JWOC REMINISCING

Reminiscing JWOC 2008

Geoff Stacey (Parawanga, ACT)

On Monday 23rd of June I arrived at Gothenburg airport, Sweden, ready for the experience of a lifetime – JWOC, the Junior World Orienteering Championships.

Mike Hubbert

Training Camp:

The first week was a training camp, and our accommodation turned out to be a little cottage (an orienteering clubhouse) hidden just within a great expanse of forest. This was perfect for our purposes, because any time we wanted to we could grab a map of the area (available with a scale of 1:5 000, 1:10 000 or 1:15 000) and go training in the surrounding forest. Inside, we had a table tennis table and a huge supply of cards for relaxation. Our first training session consisted of completing a small course in groups of two or three, taking it slowly and studying the way the terrain was mapped. The forest had a lot of undergrowth and was in general very soft, not to mention green! Occasionally I made the mistake of wandering into a patch of stinging nettles, but quickly learned which type of leaves to watch out for. There were boulders and bare rocks much like in Australia, except that most of them were covered in moss. The mapping of the rock could be difficult to become accustomed to; the general rules were that bare rock covered in moss wasn’t bare rock and that cliffs weren’t mapped unless they were difficult to pass. As a result, yellow often turned out to be bare rock, and contours that were close together often turned out to be cliffs. The mapping of contours was more detailed than in Australia, and sometimes even the smallest gully nestled between two boulders could be shown on the map. Another unfamiliar feature on the Swedish maps were the marshes. Some of these were just wetter patches of ground with longer grass, but the larger marshes could be quite muddy and were usually covered in moss and grass, with quite a spongy surface. Visibility was good in these areas but running could be quite draining physically. The areas generally had lots of small, steep hills (whereas Australian terrain tends to have a single primary hill). The land was formed by glaciers, which caused the hills to be generally more linear than those in Australia. Courses often had long legs going across the grain of the land, making them very physical. Route choice was usually either up and down over several steep slopes, or around through thick gullies or spongy marshes. Due to the vegetation, it was very difficult to see what your feet were going to land on, and the ground was often lumpy or tussocky underneath. On one occasion my foot fell straight into a gap between two unseen pieces of rock. The only thing that stopped my fall was my knee slamming into them and being wedged in between. I was most fortunate that my leg went in at the right angle to avoid breaking anything. Throughout the rest of the training camp, we managed to have a session for each of the four disciplines, and I also spent a bit of time wandering through the forest by our cottage. On one such wander I came across a great lake in the middle of the forest, with little sign of civilisation other than a hut on the far shore. It seemed like a scene out of a fairy tale, and radiated tranquillity. It was a soothing place in the lead up to the excitement of JWOC.

JWOC:

There was a great change to our lifestyle once JWOC started. The accommodation for the teams was in an army barracks, for which there was a Sprint map to practice on. There was a great view of the city from the top of a nearby hill. Deer and hares could be seen around the place, as well as various birds. Most of the food provided was pretty bland, but jam went with pretty much everything and gave it some flavour.

Sprint race:

The JWOC Sprint was our first event. I was feeling a little anxious on the bus ride because I didn’t really know what to expect, but once I arrived at the start arena it suddenly felt like any other national event, only scaled up a little. We had a nice area to warm up in, with a small practice map to get a feel for the terrain. We had a silent start, which basically meant we had to follow hand motions rather than verbal instructions, and when it was time I pushed through the start gate and began my course. The early part wove around lots of small buildings and gardens, which wasn’t very different to the Sprint races in Australia and I was travelling really well. The second half of the course began to cross strips of bushland, which were a little thick in places and had cliffs riddled throughout. This bush was really technical and, although it wasn’t too hard to see where I wanted to end up, I had to make a lot of quick decisions about the fastest way to get there without jumping down any impassable cliffs (which is a disqualification in a Sprint). There was also the added pressure of the media, which was distributed throughout the course. Around a third of the way through the course, I caught someone who’d made an error, and we headed around the next few controls together, until we took different route choices on a long leg. I got a little disoriented here, but without hesitation changed my route choice to make use of a catching feature which saved me from making an error. I came up to the second last leg, which went through the bush, but in my haste I didn’t notice a track underneath a contour line. It was a little harder without it and I hit the cliff about 10 meters from the control, but the bush was thick there and it took me a while to see the control and reach it. From there my bearing to the finish control was a little off, but I corrected this and suddenly I was sprinting down the streamered finish chute towards the finish of my first JWOC race. My time was quite reasonable; until my small errors on the last two controls I had been roughly equal with Lachlan Dow who got the fastest time for the Aussie boys. At the finish, I eagerly awaited the arrival of the rest of my team. Most of the team had very respectable times, although we had a couple of mishaps such as Leon Keely breaking his compass in the middle of a fantastic run.

Middle Distance:

On the Tuesday we headed out to the model event for the Middle Distance. Unfortunately, as it turned out I didn’t spend much time in the more relevant parts of the map, which were the open rocky hills. The next day we ran the Middle Distance Qualifications, for which there were three different courses (heats) that we were randomly assigned to, and the top 20 from each heat would run the A final, with the next 20 running the B final and the rest running the C final. Competitors were started three at a time with 2-minute intervals. My race got off to a good start, but my navigation slowly declined as the physically tough terrain took its toll. Much of the team

had a similar experience. Bridget Anderson and Oliver Mitchell achieved the best results for our team, with Bridget making the A final and Oliver making the B final. Next day we ran the Middle Distance Finals. It provided me with another chance to become accustomed to the terrain before the Long Distance event, but it ended up going much the same way as the qualifier. Most of our team ran much better, which raised spirits after the previous day. Bridget had a fantastic run and came 28th in the A final.

Long Distance:

We spent the rest day taking a boat trip out to the nearby islands. The Long Distance race was on the next day. This lived up to the expectations of a physically demanding event. With so many entrants, the men’s start times alone ranged over nearly 6 hours. The terrain was steep and covered in undergrowth. I’d chosen to be in an early start block to avoid the heat, but without the trails (“elephant tracks”) that form by the end of the event I found it very difficult to run. I estimated I lost around 15 minutes on this alone. I didn’t have a bad start, but then the draining and disorienting terrain caught me out when we came to a long leg, and I drifted off course. After that I felt that I really settled into the mapping of the Swedish terrain a lot better, and while I still moved slowly I managed to keep my focus and navigation pretty steady the rest of the way. We had some great runs by Laurina Neumann, Nick Andrewartha, and Leon Keely, except Leon miss-punched on the drinks control with the famous error of drinking without punching. The drinks had been positioned in front of the control, which encouraged this error.

Relays:

The Relays were our final JWOC races. This was the race I had been waiting for, as it had always been my primary focus. I was in the Australian B team, whose running order was Oscar Phillips, Lachlan Dow, and then myself. Leon and Oscar both had a great performance in the mass start, and our A team continued to show respectable form after Leon’s lead. Unfortunately, Lachlan had sore feet from the week’s efforts and this set him back a little. I believe I was one of the last people to head out, but was determined to make the most of this final opportunity. The country was said to be easier running than the Middle and Long Distances, and this was also the only race for which I ran later in the day, meaning that I finally had some elephant trails at my disposal. It was generally flatter and had better visibility, which I think suited me well. I made the most of these advantages, and kept a steady speed and strong focus. Since the latter half of the Long Distance the day before, I felt I was really starting to understand the terrain much better and to read the maps far more fluently. My only real setback was that there were few people around to form a pack with. As I neared the finish I could hear the announcements and the anthems of the race’s award ceremony and came running down the finish chute to the sounds of the last song. I’d had a great run, with the second fastest time for the Aussie boys and catching up 6 places. This was a result that I could be very happy with because by third leg the gaps between the teams are usually quite significant. We spent the rest of that day celebrating through the evening and long into the night, bringing a great conclusion to a wonderful journey.

Geoff at Easter’08. Photo: Gay Pywell Thanks To:

I would, of course, like to give a huge “Thank You” to everyone who helped me get to Sweden for such a wonderful experience. My orienteering club, Parawanga, and the Board of Orienteering ACT, put in a lot of work towards my funding on very short notice (as Reserve, I only discovered that I would be attending JWOC two weeks before my departure, and during this time I was busy with final assignments and exams at uni). Grant McDonald and the Canberra Cockatoos have been wonderful coaches and made training much easier and very enjoyable. The JWOC team of 2008 was full of great people and we all got along very well. Lastly, thanks to Nick Dent and Hilary Wood, coach and manager of the JWOC team, who made every effort to see that we performed at the very best of our abilities in JWOC, and looked after us every step of the way. It’s been a fantastic adventure and really makes me look forward to competing overseas in the future.

Lachlan Dow handing over to Geoff in the JWOC Relay. Photo: John Anderson

Finishing the Relay at JWOC. Photo: Hilary Wood