MTB WOC

MTBO World Championships

In Israel

Photo: Dan Chissick Sprint podium. From left: Lasse Brun Pedersen from Denmark, Adrian and Ruslan Gritsan from Russia. Photo Kay Haarsma

Mountain Bike Orienteering in Israel – expect the unexpected. Team Jackson (Carolyn and Adrian) represented Australia at an event where competitor numbers were lower than usual because of recent violence in the region and alternative major events in Europe. Despite this, most of the top guns were there so fewer competitors didn’t help Carolyn or Adrian, both of whom were expected to finish well up in the field. Kay Haarsma travelled with Team Jackson as manager/ coach and she takes up the narrative:

ADRIAN JACKSON stamped himself as arguably Australia’s best orienteer ever, by winning gold in the two extremes of the Sprint and the Long Distance, and getting a podium finish of 5th in the Middle Distance at the MTBO Worlds in Israel. His win in the Sprint slightly shocked his rivals but his dominant (almost 3 minute) win in the Long Distance had everyone shaking their heads in disbelief. One of the attractions of international Orienteering is the different countries you visit. Although Israel hadn’t been on my “must see” list I am glad I saw this unique country. I had early misgivings based on:- that only 3% of the country is covered in forest; predicted temperatures were in the high 30’s; and with Israel MTBO riders lacking both quantity and quality at major events I wondered whether Israel could host a high standard WOC. Then, a three week long conflict from Dec 27th between Israel and the Gaza Strip saw approximately 1300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis killed. Israel bombarded the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of stopping rocket attacks from and arms smuggling into Gaza. A “special bulletin” from the WOC organisers declared that competitors had nothing to worry about as the range of the rockets was at least 5 kilometres from where we were racing! This didn’t exactly allay my fears. However the fighting stopped and IOF confirmed Israel as the host. Nevertheless many of our top riders chose not to be available for selection and ultimately only “Team Jackson” were named. Both are experienced competitors but Orienteering Australia decided to send me as coach, so our Team only had to think about riding. Before departure, email communication from Israel was slow and answers vague, leaving me extremely worried. Initially they didn’t want to email me copies of the training maps, as we should have come to the training camp in February! Strange logic. Then I had to call on the controller and the IOF to ensure that previous copies of the event maps were posted on the website, as the rules demand. The weekly emails from Hertz querying whether I really wanted the specific car for that particular fortnight was also troubling. The hassles of MTBO travel included trying to fit three bikes, four people, bike boxes and luggage into one big car. I deliberately arrived in Tel Aviv several days before the others so I could assimilate to the Israel psyche, get a hold of good copies of the training maps, check out the accommodation, ensure we had a car booked, locate the best bike shops etc. I was helped immensely by staying with a couple of young touring cyclists who explained things and immersed me in the local culture and food. I found them via the “Warm Showers” list of cyclists who put up other cyclists, of which I am a member. Finally I picked up the hire car and navigated out of Tel Aviv by myself, driving on the wrong / right hand side of the road in the dark to pick up AJ at 11pm. Embarrassingly, I then had trouble locating the car in the huge airport car park. Then it was into the forest for eight days of training before the Championships began. During the pre-WOC training what did you think of the maps and terrain? AJ: The training camp was good to just focus on the process of orienteering after doing hardly any O races all year. It was hot which was nice after having spent the previous seven weeks racing and working in a wet Europe. More importantly I got used to riding in the heat again. Really it was no different to an Australian summer when I do a lot of MTB races, so I knew that I could handle it. Kay: Most of our training was done 100kms north of Tel Aviv where we stayed in guestrooms at Ramat HaShofet kibbutz. This community was established in 1941 mainly by immigrants from Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland. It has a resident population of about 570 people. Here there were five maps at our disposal. Steep hillsides with many tracks contouring around made for interesting decisions when to “cut” through the forest. Riding or walking bikes through the forest was allowed in all races, except the Sprint, where you had to carry your bike if diverting from tracks. The Russians were also based here. They were doing it tough having to ride to and from the three closest maps. Here we first met Sakiko, the sole Japanese female rider, who was doing WOC on a background of just one MTBO race. Saki’s main sport is multi-day adventure racing, so she was super fit. After two weeks training in Israel she did remarkably well placing 37th, 23rd and then 21st.

The WOC accommodation and event centre was at Ben Shemen, a youth village and agricultural boarding school about 30kms from Tel Aviv. Established in 1927 its aim was to endow children with a Zionist ethic, teach them to work the land, and install an appreciation of responsibility. Today it has around 1,000 students, of which 400 live in the village. In the 1940s and 50s, a period of mass immigration to Israel, youth villages were an important tool in immigrant absorbtion. There are 60 youth villages in Israel today. Many continue to provide an educational framework for immigrant youth. Others have introduced programs for gifted students from underprivileged neighborhoods, exchange programs for overseas high school students and vocational training facilities. The rooms were small and basic with 4 beds to a room, shower and toilet. Importantly they had good working air conditioners which allowed us to take refuge from the heat. All teams stayed here and ate in the community eating hall, so it was a great friendly atmosphere. Also, three of the events and the model map were within 5kms, so this made them accessible by bike. And it had a nice large swimming pool strangely camouflaged by blue plastic entirely around it. This was to prevent men looking at women swimmers on the two “women only” days. With some talking I was able to get the three Jacksons (Tim was there too) in one room by themselves and I moved into the “single girls” room next door with Anna (Poland) and Maret (Estonia.) Having some privacy and space is really important to elite athletes at such events so they can get time to themselves and rest properly when they desire it. However, for a few minutes at event accreditation the Australian participation looked a bit doubtful. The event treasurer pointed out that we had only paid half the costs and could I pay the rest now? (Normally OA pay everything upfront in two installments as is required.) Our meticulous treasurer, while writing his car off in WA and then getting marooned in Darwin, had forgotten the second payment! A hasty “please send money” email was dispatched. Meanwhile we were riding “on appro”.

Long Distance qualifying

AJ: I wanted to just spend the minimum amount of energy possible and qualify in the top third of the field. In the end I made one error that cost about a minute, and chose some flat route choices which were slower but saved my legs that little bit more. I never felt like I was really orienteering that well, but sometimes I find when you are consciously trying to take it easier it is hard to navigate really well. Kay: Normally the top riders like to race together at the end of the field. However waiting around hours in the heat for an afternoon start would be counter productive so AJ didn’t thrash himself in the qualifying. Also the Long Distance Final map was to be almost all 4WD type tracks/roads so there would be no trails left by earlier riders. Carolyn rode conservatively after recovering from a 24hr stomach bug and had no major problems placing 19th in a field of 26. The terrain was a mixture of forest, open areas and almond groves and finished in Kfar Menachem kibbutz. Carolyn had to ride through a goat herd midway through her race! The “quarantine area” (where finishers must wait until all riders have started) was just 50 metres away in the local swimming pool!! The first day of competition had been quietly but impressively carried out by the organisers, with maps and courses all being complimented. This is looking good, I mused...

Middle Distance event

AJ: Lots of technical riding and navigation. When you find yourself having to constantly concentrate on where to put your wheels your map reading slips down the order of priorities and mistakes occur. Straight after the race I felt as though I had been losing time the whole course, and said to Kay “19 controls, 19 mistakes” but that was just the nature of the terrain. In fact, being hesitant and stop-start navigation was rewarded over the whole course. It was the old adage “lose seconds to save minutes”. In the end my splits were quite good except for three legs where I lost around a minute and a half each - the gap from my 5th place to first. Kay: The terrain was quite detailed with some single track. AJ suffered from the “hurry hurry” syndrome, pushing the navigation too hard given his lack of O racing. Fitness wise he coped admirably with the sizzling hot conditions. In contrast Carolyn was extremely pleased with her 35th position, having only a one minute error. Although her place appears low Carolyn was only eight minutes off the podium and all the places around her were very close in time. The Finn Marika Hana was a delighted winner while Austrian Michaela Gigon had to suffer the agony of being announced as the winner and a minute later being told that a mistake had been made and she was in fact 2nd! The event was held in a section of Ben Shemen forest, with just a 3km ride to the start from our accommodation. Again the finish line was sited just 50 metres from a village swimming pool. The organisation was almost flawless. The influence of MTB JWOC is being seen with many good juniors making the elite teams. The Russians had four juniors.

Sprint event

AJ: With my lack of race practice showing through in the Middle Distance, I was not expecting the Sprint to be my best race of the week. What I did have on my side was an extra day of rest than the other guys, with the race order being; Long qual, Middle, rest day, Relay, Sprint then Long Distance. So not having ridden in the Relay (which was actually in the evening before the Sprint!) was definitely going to be to my advantage. I really got into the course well and got that awesome feeling where you are going flat out but your mind is still one step ahead. There were a few moments where things got slightly out of shape, but each time I only lost a few seconds before getting back into the flow. Call it experience if you want, but sometimes you need a bit of good old fashioned luck to get you on the top step! Kay: Riding in only his second WOC Sprint ever AJ took out the gold medal by 11secs over the Dane, Lasse Brun Pederson. Adrian was leading after the third of 17 controls and was either 1st or 2nd for the rest of the race before finally taking the lead again and holding it from control #15. Adrian was stoked with his ride immediately after he finished. Being the fourth last starter he only had a short wait to be confirmed as champion. AJ was grabbing at his shoe when he finished and talking to the media at the same time, as a stick had speared through into his foot near the race end. Brother Timmy was despatched to make the gold medallist flower garland and proud Tim and mother Carolyn presented it to him on the podium in the forest amphitheatre. Initially they had hung our flag upside down on the flagpole, but this was soon corrected, being pointed out by several other nations! Carolyn rode steadily to place 36th. She had one bad route choice, and found it difficult to read the map “on-the-go” due to the detail. Slovakian Hana Bajtosova won, repeating her Sprint victory from 2008. The Neot Kedumim area was fantastic terrain for Sprint Orienteering being a landscape reserve which had literally been sculpted out of eroded hillsides. There were many old farming and archaeological sites dotting the almost open rocky hillsides. More importantly there was a myriad of small tracks, with many of them paved for easy access making for very intense orienteering. It was the most exciting and unique area for Sprint Orienteering that I have seen in a WOC.

Relays

It was a little strange being just a spectator at the Relays. A short second loop of about 10mins had everyone returning through the finish area. From the spectator control riders had to run up some steps much to everyone’s entertainment. The leading last leg riders were given GPS units to put in their pockets and their whereabouts was then tracked on course via a big TV screen at the finish. In the men’s Relay, the Danes were unbackable favourites but their first rider came through near the rear after a ‘mechanical’ and they did well to pull up to a podium finish of 5th. The Russian, Finn, Swiss and Czech teams had a close battle throughout. It was only Anton Foliforev’s fastest time of the day on the last leg that gave Russia a one minute victory over Czech, with the Finns taking the bronze narrowly ahead of the strong Russian second team. In the women’s event, Ksenia Chernikh, Russia’s gun rider, led out on the final leg with a one minute margin to Czech, then Switzerland, Austria and Finland were all within 5 minutes. The forking controls immediately at the beginning of the final loop proved a problem for some teams and totally changed the leader board. It was the “grand madam” of MTBO in Michaela Gigon who emerged first from the trees, eliminating a three minute deficit to grab victory for Austria. Christine Schaffner also rode brilliantly to bring the Swiss into 2nd with the Russians being consoled with the bronze, just ahead of Czech.

Long Distance Final

AJ: After the debacle of my poor race in the Middle Distance, I had made the Long Distance my main focus of the Championships. From winning the Sprint I was confident of my physical ability to race well, but just needed my focus to be on and even luck to show up again. I also sensed how tired the other guys were from the heat and extra race they had ridden. The course was pretty route-choice intensive, and although I didn’t always pick the absolute best, my legs were churning up the hills so I never lost too much time. On one of the key long leg (#5 - #6) I made an impulse decision to go the same way as one of the good Swiss riders who I had just caught. It was a bit of a gamble; a very wide route that climbed a lot in one hit, rather than weaving through the guts of the map with constant up and down. Once into the leg I was convinced it was a bad way, so attacked the climb flat out. In the end it was actually the fastest way, and my efforts had paid off, putting time into many of my main rivals. Kay: The organisers deliberately put the Long Distance race last as they reckoned no-one would have any energy left afterwards. The course was 36km and 720m of climb with an expected winning time of 100 minutes. Early finishers looked very tired and hot. I had suggested to AJ that he not overcook himself in the first half and this was a sensible tactic. Recording a speedy 92min 41sec he came in to lead by almost six minutes but there were still many riders to come. Carolyn was confident that he had the gold but I was awaiting the last rider and the “skinny lady to sing”. The event announcer, Slovakia’s Marie Cutova, was dressed for the weather in a bikini top most days and finally she did confirm AJ as the winner. The event banquet, closing ceremony and presentation was held later that evening at the event finish area at Mesilat Zion. Most competitors found themselves frolicking in the swimming pool by night’s end. In the afternoon I had taken the opportunity to ride the women’s course (26.5km & 560m climb) and appreciated how hot the conditions were. Overall the Israel organisers did an outstanding job and ran maybe even the “best ever” WOC according to popular opinion. Nothing was ever too much trouble and their small volunteer workforce appeared so often in different roles that it appeared as if they had cloned themselves!

What are the races on your agenda in the next six months?

AJ: Summer is the high season for XC racing in Australia, so I’ll be competing in the four-race National Series, plus the National Championships in Adelaide in January. I’ll also be heading to Tassie in February to defend my Wildside stage race title and hitting up some of the other big one-day races like the Otway Odyssey and National Marathon Championships. Kay: In October AJ was in the 4-person winning elite team that won the 24 hour Scott race at Stromlo, ACT. A hard race, with only a few minutes to the highly fancied second team. He also ran the Foot-O National Championships off no running training and placed 8th in the Sprint and did a speedy opening leg in the Relay.

Was Israel, the country and people, as expected?

AJ: Nothing like reported on the news. 90% of the country is perfectly safe and everyone, especially the organisers were very friendly and helpful. Kay: A bit scary in Tel Aviv with young soldiers toting rifles in the streets. Nearer the disputed territory security was tighter with car and bag searches going into main shopping complexes. But generally life was going on as normal. The cities had quite dense living, generally on hillsides, in almost all white coloured buildings.

What were the non-O highlights of Israel and why?

AJ: Jerusalem was absolutely amazing. The old city covers a tiny bit of land, and is divided into four quarters (Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish) and everyone lives side-by-side in relative peace, and then there are some of the holiest sites of each religion packed in right next to each other. The Dead Sea was also pretty interesting, although it was so hot that I felt like I was being cooked in a big salty broth ready for someone’s dinner! Land temperature was 44deg and it felt almost as hot in the water. Kay: The Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and Masada, an ancient village built atop a 400m desert cliff by Herod the Great between 37 and 31 BC, stood out from the religious and historical viewpoints.

Keeping cool

Anticipating the hot conditions I borrowed two “ice vests” from the SA Sports Institute. These have crystals in them that take up water and keep it cold. They were put on the riders for five minutes or so before they raced to bring their core body temperature down to normal after their warm-up. Besides the physical advantage it also made the other riders a little envious! Due to the weather the organisers had a special rule that required riders to carry at least one litre of water. Maret Vaher, the sole Estonian woman rider, crashed badly going to control #2 in the Sprint, breaking several ribs and puncturing a lung. However she still finished the course. Her brother Sander is a top Foot orienteer and spent a year studying in Adelaide. Maret had to spend an extra 10 days in Israel before she was cleared to fly home. Carolyn, Timmy and I decided to visit her after WOC as her team-mates had departed. She was in a hospital in Lod about 5kms away but it took us over two hours to locate as no-one seemed to know where the hospital was. Then there were twelve identical buildings with Hebrew signs on them and we only knew that Maret was on the third floor of one. We even rang her but none of the nurses spoke English, so she couldn’t tell us which building. We finally found an English speaking doctor who directed us correctly. 2010 – MTBO WOC is in Portugal, based at the small village of Montalegre, some 480kms north from Lisbon.

MEN SPRINT FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Finish

1 Jackson Adrian, AUS 23:19 01:28 03:47 05:20 06:08 07:52 09:30 11:48 13:15 14:43 15:29 17:08 18:11 20:41 21:29 22:23 23:04 23:19 01:28 02:19 01:33 00:48 01:44 01:38 02:18 01:27 01:28 00:46 01:39 01:03 02:30 00:48 00:54 00:41 00:15 6 Hradil Jiri, CZE 24:51 01:44 04:05 05:53 06:43 08:54 10:37 13:06 14:39 16:01 16:51 18:37 19:40 22:05 22:52 23:55 24:36 24:51 01:44 02:21 01:48 00:50 02:11 01:43 02:29 01:33 01:22 00:50 01:46 01:03 02:25 00:47 01:03 00:41 00:15

“Neot Kdumim” – Israel. Scale: 1: 10,000 Contours: 5m

The Aussie team: Carolyn and Adrian Jackson with coach/ manager Kay Haarsma

Adrian finishing the Sprint. Photo sequence: Tim Jackson

RESULTS:

MIDDLE DISTANCE Men 1. 56.27 Torbjorn Gasbjerg DEN 2. 57.09 Jiri Hradil CZE 3. 57.17 Lasse Brun Pedersen DEN 5. 59.19 Adrian Jackson AUS Women 1. 52.22 Marika Hara FIN 2. 53.23 Michaela Gigon AUT 3. 53.44 Christine Christine SUI 35. 64.35 Carolyn Jackson AUS

SPRINT Men 1. 23.19 Adrian Jackson AUS 2. 23.30 Lasse Brun Pedersen DEN 3. 23.56 Ruslan Gritsan RUS Women 1. 22.37 Hana Bajtosova SVK 2. 23.00 Marika Hara FIN 3. 23.34 Michi Gigon AUT 36. 31.22 Carolyn Jackson AUS LONG DISTANCE Men 1. 92.41 Adrian Jackson AUS 2. 95.25 Ruslan Gritsan RUS 3. 96.23 Matthieu Barthelemy FRA Women 1. 91.11 Christine Schaffner SUI 2. 93.00 Sonja Zinkl AUT 3. 93.33 Hana.Bajtosova SVK 33. 116.49 Carolyn Jackson AUS RELAY Men 1. 2.04.17 Russia 2. 2.05.22 Czech Rep 3. 2.05.52 Finland Women 1. 2.25.11 Austria 2. 2.25.43 Switzerland 3. 2.27.17 Russia

Long podium. From left: Ruslan Gritsan from Russia, Adrian and Matthieu Barthelemy from France. Photo Kay Haarsma

MEN LONG FINAL 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Finish

1 Jackson Adrian, AUS 92:41 07:14 11:07 16:26 26:20 32:43 44:52 50:01 51:37 58:29 69:31 76:59 82:15 90:04 92:02 92:33 92:41 07:14 03:53 05:19 09:54 06:23 12:09 05:09 01:36 06:52 11:02 07:28 05:16 07:49 01:58 00:31 00:08 3 Barthelemy Matthieu, FRA 96:23 08:03 11:54 17:17 27:50 34:22 46:34 52:17 53:58 60:39 72:46 80:46 85:43 93:40 95:45 96:14 96:23 08:03 03:51 05:23 10:33 06:32 12:12 05:43 01:41 06:41 12:07 08:00 04:57 07:57 02:05 00:29 00:09

My World

Championships

Carolyn Jackson

AFTER the shock of being selected to go to Israel, I realized I was in a bit of strife. It was going to be HOT there, and I hate the heat, and always avoid riding in the heat!! The selection trials were held in very cold, wet and muddy conditions, which suit me well. Israel was going to be the total opposite - and it did not disappoint. Most days were around the 40 degree mark and to make it worse the races were all in the middle of the day. For me, clearly I had had no preparation for these conditions. So I had to resort to wearing masses of clothes and somehow trying to train in the “heat” of the day - not easy in a Melbourne winter!! Timothy and I planned a three-day stopover in Hong Kong, en route to Israel. The idea being it would be warm there, plus help with jet-lag by breaking up the trip. So we went from 8 deg max daytime temperature at home and got hit like a brick bat with a 40 deg heat wave in Hong Kong and incredibly high humidity too. Even the locals said it was extremely hot. Kay was a huge help. In the heat, even just the walk to and from the event centre, shopping and all those “little” odds and ends that need to be

All the World Championships maps were incredibly good areas, with each done, were a real chore. Kay handled all this with no fuss. Just competing having terrain very suited to the type of race. The Middle Distance map seemed to take so much more out of us than usual, so after every race and had a dense network of tracks, with some technical riding. The Sprint was ride it was straight to the air-con or the pool to rest and recover. an amazing place with a complex network of tracks. The Long Distance had big hills, and adequate amount of tracks to make for very good route choice. The absolute highlight of the trip was, of course, Adrian’s two gold medals. Timothy and I got to watch Adrian finish each of his winning rides, which was extremely exciting, and we screamed ourselves hoarse. In the Sprint The first race was the Long Distance qualification. Basically for us women he was a very late starter, so we knew as he was finishing that he had it was just a matter of finishing, as all finishers automatically qualified. had a great race and we only had a couple of minutes wait for the last Seems a bit unfair compared to the guys. I had a really good ride. I tried to few to know he had won. Adrian has never really considered himself a ride within myself, but also ride solidly, as I wanted to see roughly where I “sprinter” but he certainly showed the world his versatility that day. Then was in the field. I never had any illusions that I would be at the pointy end the next day, the thrill of watching him come down that steep and loose - I was going for mistake-free rides, which would give me the best result I hill at an amazing speed to finish the Long Distance. I was fairly sure he could hope for. This map was a very nice and fun area, which had a couple was going to get a medal even though we had an hour to wait. For both of long route choice legs. I achieved my goal of no mistakes, just one poor presentations, Timothy made a garland, and I very proudly got to present route. them to Adrian on the podium. The Middle Distance was my favourite area. Intense navigation, plenty of We got the opportunity to visit the Old City of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, single track and great route choice kept us very challenged. I was thrilled Masada, Akko, and many more fascinating places. The ancient history and to finish with virtually no mistakes - just missed one tiny track junction buildings blow your mind when you come from a place like Australia which which cost half a minute, and a few other slightly too long hesitations. is so relatively young. The Sprint was really fun to ride. It was very hard to keep in contact with Israel is an amazing place. The Israelis were incredibly friendly, capable the map as tracks came up so quickly at that scale. The light yellow of the and good organizers. The events went virtually without a hitch, the maps area tended to blend with all the detail making for a very hard-to-read map. were fantastic and the whole event was one of the best I have been to. It didn’t help that my helmet broke during the race, so I had it constantly flopping onto my nose - hard to concentrate! I never got lost, but feel I Pity they just couldn’t have organized the weather a bit better…….. made some poor route choices, and was probably too cautious. The Long Distance race was, for me, Kay, Timmy and Carolyn enjoy a different kind of riding just a matter of battling it out to finish. Keeping well hydrated, riding within my capabilities and just making it were foremost in my mind. I concentrated very hard on picking efficient routes, minimizing the climb and not riding an extra millimetre than I had to. It was always going to be a long day. Many other riders had similar problems with the heat and I was very glad to finish with an ok time.

Photo: Dan Chissick