Thoresen: interesting selection comments

[harry]

Interesting that Petter Thoresen the Norwegian National team coach/main man has commented publicly on the lack of selection of a guy from Nydalen.
Sigve Vågsnes has had a lot of top results this Spring and at last weekend's selection races was 4th and 7th in the long & middle but was not selected as part of their 11-man team for the Nordics. I thought this non selection was quite odd so was interested today when Thoresen commented on it to one of the O-news websites OPN.

He said it was a difficult decision and said that although he has shown good results they also need to know what Sigve Vågnes wants, his aims etc and that the runners selected must either fulfil the teams goals for the future or be good enough to fulfil the results goals of the particular championships (I'm guessing here he means win medals).
OPN ask Thoresen if 33 is too old? and he replies no, age or whether a person is in a national team group doesn't matter.
He goes on to say that they have a good dialogue with Sigve Vågsnes and that if he decides to concentrate fully on orienteering he will be supported and also that the guy has a very good chance of making the 12-man team for the World Cups at O-fest

Makes sense. Impressive how open Thoresen seems to be about the situation. It will be interesting to see what Vågnes does next. Would be great to see him get a top result in Oslo!

I totally agree with Thoresen on the age comment too. People's lives take them in different directions and people develop at different rates. We have an athlete breaking into the GB team at 33 and New Zealand's best woman is 37! Within certain performance levels, effort and committment are probably more important than age.

Another general pondering was that since we have some talented junior girls at the moment maybe they should be running more senior competitions. But this has not always worked too well in the past in terms of long term development. This article from a top American 5000m runner is interesting food for thought on a similar subject:
http://dyestat.com/lauren/2007/05/18/yo ... kip-steps/
As is the fact that in 2006 Hanny Allston's goal was to win JWOC even though as it turned out she was good enough to win WOC!Not sure where I am going with this pondering but anyway.. let's see our junior girls kick ass in JWOC as their first port of call.

I doubt many nopesporters will be interested in any of this so it will be a short thread! But really just some random thoughts on national team stuff. Lots of teams are having similar problems, the Aussies will not have any Men at WOC this year and are debating their own development crisis, (http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionth ... age_286725) but their women's line up is pretty awesome (and very skinny ) Could they medal in the relay?

[harry]

Now this Vågnes guy has spoken to OPN and his comments are quite amusing!
He says: "the magic word is WOC2010, if I'd said I was aiming for WOC2010 then I would have been selected for the Nordics, but I thought it was a bit unrealistic to mention WOC2010 the first time I spoke to the National team boss"

[mharky]

by very skinny i presumme you mean of suitable weight for an endurance sport, unlike most of GBR's women

[madmike]

Mharky,
do you want flowers at your funeral or a donation to your favourite charity?

[gg]

he didn't imply anything about which women, just GBR's, he could just be commenting on the average rather than orienteers...

[madmike]

I hope you are right GG but it is Mharky we are dealing with

[harry]

by very skinny i presumme you mean of suitable weight for an endurance sport, unlike most of GBR's women

Yes unlike most of GBRs women and also unlike the World Long distance Champion Dana Brozkova.
Quite similar build to other people who are not often performing that well in orienteering but do quite a bit of cycling, mouth off a lot and think rather highly of themselves.

[harry]

For any young girls about to throw up their dinner: I've weighed 52kg (BMI 18) and 60 kg (BMI 22) and usually somewhere in between and was not a better orienteer at the lower end!
Helena Jansson and Kajsa Nilsson are not skinny and they are amazing so just do what you can with the genetic hand you were dealt and don't imagine Mharky is a good role model!!!

Someone just pointed out "injury-prone" is the phrase I was looking for... well he does seem to cry out for a whack to the knee cap not that I am inciting violence...

[Denise]

I believe Mharky's suffering from the dreaded piriformus syndrome at the moment. He can certainly be a pain in the backside sometimes with his sexist comments.

[harry]

haha well maybe time would be better spent in the gym rehabbing his injuries. Personally I only go on nopesport to distract me from eating so many pies all day long.

Thoresen has gone on today to continue commenting on various selections (Audun Weltzien, didn't run the test races, had exams but they really believe in his capacity) and non selections (Ingunn Weltzien, needs more time to train to come back from illness/injury, but the door is not closed for later this season).

Now I'm starting to wonder whether his open commenting about everyone is slightly OTT?

[Scott]

I don't know - detailed explanations of why someone has/hasn't been picked for the national team are pretty common in bigger sports, even if doing so can be a bit embarrassing for the athlete involved. Although there is still such a thing as too much information...

[Becks]

There's certainly one member of our National Team I'd like to see explained...

[RS]

Think I can guess who you mean Becks...and yes, an explanation would be good. Anyone out there brave enough to ask? - I'm not

[Becks]

I'm definitely not!

[awk]

Yes unlike most of GBRs women and also unlike the World Long distance Champion Dana Brozkova.

Ties in with a question I asked on the Praise and Brickbats thread. Is there an ideal build for orienteering? I always thought that the best orienteers rarely look particularly skinny; might be suitable for pure endurance sports, but there's a bit more to orienteering. (Sadly, what I do know is that even in the far distant past when I was down to 10% or so body fat, I was still nowhere near an ideal build!!).