REFLECTIONS ON WOC 1987

Reflections on a French WOC held 22 years ago

With the 2011 World Orienteering Championships scheduled to be held in the Savoie region of France, Rex Niven (Nillumbik Emus, VIC), reflects on his involvement with France 1987.

FRANCE has only once before hosted the World Championships. As France 2011 approaches I can now reveal my recollections and behind-the-scenes details of the World Champs 1987 held at Gerardmer, Eastern France. As I lived in western France, I must drive all afternoon to a mountain inn in the east part of Lorraine. I arrive to find the organisers hard at work, or in the local lingo en plein boulot. Clearly my group are in mid-briefing. Four authentic-looking mountain woodsmen with full black beards like big paintbrushes are gathered around the only table. They are making rapid inroads on a crate of beer and seem to be ignoring the presenter.

“Remember to keep some water cups topped up but don’t put them all out at once,” warns the official. “Some people aren’t fussy where they put their feet”. Our job as contrôleurs is to record the order and time each runner arrives at each control and, of course, keep the control clean, erect and as it should be, or comme il faut. As I have scored the last control I will get the most action of anybody. Also, my records may be important for timing of the finish leg sprint. Another team is working on the results display. The team leader brings out a box full of miniature flags to attach to the competitors’ names. Most of the flags are known but one causes bemusement. “I think it must be New Zealand” says someone finally. I am about to remonstrate when the leader attributes it correctly to somewhere in Eastern Europe. Antipodeans can rest easy. Individual Championship day, time 05:30. Time for life-giving black coffee, croissants, brioche and jam. Our leader Bernie, also equipped with an impressive beard, is handing out our high-tech equipment for the day – a roughly-hewn slab of particle board, some sheets of paper already used on one side, a few biros some of which function and a plastic bag. We are to supply our own time-piece. SportIdent is still many years away. Let’s hope there are back-up systems.

We are also given a shopping bag packed to the brim with drinks, filled baguettes, cake and fruit - the inner Frenchman is being given due attention. Our “herbergement” is adjacent to the Finish so my walk to the last control won’t be far. Finally we get our maps. One of our number is the brother of the course setter, who is a soldier and an elite orienteer. He has a powerful torch. We form a group around the beam and look at the M21E course. The terrain is quite mountainous. The centre piece is a long leg which is quite spectacular with multiple route choices, but many controls hold more physical than navigational challenges. It looks like strong runners could do well. We deploy ourselves at our controls. Next to mine is a compact tree with big leaves which is a nice place to perch and watch as the serious-looking Scandanavians sprint by. Later in the day the runners are not looking quite as confident. A Hong Kong guy looks quite dizzy. Finally one of the New Zealand team staggers up and seems to collapse into a hole. I climb out of my tree and try to help, but he is back on his feet. He is not at all fazed that a foreign guy in an exotic tree in the middle of the French mountains knows both his own name and who his father was, so he must have had a good time. The weather has been good, the competition has been successful for the organisers, and French runners have performed reasonably well. Team leader Bernie and his wife converse with me at dinner. We discuss the state of Orienteering in France, which was mostly dominated and paid for by the military and related services like gendarmes. This was partly as a training aid, but also a way of attracting les sportifs and sportives to stay in the military after Military Service. Ever the diplomat, I express the view that Orienteering seems to develop in an idiosyncratic way in every country, with local map symbols, a hide-and-seek or cache-cache way of course setting, different class structures and unusual race formats. Only after years of maturing is the IOF methodology fully accepted. However, Bernie is equal to this challenge to national honour! Although the French federation had only 2000 or so regular participants in 1987, he is naturally proud of what had been achieved. We go to sleep satisfied with the day, except me, whose bed has been appropriated by a new arrival. Relay Day, the hour 04:30. More coffee and brioche. Today there is a long drive through the hills to the competition area, less steep but prettier and set about with small lakes. This time I have a camarade and we have been allocated one of the more distant controls. Our army truck drops us at a road junction. As it is pitch black I scan my map in the headlights to figure out where we are. Dawn begins just after we set off though, and a whine in the ears shows that “les moustiques” are also up early and heading for coffee and croissants of their own. Eventually we settle down in the ferns at our control, which is also a drinks station. We have a military radio, a talkie-walkie. We think the first runners will appear 20mins after the start. Sure enough, after time zero +18 minutes the face of a Scandanaivan girl is seen, then another blonde head, and another and the whole group pass in no time. We report in by radio as each girl arrives: “la suedoise, la danoise,…”. Forty minutes later, the same thing happens again for leg two. We wait another sixty minutes, but no-one comes. Odd. Eventually we call base on the radio, wondering if the competition has been stopped. “On n’sait rien nous” they snap back, meaning they have no idea why no-one is coming to our control, and judging by the tone, please don’t bother us again. Later we find out that legs three and four go in a quite different direction, so our day’s work is done. We walk a few km back to the finish, still carrying most of our enormous pique-nique. Warm weather has made for a good day and everyone is happy. The official dinners can proceed in an atmosphère amicale et chaleureuse. France is unusual in Europe having a low population density, high standard of living and a lot of forested countryside. Many of the mountains in the eastern Pyrenees and the south-east Departments of Jura, Savoie and Hautes Alpes offer superb orienteering in complex glacial and karst geology. Along the Atlantic coast are long stretches of intricate sand dunes, and closer to Paris the large royal hunting forests like Fontainebleau and Rambouillet offer interesting terrain of good runnability with sandstone escarpments, ancient flint mines and boulder fields or chaos. After a run, one can search the forest floor for mushrooms like the elusive and delicious bôlets and cèpes. There are also excellent Orienteering forests overlooking the Champagne district vineyards and near the Bordeaux region. However, despite all these attractions, interest in the sport by the general public is much lower than in neighbouring Switzerland and Britain. Speaking as the average Anglo-Saxon though, I can certainly recommend the terrain, and definitely the lunch.

Finally one of the New Zealand team staggers up and seems to collapse into a hole. I climb out of my tree and try to help.