Champ's Meeting

[DIDSCO]

Champ's Meeting is taking place tomorrow in Gothenburg. It's an invitation only elite race where we've put a lot of effort into getting the worlds best orienteers - Thierry, Simone, Holger Hott, Mats Haldin will all be running. The winner in both the mens and womens race will receive 5000 Euro, probably the biggest ever prize money in orienteering for a single race.

The race is a tribute to orienteering legend Arto 'The Champ' Rautiainen who tragically died 3 years ago whilst on a training run aged just 35 years old. Arto ran in the Swedish team for many years and was a great personality and amazingly positive thinking person . I was lucky enough to have Arto as a good friend and clubmate for the last 6 years of his life, his influence upon me was immense and helped path out my life as it is today. Champ's Meeting will be a great tribute to Arto 'The Champ'.

The race is being shown live on Swedish TV, and hopefully you can watch it on the internet through a link at the website:
http://www.champsmeeting.se/

[Doug T]

i've been looking out for my invite the last few weeks it must have got lost in the post Dids!

it looks like a great race to comemorate a great orienteer, i'll be watching it.

[Duncan]

If anyone needs a distraction, it is all now happening as we speak. Live TV is working (but in Swedish), TracTrac promised (but can't find any link to it), live results starting to come through from radio controls.

Pippa Whitehouse started at 10:35 (uk time), Helen Bridle at 10:41, last woman Simone at 10:49, then men starting from 11:20 onwards (no british men).

[Jess]

how accurate is trak trak? it appears Valentin Novikov just went straight through a building?!

[andy]

how accurate is trak trak? it appears Valentin Novikov just went straight through a building?!

seems to be a bit out in places yeah, showing people as having been in the control circles but not actually where the control is, so probably up to 20/30m out.

my tv stream was about 20/25secs behind the tracking system, which was a bit odd to watch!

[mharky]

Good stuff

[Nails]

usual gueorgiou and niggli wins!

[DIDSCO]

Not being biased but todays race was probably one of the best elite races of all time (Thierry agreed:D), and perhaps has set in motion a change in how top elite races are organised.
The Champ's Meeting was arranged in co-operation with a major events company which specialises in staging world class sporting and cultural events in Gothenburg. The events company has all the contacts and financial backing to make events successful - perhaps this is what orienteering needs - a co-operation between the professionals and the amateurs to bring orienteerings develop into the 21st century, and give orienteering a chance of competing with other sports for participants and media coverage.
The prize money is a big thing too. For orienteering to achieve a higher status and compete with other sports perhaps more effort needs to be put into finding greater sums of prize money. Without doubt the large sum of money on offer at Champs Meeting raised alot of interest from outside orienteering and perhaps gives the sport more respect - and thus more likely to be treated as a 'real' sport.

[andy]

Not being biased but todays race was probably one of the best elite races of all time (Thierry agreed:D), and perhaps has set in motion a change in how top elite races are organised.
The Champ's Meeting was arranged in co-operation with a major events company which specialises in staging world class sporting and cultural events in Gothenburg. The events company has all the contacts and financial backing to make events successful - perhaps this is what orienteering needs - a co-operation between the professionals and the amateurs to bring orienteerings develop into the 21st century, and give orienteering a chance of competing with other sports for participants and media coverage.
The prize money is a big thing too. For orienteering to achieve a higher status and compete with other sports perhaps more effort needs to be put into finding greater sums of prize money. Without doubt the large sum of money on offer at Champs Meeting raised alot of interest from outside orienteering and perhaps gives the sport more respect - and thus more likely to be treated as a 'real' sport.

i didn't have time to watch much of the coverage but from what I saw it looked amazing, and certainly a big step forward - lets hope for more!

[Wattok]

The events company has all the contacts and financial backing to make events successful - perhaps this is what orienteering needs - a co-operation between the professionals and the amateurs to bring orienteerings develop into the 21st century, and give orienteering a chance of competing with other sports for participants and media coverage.
The prize money is a big thing too. For orienteering to achieve a higher status and compete with other sports perhaps more effort needs to be put into finding greater sums of prize money.

Definitely.

Sounded like a quality event