European Championships

[Guest88]

>gross, my personal opinion is that you would need to look for more naturally talented orienteers in their early teens amd then enabling those athletes to go orienteering regularly, ideally in td5. The bigger field you have to pick from, the better results you will get.

unfortunately in england (not so bad in scot...), there is not a surplus of great TD5 orienteering areas close to some of the large conurbations, i suppose we could pay for the top orienteering 14 yr olds to go live in norway but i doubt that anyone is that interested in orienteering successes to pay for it.

>dids, fair enough, we are approaching this from different directions. I personally wouldn't bet on gg or oj for top 10s in middle or classic just at the moment based on my analysis (sprint is more random), but it's only my opinion.

[Gross]

>gross, my personal opinion is that you would need to look for more naturally talented orienteers in their early teens amd then enabling those athletes to go orienteering regularly, ideally in td5. The bigger field you have to pick from, the better results you will get

But surely that is the function of the start & junior squads. To find talent with potential to perform at a higher level?

My original question relates to the very top where we are considered a top nation and have the resources & finance to compete with the best. GB has more money than France but the French seem to produce a greater depth & consistancy over the last few years.

Graeme's point about more runners from stronger natio could perhaps be reversed and applied to the last WC last year where GB were very successful... but the field wasn't as strong or deep as EOC (and that's not taking anything away from the athletes as you can only beat those who run not those who didn't show)

I still think there is something missing....

[Guest88]

I don't think that the pool of juniors from which the start and junior squads are selected is particularly large.

I don't know the exact figures, but if we are only selecting out of 50 M14s as compared to 500 in Norway, we are only likely to find 1 Jamie for every 10 they find. Natural talent is a very precious quality in orienteering as not only do you need to be top at X-country, you also need extremely good spatial skills.

I can see that some of the people in junior squads / tours have marginal chances at the top level because I can sometimes beat them.

I'm not convinced that there is anything in particular missing in regarding how the gb squad is run. My personal understanding is that it is probably one of the best, and best-funded outside scandi.....but I have no direct experience, so correct me if I am wrong.... The guys who run it certainly seem experienced and up for it.

You've mentioned the money aspect a few times, I don't think however much money you would pour in is going to be worth as much as living close to a surplus of TD5 orienteering areas with lots of orienteering organised...and with motivated amateurs organising stacks of training.

[Patrick]

A very interesting thread this....

My original question relates to the very top where we are considered a top nation and have the resources & finance to compete with the best. GB has more money than France but the French seem to produce a greater depth & consistancy over the last few years.

Not sure about the depth. If you take away Thierry how much have they won? Indeed, what impresses me is how well they do with such a limited number of top class runners. And to be fair, the GB women almost always outperform the French women.

I still think there is something missing....

What strikes me when visiting Thierry's site is the amount of the time he spends training with the French team. Aren't most of them based in the same city? Certainly there was a period this winter where they seemed to have a squad training camp practically every weekend, most of which seemed to be geared towards preparing for specific races.

How does this compare with the GB setup? I know there are a lot of squad get-togethers, though anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of these are spent in meetings rather than in the forest. There are training groups in Edinburgh and Sheffield with a high GB Squad/Team presence, but my impression of these as an outsider is that they are more a collection of smaller groups whose sessions sometimes overlap with each other than the kind of cohesive, focused unit the French appear to have. How "directed" are the Edinburgh and Sheffield groups? Is there a guiding hand and a clear plan to the training? (this is a genuine question - I'm not trying to have a go at anyone)

There's a comparison to be made here with other sports, for example in distance running. Very few of the "top" male distance runners in the UK train together, whereas I understand that nations such as Spain, Portugal and Australia have well established "centres of excellence" where top coaching, physio, etc can be concentrated and athletes are pushed to reach their full potential. I've never understood why the UK can't put such a system in place.

The success of the French seems to offer some lessons for GB, as does the rapid improvement of some of the Eastern European nations. It would be good to know what work is being done by Team GB to pick up on the systems and methods used in other countries, especially when their situation is similar to our own.

Finally, I agree with Dids on specialising in certain disciplines. I think if we are serious about future success we should be following this route and encouraging people to focus on what they do best. I was surprised that only 6 men and women were picked for Estonia, if only because fatigue or illness can lead to places not being filled (as has happened), but also because we ought to be taking seriously the idea of selecting runners for only a single race.

Anyway, good luck to the Team for the Long and Relay!

Patrick

[Supersaint]

Why have France produced TG and GBR has 'only' produced JS.? I remember WOC 97 in Norway... GBR was really pissed of that France even came close... but now... France is possibly way ahead...

The questions need asked....

Hopefully the classic & relay will produce results that let people say... Gross, shut up:)

It looks like the qualifications at least can make us say "Gross, shut up:)"

A quick run through of the qualifications shows that GBR had 11 top 17 results in the men, compared to the French who only had 8. In fact, the only nations who had more qualify for A-finals were Finland, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden.

As for the women, we've had 8 top-17 results, with only 6 nations (Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland) having more people qualify for finals - Switzerland having 18 out of 18 results in the top 17!

Ok, there's only been one top-10 (so far) in the final, but our athletes are at least getting in the position to be able to challenge for top places.
Not having the results to hand, it would be interesting to see how this compares with previous years.

No. of Top 17 results in qualification:
MEN
1= Sweden 16
1= Switzerland 16
3 Finland 14
4 Norway 12
5= GREAT BRITAIN 11
5= Denmark 11
7= Czech Republic 10
7= Russia 10
9 France 8
10 Latvia 7
11= Estonia 6
11= Lithuania 6
11= Ukraine 6
14 Poland 6
15= Austria 3
15= Bulgaria 3
15= Slovakia 3
18= Italy 2
18= Netherlands 2
20= Spain 1
20= Germany 1

WOMEN
1 Switzerland 18
2= Finland 16
2= Norway 16
4 Sweden 15
5 Russia 13
6 Czech Republic 11
7= GREAT BRITAIN 8
7= Estonia 8
7= Latvia 8
7= Lithuania 8
11 France 7
12 Denmark 5
13= Germany 4
13= Ukraine 4
15= New Zealand 3
15= Spain 3
17 Poland 2
18= Belarus 1
18= Bulgaria 1
18= Japan 1
18= Romania 1

[Lard]

All the top 4 nations have TD5 forests on their doorsteps and very good club set-ups. Their prep is based on that and not the National Squads.

From top 5 to 10 you see that most either have agood club set-up as a nation OR
there is a collective base
eg - France - St Ettienne
Denmark - Squad training base at Silkeborg
Czech - not sure where.

Most of the top 5 - 10 Nations's best athletes spend a lot of time in scandinavia - ook at how many Swiss ran Tio and how many french are in Finnish teams.

Where GB may fall down is in our culture - we have a real work ethic - when it comes to studying it's about getting 1sts and then getting a job as quickly as possible, when you get a job it's about getting on and making a career.

In France and Switzerland it appears that athletes can juggle their studies and training better eg take 7 years rather than 4, it appears that top athletes don't work at all, or very little and they are financially supported or make a living by o'racing and travelling (being heavily supported by their Scandi club).

I can only make three suggestions for us Brits:
1.Change your study focus - studying is about improving your training opportunities - be flexible in your studies, a degree is a degree at the end of the day.
2.Spend lots more time in scandi being supported by a club that can coach as well as financially support you.
3.Persuade BOF that that house they were thinking of building in the Lakes was a good idea - only it needed to be in Speyside or Sweden! And get the squad training together for weeks at a time not just days.

Lard
PS - Own up to yourself, to be World Class takes 110% commitment and focus - most Brits have too many distractions or aren't being selfishly focussed enough.

[FatBoy]

I agree Lard. We effectively have a smaller pool of people to choose from than the nation size would dictate because too many are "lost" to being hard working doctors/lawyers etc.

Speaking personally I wish I'd stayed fit throughout my twenties and not become a hard working IT bod. It's been hard getting back even to levels of fitness I would have laughed at 15 years ago.

Even if you're not elite - find the balance in life.

[graeme]

(being heavily supported by their Scandi club).

2.Spend lots more time in scandi being supported by a club that can coach as well as financially support you.
3.Persuade BOF that that house they were thinking of building in the Lakes was a good idea - only it needed to be in Speyside or Sweden! And get the squad training together for weeks at a time not just days.

I totally disagree with you Jason.

As you (rightly) say earlier, the strong local base and club system supports elite orienteers outside the UK. In your model athletes ignore their club, train with foreigners or with squads. For the very small number of people identified young (i.e. kids of orienteers) this may be their way to make the best of whatever talent they may have. But it comes at the expense of making them invisible to their club: highly visible fit youngsters would be the best recuiting tool we have. But now kids coming along perceive the sport as being for old guys.

This has resulted first in a crash of recruitment (very evident in the M21 numbers). Hoping to find champions from the tiny pool of current orienteer's kids is a pretty long shot - you need the basic talent to be a national standard runner to make it at world level, and most people (including most orienteer's kids) simply don't have it.

Ultimately we get the friction between "club" and "elite" which is all too evident on this BB, and means that UK clubs don't support their elites in the way Scandi ones do.

To be successful, we need to increase the pool of competitors, and to do that we need our role models to be much more visible.

[ifititches]

I agree, and I think we could take club coaching to a far higher level in this country than we currently do, and build better depth and strength in club junior teams as a result. That might mean that clubs will do better at retaining the juniors that come into the sport at 10-12. Even with a modest improvement in retention we could easily double the pool of juniors available at 16-18 years without any new talent coming in.

That in turn would alter the role of regional junior squads.....

Learning to balance work and sport is an integral part of long-term athlete development, and we should also be helping our juniors to work through that. I don't think schools, even those that specialise in PE are very good at doing this either. Meeting role models who've found ways to do it is certainly a help, and that's one area where contact with elites (in any sport) can be of real value

I personally think we also have to keep under review the marketing of orienteering as a " family sport". In recent "scientific journal of orienteering" a paper was quoted in which Norwegian juniors said one attraction of orienteering was that it was a sport they could do without their families. We may unwittingly lose recruits if we don't try to make participation a reality for juniors without family involvement too

Having watched these forums for a couple of years now i think the great news this year is that no GB junior not selected for a tour should be without access to training this summer, what with the pre-WOC camp and the pre-purple thistle training available. What great initiatives!

[Kitch]

Lots of good comment here

Fatboy - just to clarify one thing. If someone wants to become a top world class orienteer then there will be no balance in your life - it will all be about orienteering.

I agree with both Graeme and Jason.
I don't think people disappearing off to Scandinavia is the best way forward for GB elite orienteering as a whole - it may, however, be the best way forward for individuals.
For development strong club training initiatives are needed. These spring up from time to time and the results are plain to see, one club or region stands out for a period. WCH in the 80s under Peter Palmer, EBOR / YHOA in the 90s under David Jenkins, OD with GG pushing things currently.
Some (many) clubs simply aren't interested in developing their own orienteering( just go orienteering, have a mid week race rather than a C&P exercise or relocation or corridor or aiming off or window, all things WCH did regularly) Let alone devloping juniors.
Britain needs a training centre - We need to work out how best to achieve this.

The obvious candidates are Sheffield and Edinburgh.
Why ? they are already hotbeds plus they have lots of students with acres of time to organise stuff.
Edinburgh has picked up greatly in the amount of mid week stuff this year, partly because of numbers, partly because Sheffield do lots of stuff and very much because of the enthusiasm of some individuals.
The rivalry is great - really healthy if it pushes both forwards.
So perhaps we have 2 centres
But we need to work out how we can regularly get into TD5.
We have the Lakes and we have Scotland, we need to get organised and get everyone committed to training together. At the moment there is a lot of individual activity.
Pehaps Edinburgh can organise some stuff in Scotland, Sheffield can organise in the Lakes.

I've been asked if I'll pick up organising the Scottish Squad, training etc. - I will - I have some ideas and am interested in any ideas other people have.

[Tatty]

Sounds great. Just wish I was somewhere near!

[DIDSCO]

If BOF sends over a wad of cash to me in Gothenburg. I'll get my mate Jock to build us a nice training centre in a kickasz forest down the road, tax free and at a special discount of course. I'll run the place, organise the trainings, and set out trainings at a competitive rate. Sounds good eh?

I reckon it wouldn't cost more than £40,000 to build including land etc. If BOF won't pay, we pay.........

If every member of nopesport donates £20 we'd pretty much have the cash. We can even name it the NopeSport training centre.

Am I dreaming?

[ifititches]

Didsco, I reckom UK clubs could also do more by pairing up with Scandinavian clubs as a club, rather than just individuals having to go and seek a club. In fact, why stop a Scandinavian clubs?

In the 70s and 80s BOF did have a Scandinavian base of sorts at Rod Tuck's place at Kvitavatn, which I think now belongs to the Danish ski team (or maybe that's changed again now) It was a great place to go.

It all just needs enough motivated people with enthusiasm and time, but unfortunately is also dependent on the continuing availability of cheap air flights. Every time I'm in Sweden I find myself looking at the (relatively) low price of fairly sizable houses in the countryside, and wondering why not just go ahead and buy one!

Kitch, isn't the national O centre our O centre? Horribly expensive to get to for a weekend, but in the middle of some great areas.

The lack of TD5 problem can of course partially be solved by contour-only and other digitally manipolated maps for training. I'm constatly amazed what you can do with an area by taking the paths off!

[Kitch]

yes, but as you say...

Its a fabulous place and really well run. The only problem is its remoteness for most in terms of employment opportunities.

I expect to use it but you can't go there every time.

Dids. Gothenburg from Prestwick very cheap.
Expect to see us over your way.

[FatBoy]

Fatboy - just to clarify one thing. If someone wants to become a top world class orienteer then there will be no balance in your life - it will all be about orienteering.

I'll bow to your superior first hand knowledge on the subject but my point is this. Everything you do maybe driven by being the best but to do so you still need a balance with other things. Applies equally whether you want to be a career type or a top sportsperson. Simple example with orienteering being you may choose your work/study to mean you can train more but you still need to so you can afford to keep training, and you need to do it at least well enough not to be sacked. Lose this balance and you will quickly not be able to train! If you're lucky (good) enough to be virtually paid to orienteer (amateur sport honest) - you still need to balance to keep those people who pay you happy - e.g. turning up when you're supposed to even if it means juggling your training. And so on.