WOC 2004, SWEDEN

World Orienteering Championships 2004 – The Inside Story

Paul Liggins stayed with the Australian team in Västerås, Sweden. Here are exclusive extracts from his diary…

AUSTRALIA doesn’t have a pre-WOC training camp – half the team lives in Scandinavia and Natasha Key is the only one who hadn’t been in Europe training and racing for at least 3 months beforehand. At the opening parade in the old town square Natasha competes in the WOC public Sprint race and finishes an encouraging 3rd in W21.

Long-Distance Qualification

As the heats unfold there are few surprises. Leading positions are dominated by Scandinavians. Local favourite Karolina A Höjsgaard serves a warning, winning her heat by more than 2 minutes. Of the Aussies, Grant Bluett and Tom Quayle qualify easily. Grant is less than 2 mins behind the heat winner in 7th and Tom’s 4th place earns him a late start for the final. Jo Allison and Hanny Allston both have solid runs in 7th and 8th respectively, with Hanny’s all the more impressive for being her first race at a WOC.

Middle-Distance Qualification

The Japanese team is excited when they feature prominently in the local newspaper coverage of the previous day’s race. This quickly fades when Grant translates the Swedish headline into English for them: “And somebody has to come last”. None of their 6 runners came close to making the final and the Orienteering world is watching closely given they’re hosting WOC in 2005.

Karolina A Höjsgaard (Sweden) had a big WOC winning Gold in the Classic and Relay, and Silver in the Sprint. Photo from Skögsport cover.

The first few controls prove quite testing and many runners, including some favourites, lose time early. Simone Niggli-Luder (Switz) leads all the way, winning her heat by over 2 minutes. Reigning world champion Thierry Gueorgiou (France) is favourite again and he doesn’t disappoint. He has the fastest time of the day. All the Australians hold their nerve in tricky terrain. Grant and Dave are 8th in their heats, and Troy 10th. Danielle Winslow is 13th in her first WOC race, with Jo and Natasha 10th and 9th. In fact Australia is one of only 4 teams to get all 6 runners through to the final – Sweden, Russia and Finland being the others.

Tom Quayle finished 13th, our best ever result in a World Championship classic race. Photo: Bob Mouatt Troy de Haas qualifying for the Middle-Distance final. Photo: Bob Mouatt

WOC Sprint Final map

Villa Utsikten – Scale 1:5000 – 3.06km

Route shown, Gold Medalist: Niclas Jonasson (SWE)

Sprint Qualifaction and Final

The sprint races are held in 50% forest/50% parkland at Rocklunda, literally across the road from our hotel. Qualification. The women are off first. Allison and Natasha qualify well. Hanny has fastest split to the first control and although she makes two mistakes her speed on the other legs is such that she qualifies easily in 8th place. Simone Niggli-Luder wins her heat by over 20 seconds and is hot favourite for the final. Karolina A Höjsgaard makes two mistakes and finishes 10th but she is fastest on most legs and also looks good for the final. BJ starts well but botches controls 7 and 10 to the tune of 30 seconds each and faces an anxious wait to see if he’s made the final – he scrapes in. Troy and Grant have great runs. Grant becomes only the second Australian to win a heat at WOC, with a 2 sec victory. All Australians are through to the final – one of only 6 countries to do so. Other notable qualifiers include 43 year-old Swede Håkan Eriksson, who finishes with a face full of blood after running into a tree. Thierry Gueorgiou is an ominous second in his heat and Finnish speedster Marten Boström, who a week earlier was competing for Finland in the 10,000 metres on the athletics track, is third. Sprint Final. Karolina A Höjsgaard sets an early benchmark that nobody is able to get near. Nobody except Simone Niggli-Luder who is already more than 30 sec. ahead after just half the course and she speeds round to easily claim her fifth consecutive gold medal. Speaking afterwards she admitted to being nervous but had, in her words “a perfect race”. All the Aussies run solidly but do not threaten the benchmark 10th spot achieved by Natasha Key in Switzerland last year. The men’s race is much closer. After a big rev-up from the commentary team BJ sprints off into the forest, setting a time to the first control that will not be beaten. At the spectator control he is not far off the course planner’s winning time and hopes are high. He loses 30 sec. on a small unmarked track at control 9 (as will Grant later) and eventually settles for 22nd place. An early fast time is set by Swede Niclas Jonasson but with many favourites to come he is not confident. Freshly-stitched up geriatric Håkan Eriksson takes the lead at the intermediate control, but loses it again, ending up 2.5 seconds behind. Ukraines’ 1995 world champion, Yuri Omeltchenko, finishes with exactly the same time as Eriksson. Swede Johan Näsman fumbles his last punch, losing about a second, which is the difference between silver and 4th place. Thierry Gueorgiou is only 0.2 seconds behind Näsman in 5th. Grant’s 18th place would, but for that track, have been well within the top 10. Troy is the closest an Australian has ever come to a gold medal in any WOC race – less than 40 seconds – but was still disappointed after making two small route choice errors. Natasha Key in the Sprint. Photo: Bob Mouatt

The men’s course is a combination of 4 super-long legs (including control 18 of 3.5km) and shorter, more technical controls. Although there is little green on the map, that is more than compensated for by the abundance of marshes and generally soft ground. Australia has just one starter in the men’s field but Tom Quayle achieves our best ever result in a classic race. Well-placed right from the first control, Tom moves gradually through the field and finishes 13th, one place and two minutes closer to gold than his previous best 14th in Norway in 1997. Although totally exhausted he is very satisfied with his race and he has firmly staked his claim as Australia’s best ever Long-distance runner. Early split times have Russian Valentin Novikov in the lead, ahead of Finn Pasi Ikonen and 1999 Long-distance gold medallist Bjornar Valstad (Norway). Novikov loses time and Valstad and Ikonen swap the lead until Ikonen’s poor route choice on the monster 18th leg leaves Valstad to hold the lead to the finish. The Norwegians celebrate and Holger Hott Johansen adds to their joy by scoring a bronze. Novikov totters up the finish chute barely able to keep himself vertical, but misses out on a medal. Sweden’s Mattias Karlsson runs a consistent race to take silver. Valstad had a poor start to 2004 and admits he was going to retire after WOC. But after his victory he quipped that “I’m still not as old as Håkan Eriksson, so who knows …”. The women’s final is even more exciting and starts sensationally. The crowd is hushed as news comes through that super-hot favourite Simone Niggler-Luder is 36th and has lost three minutes to the Finn Marika Mikkola after only 1.9km. We later learn that Niggli-Luder lost a contact lens at the second control and had to stop to replace it. Niggli-Luder loses more time and Mikkola, starting four minutes behind, catches both her and Norwegian Birgitte Husebye. This supergroup could be expected to fly along but as Mikkola explained afterwards they were not traveling smoothly “We were watching each other too closely and I was making poor route choices and Simone was losing time on the controls.” Still, Mikkola remains in the lead at control 7 when the group fragments. Mikkola messes up controls 8 and 10 and soon drops to 3rd, with Husebye taking the lead. Niggli-Luder starts to move through the field and the consistent 1997 Long-distance champion Hanne Staff (Norway) begins to make an impression. But there are more twists to come. Husebye loses time and Mikkola is once more leader in the forest, but she makes mistakes on controls 19 and 20. The crowd roars as news comes through that Sprint silver medallist Karolina A Höjsgaard has taken the lead. Höjsgaard wins ahead of Staff with Mikkola winning bronze in a very close tussle with Husebye and a fast-finishing Niggli-Luder. Both Hanny and Jo put in sterling performances and end up being separated by just 2 sec. Jo’s run was marred only by a 4 min mistake near control 10, on what should have been a 50 second leg.

Middle-Distance Final

The WOC Middle-distance race is regarded by some as the purest test of Orienteering. Not requiring the same physical reserves of stamina as the Long-distance, it is usually the most technically difficult course, held on the best terrain. The ability to avoid mistakes is critical. Once time is lost the course is not long enough to recover. In the tricky Tortuna terrain current world and European champion Frenchman Thierry Gueorgiou goes into the final as hot favourite and delivers the goods. Splits show that he was 1 sec. off the fastest time for the first control, took the lead at the second, and was never headed. Gueorgiou does not appear to run any faster than his competitors; rather his navigation is simply superior to anyone else. Russian Valentin Novikov and Norwegian Anders Norberg both have consistent races to take the minor medals. Grant loses time early, including running from control 2 to 4, but finishes the race off well. His 17th is the best an Australian man has ever done in the Middle-distance race. Dave has some good early splits, loses some time on two controls mid-race, but is generally happy with his 24th place. The Finnish team coach is spotted giving their men a dressing down after their highest placed runner is in a disappointing 11th place. Dominating the world rankings coming into WOC they remain medalless with only one race to go. In the women’s final an early sensation occurs when second-last to start Simone-Niggli-Luder loses over 2.5 minutes on controls 3 and 4, putting her out of contention for a medal. Russian Tatyana Ryabkina starts quickly and sets a time of just over 33 minutes. As the later starters come through the spectator control nobody is able to get within 20 sec of her time. Ryabkina makes a mistake of 30 sec on control 13 and super-consistent Norwegian Hanne Staff snatches the lead, maintaining her advantage to the end. Her gold medal matches her husband Bjornar Valstad’s Long-distance gold. Heli Jukkola sneaks through to take bronze for Finland. Surprisingly, Sweden fails to win a medal on the day. In fact, local and former WOC-medallist Gunilla Svärd demonstrates the difficulty of the course by losing over 34 min on the 300 metre eighth control, showing that even the best can totally stuff it up. As with many others Natasha Key loses time on the first leg, but is consistent thereafter and finishes, like Grant, in 17th.

Relays

As usual the relays are exciting affairs. The 6000 spectators are treated to live TV coverage on the big screen, a spectator control and excellent commentary. Sweden maintains its faith with Gunilla Svärd and she comes back on the first leg at the head of a pack that also contains Russia, Norway, Finland and surprise packets Lithuania. Jo Allison has a good run and

Simone Niggli-Luder (Switz) – Sprint gold medallist:

"It was a great race. Almost perfect. The orienteering went very well and I was able to run fast.”

Karolina A. Höjsgaard (Sweden) – Sprint silver medallist:

"It is possible for me to run faster, but not so much faster. I have run almost a perfect race."

Niclas Jonasson (Sweden) – Sprint gold medallist:

"I felt it was a bit tough physically. Technically it went well. I was a bit careful at some controls."

Håkan Eriksson (Sweden) - 43-years-old and Sprint silver medallist:

"Motivation? When it's going good that isn't a problem. It's fun to run."

Bjørnar Valstad (Norway) – Long-distance gold medallist:

"Here, the terrain was totally different from what I grew up with in Trøndelag in Norway. I have had a lot of problems this year, but now I have another gold I will train during the winter and probably aim for Japan next year.”

Women Sprint

1 Simone Niggli-Luder Switz 12:32.2 2 Karolina A Hojsgaard Swe 13:01.1 3 Elisabeth Ingvaldsen Swe 13:19.5 4 Dana Brozkova Czech 13:21.0 5 Anna Marsell Swe 13:26.0 20 Natasha Key AUS 14:29.7 29 Hanny Allston AUS 15:07.5 36 Allison Jones AUS 15:55.7 44 Marta Florkowska Poland 16:49.7

Women Middle-distance

1 Hanne Staff Nor 33:03.1 2 Tatiana Ryabkina Russia 33:14.9 3 Heli Jukkola Fin 33:30.3 4 Jenny Johansson Swe 33:45.8 5 Minna Kauppi Fin 33:58.5 17 Natasha Key AUS 39:42.4 30 Jo Allison AUS 42:58.0 38 Danielle Winslow AUS 45:52.5 45 Gunilla Svard Swe 79:09.5

Women Long-distance

1 Karolina A Hojsgaard Swe 1:22:25 2 Hanne Staff Nor 1:23:26 3 Marika Mikkola Fin 1:23:51 4 Simone Niggli-Luder Switz 1:23:57 5 Birgitte Husebye Nor 1:24:03 23 Jo Allison AUS 1:37:05 24 Hanny Allston AUS 1:37:07 43 Iliana Shandurkova Bulg 2:15:11

Women’s Relay

1 Sweden Gunilla Svard 37:48.4 1:53:41.0 Jenny Johansson 37:21.4 Karolina A Hojsgaard 38:31.2 2 Finland Marika Mikkola 37:50.4 1:53:43.4 Minna Kauppi 36:24.8 Heli Jukkola 39:28.2 3 Norway Birgitte Husebye 37:51.2 1:55:34.6 Elisabeth Ingvaldsen 39:10.8 Hanne Staff 38:32.6 4 Switzerland Kathi Wilder 41:57.7 2:01:21.9 Vroni Konig-Salmi 41:26.7 Simone Niggli-Luder 37:57.5 5 Russia Yulia Novikova 37:56.1 2:01:46.9 Olga Belozerova 46:18.5 Tatiana Ryabkina 37:32.3 16 Australia Jo Allison 40:03.0 2:23:28.5 Hanny Allston 40:37.2 Natasha Key 60:48.3 24 China 3:37:18.8

Men Sprint

1 Niclas Jonasson Swe 13:06.5 2 Hakan Eriksson Swe 13:09.0 Yuri Olmetchenko Ukr 13:09.0 4 Johan Nasman Swe 13:09.8 5 Thierry Gueorgiou Fra 13:10.0 14 Troy de Haas AUS 13:46.2 18 Grant Bluett AUS 13:58.5 22 David Brickhill-Jones AUS 14:09.5 44 Pavlo Ushkvarok Ukr 16:33.9

Men Middle-distance

1 Thierry Gueorgiou Fra 32:45.9 2 Valentin Novikov Russia 33:07.1 3 Anders Nordberg Nor 33:12.3 4 Emil Wingstedt Swe 33:14.4 5 Johan Nasman Swe 34:09.2 17 Grant Bluett AUS 37:05.6 24 David Shepherd AUS 38:03.9 41 Troy de Haas AUS 42:37.9 44 Alessio Tenani Italy 49:42.3

Men Long-distance

1 Bjornar Valstad Nor 1:45:25 2 Mattias Karlsson Swe 1:45:57 3 Holger Hott Johansen Nor 1:47:00 4 Valentin Novikov Russia 1:47;48 5 Emil Wingstedt Swe 1:48;31 13 Tom Quayle AUS 1:53:39 41 Ivaylo Petrov Bulg 2:34:43 Grant Bluett AUS dns

Men’s Relay

1 Norway Bjornar Valstad 42:22.0 2:08:08.5 Oystein Kristiansen 43:28.6 Jorgen Rostrup 42:17.9 2 Russia Mikhail Mamleev 42:16.0 2:08:12.5 Andrej Kramov 42:21.2 Valentin Novikov 43:35.3 3 Sweden Mattias Karlsson 42:18.6 2:08:13.4 Emil Wingstedt 42:12.6 Niclas Jonasson 43:42.2 4 Finland Jani Lakanen 42:14.7 2:09:48.3 Jarkko Huovila 42:35.4 Mats Haldin 44:58.2 5 Great Britain Jon Duncan 43:16.7 2:12:30.5 Daniel Marston 45:51.2 Jamie Stevenson 43:22.6 10 Australia Grant Bluett 42:30.1 2:15:13.6 Tom Quayle 46:30.1 David Shepherd 46:13.4 32 Israel 3:33:26.1

Karolina A. Höjsgaard (Sweden) – Long-distance gold medallist:

"It's fantastic. At the start I felt a bit stressed, but I calmed down and got into the map. I ran safe routes. My relatives and people from work came along. I am glad they all could take part in my success."

Thierry Gueorgiou (France) – Middle-distance gold medallist:

"I made only small mistakes, about ten seconds in all. The first gold is something very special, but it is also something special to win here in Sweden whilst competing with all the good Scandinavians."

Hanne Staff (Norway) – Middle-distance gold medallist:

"What does this mean to me? It means that I can stop at the top. I wasn't thinking about speeding up towards the end of the race, but it was good to hear that I was leading when I passed the finish area before the final section. The news was an inspiration.”

is just 2 min down in 9th place for Australia. The big surprise is that current world champion Switzerland is more than 4 min down after Kathi Widler makes early mistakes. Big changes happen on the second leg as the leading pack splits up. At the next change Finland has a 1-min lead over Sweden, with Norway a further minute back. The big story is Australia’s Hanny Allston - today is a day Hanny will never forget. Running totally alone she passes runner after runner and Australia changes over in 4th place. As she comes into the arena by herself she is given a rousing reception. She is also given the honour of being interviewed by the commentators. She has the fourth fastest time for the second leg. Her’s is arguably Australia’s best ever women’s relay run at a WOC, and an outstanding result for someone in their first WOC relay. Bob Mouatt is so overcome he forgets to take a photo. Australia is now more than 3 min ahead of 5th, although with guns like Simone Niggli-Luder running the last leg it will not be an easy position to defend. In the last leg Finland’s Heli Jukkola makes a small early mistake allowing Sweden’s Karolina A Höjsgaard to catch up. They swap the lead throughout the remainder of the race. Sweden leads by up to 30 sec at one point, but Finland regains the lead. The gold medal is down to a sprint finish. Finland punches the last control first but to the delight of the crowd the reigning Long-distance gold medallist and Sprint silver medallist is too strong in the finish chute, winning by 2 sec. In her last WOC race Hanne Staff takes bronze for Norway, her 11th WOC medal in an illustrious career, ahead of Switzerland and a fastfinishing Russia. Unfortunately Australia comes unstuck as Natasha Key makes some early mistakes, loses confidence, and then struggles for the rest of the race. The men’s relay is no less exciting. The first leg is tight with 8 teams within 17 sec of the leader. Grant gets Australia off to a great start and after leading at the second radio control he finishes comfortably with the lead pack. On the second leg, Sweden’s Emil Wingstedt starts with ferocious speed and quickly takes over the lead, but doesn’t manage to break free from a hunting trio of Norway, Russia and Finland. Behind them a couple of smaller packs form, including Tom Quayle. At the second change Wingstedt gives the Sprint world champion Niclas Jonasson a 6-sec lead, with Russia second, Norway third and Finland just 18 sec back. Sweden has the longer final leg split, falling to third. At the last control Norway appears first, just seconds ahead of Russia, and another few seconds back to Sweden. Norway gains their third gold and eighth medal of WOC 2004, four sec ahead of a tired Novikov from Russia who only just manages to take silver less than a second ahead of Sweden. Finland miss out on a medal again. Further back Dave Shepherd starts with Switzerland, Latvia, France and Great Britain close by. He has a moment of uncertainty early in the course and France, Latvia and Great Britain (Jamie Stevenson is on his way to the fastest final leg time and a 5th place finish) sneak away. He is then close to the current Swiss junior world champion Matthias Merz but cannot overtake him. Australia finishes in a respectable 10th place, some 7 min. behind the winners.

The Wash Up

The WOC races were very well organised and spectator interest, particularly at the finals was high. The web broadcasts were by all accounts excellent, and attracted hundreds of thousands of hits. The only hitch appeared to be with our WOC fan mail. Despite winning 4 public races between us Warren Key and I did not receive a single piece of mail from admiring female fans, a clear indication that there was something wrong with the system. The Australian results were, as in previous years, mixed. Tom Quayle’s run in the Longdistance was a standout, and we performed solidly in the Sprint and Middle-distance finals. But our results elsewhere throughout the year clearly demonstrate that so much more is possible. Natasha Key again performed well, though she had an uncharacteristic lapse in the relay, and Jo was solid. The highlight was Hanny Allston who, as the youngest competitor from any of the teams, had two top 30s in individual events, followed by a sensational relay run. All this in the most technically difficult terrain in the world. We achieved two top-16 places (top-16 being a benchmark for Australian government funding) and just missed out on several more. On the down side our results have not qualified us for a full team or a relay spot at the World Games (in Germany next year), where last time we were right in contention for a medal. Hanne Staff thanking the crowd after winning the Middle Distance final, her last individual race at a World Championship as she had announced her retirement.

In both the men’s and women’s Long-distance races the course setters tried to split up the packs that inevitably form by using butterfly legs. In the men’s race, from control 11 to 17, competitors ran two small loops and passed through the same control three times ie control 11, 14 and 17 were the same control (see map). Competitors would do one or other loop first. In the men’s race, before the butterfly loops, 26 competitors were running in groups of 2 or 3, while after the loops, 18 of them were still running with somebody else. However, the next leg to control 18 was the course’s longest at 3.3km and this long leg proved more effective in splitting the groups as only 8 men were still running with someone else at control 18. There were 6 still running together by the finish. The butterfly legs were more effective in splitting up the women with 20 entering the loops with company but only 8 together afterward. Some people argue the butterfly legs are unfair because when a group of 3 reach them 2 will have the same order of loops while the 3rd person is left on their own running the loops in the other order. Some were calling for the start interval to be 3 minutes instead of the current 2 minutes to reduce the number of packs.

(translated from Skogssport by Rob Lewis)

Hanny Allston at spectator control in the Long final. Photo: Erik Borg

Grant Bluett’s Fan Club from the Sandviken school where he taught. Photo: Bob Mouatt