2006 WORLD MTB-O CHAMPS

What did we learn in Finland?

Blake Gordon

ANOTHER World Championships has come and gone – what have we learned? The riders’ preparation and lead up races to the Finland WMTBOC was all that could have been expected. Our team was arguably fitter and better equipped than in previous years. Carolyn’s unfortunate accident scarcely a week before leaving negated all the excellent recovery from injury and build up racing she had done and Adrian and Alex Randall’s performances in the Finland and Czech WREs gave hope of medals in Joensuu. The glacial terrain in Finland would be the test – and it found us out! The complexity of the track network, coupled with probably riding too fast, led to mistakes and lower placings than expected. The basic orienteering technique – always check the control number before punching – was one of our problems, as was our unfamiliarity with the Emit punching. With so many DNF’s recorded – particularly in the men’s relay where 10 teams out of 38 failed to finish – perhaps the pressure of seeing several controls before reaching the correct one may have been a factor (see map insert, page 43). Hard lessons to learn at this level as we watched the excellent blogspot reports from the team. But the team will assess the experiences and improve our technique and performance in preparation for Czech Republic in 2007. Adrian’s ranking at Number 1 and Alex at number 10 in the World MTB-O Ranking after the championships in Finland are examples of the quality of our top riders (see Paul’s article for complete ranking).

2007 Czech Republic WOC in early August

The dates of 2007 MTB-O World Champs in Czech Republic have been changed. New dates are 5 - 12 August 2007. This change has been made due to a date clash with the 2007 foot-O World Champs in Ukraine.

First Sprint MTB-O in WA

Australia has been a trendsetter in the foot-O Sprint (and Park-O) discipline with Grant Bluett, David Brickhill-Jones, Troy de Haas, and Natasha Key regularly finishing in the top 10 in Park-O events over the past 5 years. Now Hanny Allston’s gold in the WOC Sprint in Denmark has broken through the European domination of WOC titles. Now it is the turn of MTB-O. At the meeting in Bendigo last November it was decided to substitute a Sprint for the relay in Western Australia in 2006. The extended time span to ride three legs in a relay, difficulty in forming teams, relatively small numbers involved and suitable map near Perth made it an easy solution. Sprint MTB-O in WA will let Duncan Sullivan, the course setter, employ several innovations. A map scale of 1:10 000 will show the real maze of tracks; purple will be used for the rock detail so that tracks will show better; grey will be used for settlements/houses to set them off from pine forest/thick forest. With experimentation being encouraged by the IOF MTBO Commission, the Sprint MTB-O races for all classes will have a 20-25 minute winning time. Then in 2007 Victoria will stage a sprint event in Ballarat’s Victoria Park, while Albury will hold the first Oceania Sprint near Nail Can Hill. So give the new format a go and see how it compliments the Middle and Long-distance disciplines.

First Oceania MTB-O Championships in Australia

The IOF has approved the staging of the inaugural Oceania MTBO Championships on 23-25 March in the Albury (NSW) area. With the full support of OA and O Victoria, the active Albury Wodonga Orienteering Club will host the 3-event weekend. With a sprint event in Albury followed by long and middle distance races in the Shelley area, a great weekend early in the 2007 season is promised. More details, including a website with an online entry form, will be in the next The Australian Orienteer.

2006 Australian Ranking Events

With the ink just dry on the 2005 ranking, 2006 is now in the “championship season”. Below are listed the events that will be used to calculate the ranking for MTB-O riders in Australia (excluding the elite men and women). In 2005 I used two results as the minimum to get a ranking. In 2006 riders will require 3 results to be nationally ranked, encouraging competitors to travel. This will give an advantage to those who attend the Australian Championships in WA of course, but Victorians had that advantage in 2005, and NSW riders will have the bonus in 2007 when they stage the nationals. With the introduction of the Sprint discipline to MTB-O in 2006, there will be more events in the future that may be considered for ARE (Australian Ranking Events).

Feb 26 Vic Middle Champs; June 5 WA Long Champs; Sept 10 Tas Long Champs; Sept 10 Qld Long Champs; Oct 10 Aust Middle Champs; Oct 11 Aust Long Champs; Oct 12 Aust Sprint Champs; Oct 29 NSW Long Champs; Nov 5 ACT Long Champs; Nov 12 Vic Long Champs; Nov 19 SA Long Champs.

Elite MTB-O Ranking System

Paul and Mark Darvodelsky helped devise the present elite ranking system in late 2005. Anthony Darr has taken the data and now has a “rolling ranking” that is up to date (WOC in Finland). Firstly a competitor’s final ranking is the average of their best 3 scores in the previous 12 months. That means that if a competitor has less than 3 scores they do not get an elite ranking. The events used in the current ranking include 2005 WOC Slovakia, State and Aust Champs, Selection races and WOC Finland. The second thing is that an event will not be considered for ranking points unless there are at least 3 starters in the starting field that have previously scored points. This is because the “best time” that is calculated for the event is derived using Elite Men Ranking the top 3 times and the ranking of the top 3 riders in the field. Without 3 starters 3 races in last 12 months (Elite Women Ranking not available yet) Name State RP 1 Adrian Jackson VIC 0 .00 that have previously scored 2 Alex Randall VIC 10 .73 points the calculation will 3 Anthony Darr NSW 20 .21 not work and the event will 4 Tony Clark VIC 20 .31 not be considered. Eventually there will be enough riders 5 6 7 Grant Lebbink David Simpfendorfer Paul Darvodelsky VIC ACT NSW 25 . 25 . 26 . 19 27 89 with scores in this system to 8 Steven Cusworth VIC 27 .21 make all eligible events count. 9 Jim Russell VIC 29 .10 Remember that the system will produce better scores in strong 10 11 12 Matthew Schepisi Adam Hunter Paul Liggins VIC ACT VIC 31 . 33 . 36 . 84 42 35 fields. Also, for World Champs events, if there are not 3 AUS starters then the event is discarded.

MTB-O Happenings around Australia

• Braemar College (Macedon) Wins 2nd Victorian MTB-O

Schools Championships (August 18th) –“You Yangs” was the venue; 130 keen schoolgirls and boys were the participants; 2 hours score course. • Queensland runs their first State MTB-O Champs using a new area for mountain bike orienteering - part of an extensive hoop pine plantation and eucalypt forest with a good track system. Within 10 minutes of Blackbutt and 15 minutes from Yarraman approximately 2 hours from Brisbane. • More than 1.1 million new bikes are sold each year – average price $2000; cycling is the fourth most popular activity for adults according to the Cycling Promotion Fund.

Spaghetti on a Map

Paul Darvodelsky

2006 World MTB-O Championships Middle Distance map “Lykynlampi”.

Scale 1:10 000 (reduced to 90% here)

Men’s course: 17 km

FOR this year’s world championships the Finns turned on something special which most of the MTB-O world had not seen the likes of before. The outstanding terrain was some of the most detailed in the world, with track networks which looked more like a plate of spaghetti than the track networks with which we are familiar. This year’s team consisted of Steven Cusworth, Paul Darvodelsky, Adrian Jackson, Carolyn Jackson, Alex Randall and David Simpfendorfer. The team was in good shape, having posted extremely good results in some high profile mountain bike cross-country races in Australia. Steven, Paul and David were all competing in their first WMTB-O Championships. WMTB-O follows a similar format to Foot-O championships. The WMTB-O week has four races; starting with a qualification for the Long-distance race, the Middle-distance final, a rest day (phew!), the Long-distance final and then finishing with the Relay. At the moment WMTB-O uses a 1-minute start interval for the Middledistance rather than a qualification race. The terrain could be loosely described as sand dune terrain, although this was not like the Aussie beach terrain. This dune terrain was the result of glaciers and is the settled moraine. It is largely on the top, but with extremely steep depressions. In parts it is nearly impossible to read the ups and downs and often we’d find ourselves expecting a very nasty, steep, climb only to find ourselves plummeting downwards! The most notable feature of the maps was the track network. It’s hard to imagine just how there got to be so many tracks. But a combination of cross country skiing, some motor sports, forestry and military exercises made these areas a MTB-O dream, or on occasions, nightmare! To adequately show all this detail the maps were all 1:15,000 and 1:10,000. Even at such large scale most of the maps looked more detailed than our trickiest areas like The Whipstick, Mosquito Flat and Canadian Forest. In the qualification race for the Long-distance the area was steep and had less tracks with bigger route choices. Alex, AJ and Carolyn all qualified comfortably in 9th, 4th and 18th places, with 20 men and 30 women from each race to go through. Paul and David rode the same heat and made a few mistakes to place tantalisingly close to qualification in 22nd and 23rd. The day was dominated however by the Finns. And the Danes, at their first WMTB-O in force, impressed by riding strongly. Middle-distance day was exciting. This was the first of the maps which looked to be very detailed – all of the areas had previously been mapped for Foot-O and we had copies of these. We weren’t to be disappointed. On picking up the map we all shared the same experience. ‘Where the heck is the first check point?!!’. Then, after some seconds, ‘Where’s the start?!’. This process took most of us the minute given before our start time to get our map in order. Then there was just the small matter of how to get there. Carolyn, still nursing broken ribs, rode accurately as usual for 35th place. David had some difficulty in the extremely technical terrain and came 85th. Steven also was tripped up a few times, but rode solidly to finish 57th. Paul exorcised his demons from the qualification and rode a strong race with few errors to place 45th. The stars of the day were Alex and AJ once again. Alex made

Alex Randall churning through one of the sandy tracks after the map change during the long final.

Adrian Jackson in the Middle-Distance finish chute. Adrian put in some great rides in Finland but just missed out on medals this time.

some small mistakes and came in 17th and AJ rode a great race to place just off the podium in 7th. In this detailed area any mistakes were devastatingly harsh on the numerical results and the Team was a little rueful of their errors but very happy overall with their riding. The Long-distance final terrain contrasted with the Middledistance. The map was 1:15,000, had fewer tracks and was steeper. The start/finish area was one of the major cross-country skiing and biathlon centres in Finland. Alex started first and rode well until he got caught up in some indistinct and very rough forest tracks. He lost nearly 10 minutes before getting back on track and settled into the course. Despite riding strongly over the last part of the course this placed him 35th. It was quite a mighty effort after his disappointing start on a course which was nearly 25% longer than the expected winning time. AJ kept us excited through the day, as the intermediate splits came through. One of the last starters he was in the medals right up until the 3rd and last loop of the course, where the smallest of errors dropped him to 6th place. It was a fine podium placing in a day dominated by Mika Tervala from Finland. Christine Schaffner of Switzerland won the women’s race in 110 minutes, nearly half an hour over the expected winning time. The final race was the Relay and the Team was ready to race. We had two teams, with Carolyn making up the 6th spot in the 2nd men’s team. Carolyn rode very well on what was a long course for her and we had to smile when we heard she caught one of the Kiwi men mid-course! The 1st team rode very strongly and were 4th fastest team, but unfortunately were disqualified for mis-punching which was a terrible disappointment to all after riding such otherwise fine races. This left the team with only the banquet to focus on! The solid and consistent racing of Team members has contributed to some great rankings in the IOF’s world ranking list. Adrian Jackson is now the number 1 ranked man in the world! Alex Randall is ranked 10th, David Simpfendorfer 25th, Paul Darvodelsky 34th, Steven Cusworth 68th and Carolyn Jackson 22nd in the women.

David Simpfendorfer tackling the complex track network in Finland.