg on the which is only open to Russians resident in Asia). It was an Australian unfortunately-named SCAT. The décor may have been ancient but at quinella, with Blair Trewin two minutes behind Morris and just ahead least the planes stayed in the air when they were supposed to… of Russian Andrei Tolstov. Almaty was the first pleasant surprise. It has a spectacular setting

The most impressive Australian winner was Alex Tarr (M60). He’d – a 5000-metre mountain range rises directly from the southern had some close tussles during the lead-up races but the APOC classic suburbs. The city itself was also a surprisingly green and attractive race was in the most difficult terrain of the carnival and it was an place, lacking the concrete monoliths that characterize so many other area where one could expect the cream to rise to the top. Alex former Communist cities. (There are few high-rise buildings of any certainly rose to the occasion and won by almost twenty minutes. kind because of the high earthquake risk). It would make an

Australians won four of the five age classes from 65 upwards, excellent base for exploring the numerous mountain ranges of the through John Lyon (M65), Neil Schafer (M75), Janet Morris (W65) area, in a region that deserves to get many more tourists than it and Caryl Woof (W70), and scored five more placings in those age actually does. (The most spectacular views of all were on the flight groups. The other winner was Debbie Gale, who took out W55. The back from Almaty to Urumqi, tracking along the northern side of the younger age groups were dominated by Russians and Kazakhs. W21E main range that reaches over 7000 metres in places). was no exception, won by Russian Irina Grigorieva in an upset after The next pleasant surprise was the high standard of organization her compatriot Daria Smolik had dominated most of the week. of the APOC week. Past experiences in eastern Europe led us to expect The Relays Another good day for Australians with two titles won and six placings. Victories came in M65 and W65, with neither team being pushed at any stage. We had hopes for wins in other classes, notably W50 and M21E, but had to settle for minor placings; the W50’s gave away too much ground early and Jacquie Rand’s strong finish was in vain. All three M21E’s had days they would rather forget, finishing behind Russian and Kazakhstan teams. But at least not winning saved us the problem of how to get the enormous trophy home. Other successes were a second place for our M50 team (two-thirds being the M60 combination of Alex Tarr and Jim Sawkins), third places for our second teams in M65 and W50, and an unexpected third in M21A for a scratch team featuring two M45s (Tony Garr and James Lithgow) and a woman (Jane Pulford). that the ‘in forest’ aspects would be organized well, but that the surrounding infrastructure might have a lot of hitches. As it turned out very little went wrong. The terrain was outstanding, the maps were excellent, and while the course-setting was occasionally patchy it didn’t detract from the enjoyment of the Orienteering experience. Away from the events, the accommodation and food were a little idiosyncratic but perfectly acceptable, and the transport system worked well (with the assistance of regular police escorts), despite the decrepit state of the local roads and some of the local vehicles, which look like they are about to fall apart any moment but still seem to work. (The Ust-Kamenogorsk bus fleet consists of a mixture of Soviet-era relics and second-hand vehicles imported from western Europe, some of which still bear destination signs for various Stockholm suburbs or ads for Finnish supermarkets). We had two Russian speakers in our party (Barry Hanlon and Peter The Other Events Komyshan), but the path in Ust-Kamenogorsk was smoothed

Other events run in the lead-up to the Championships included the considerably by interpreters supplied by the APOC organizers. (The APOC Short Course which doesn’t have championship status (yet) but country is fairly evenly split between ethnic Kazakhs, whose was treated seriously by most. Six Australians won here; Alex Tarr language is related to Turkish, and ethnic Russians, but the north(M60), John Lyon (M65), Neil Schafer (M75), Jane Pulford (W21A), east where APOC was held is mostly Russian). The interpreters were Val Hodsdon (W55) and Jeffa Lyon (W70). Nikolai Tarasov gave the English-language students from the local university and became an locals something to cheer about by unexpectedly winning M21E (Eric integral part of our group during APOC week. Morris was third, and second APOC), whilst Russian Daria Smolik won W21E.

Glenn Meyer in action at APOC

Map – APOC MEN’S SPRINT 1. Nikolaj Tarsov (KAZ) 34:00 2. Vitaly Chegarovsky (RUS) 34:47 3. Eric Morris (AUS) 34:58

APOC Men’s Elite: 1st Eric Morris (AUS) 2nd Blair Trewin (AUS) 3rd Andrei Tolstov (Russia) Photo: Barry Hanlon

One day everyone will remember was the opening ceremony. In Orienteering we’re used to fairly nondescript ceremonies with a march past a few bemused locals and whoever is stuck in the traffic jam, followed by speeches you can tell would be boring even if you could understand them. This time, it was a grand production lasting well over an hour, featuring local performers and graced by a crowd of at least a couple of thousand. It was particularly memorable for yours truly. I’d thought that my role as acting APOC Secretary would just be to take minutes at the meeting and was quite surprised to be asked to speak at the opening ceremony. I was even more surprised to find myself alongside the state Premier and Minister for Sport, and to be presented with a traditional Kazakh robe, hat and ceremonial stockwhip for the occasion. (see Cover photo, Ed).

With APOC over; most of us headed off for a week in the Altai region in the far north-east of the country. The mountains here are not quite as high as those near Almaty, but the country is equally beautiful – mountains with seemingly endless rolling meadows, lakes and snowcapped peaks, and streams which would be a fisherman’s heaven (you could catch fish simply by sticking a plastic bag in the direction of the current). Below the mountains were desert areas featuring some spectacularly eroded badlands. It was epic country and featured some epic journeys (No-one will forget the day it took us 13 hours to cover 450 km on roads which were more pothole than surface), but on the good days it was difficult to imagine that there could be many more attractive places on the planet.

Kazakhstan is a country that few of us would have visited had it not been for APOC. Enormous thanks go to Barry Hanlon – without his work in making the trip happen, and overcoming each successive hurdle placed in our path in an unflappable manner, it’s unlikely that more than a handful of us would have made it.