JWOC

[Adrian]

Reporting on the results of our top sportspeople is always going to be a tricky business, but non-success shouldn't be reported as success. To use Tim Henman as an example: for years he was Britain's no.1 and that's something he should always be proud of, but at the same time he would acknowledge that he should've won more tournaments than he did, and it would've been disingenuous to report otherwise. Some might say that the press got on his back somewhat, but that goes with the territory.

I think the situation is a _bit_ different with orienteering though. O is a much, much smaller sport here than tennis is (or football, athletics, motor sports, rugby, etc.) and doesn't have the facilities or terrain of Scandinavia or, to be frank, most of the rest of Europe. So a judgment has to be made: did we punch above or below our weight?

Turning from reporting to training, I'd say that if talent is identified (and there are several _dozen_ very able young orienteers in this country) they should be given as much opportunity as possible to train and compete throughout Europe. It's difficult balancing the funding for that against the funding of grassroots activities, but it must be done.

Adrian

p.s. Geomorph:"Do we accelerate the building of cohesive talent pathways?" Come again?

[Axel]

Lots of good comments and ideas from everybody but oh I wish life was so easy.

Take my daughter as an example at 16/17, which she is this year she is going through her first year of A levels, a number of the other girls in the team are or have been taking their final A level exams in the past couple of months. So what most important to them, foregoing their education for a sport that is hardly recognised in the UK, attracts little or no sponsorship and and even when we are winning medals at senior level no media coverage. I'm afraid orienteering isn't going to put bread and butter on the plate everyday but a good standard of education will. So what is the priority at her age a good level of education or the level of commitment required to make her a world class athlete at her sport.

I'm afraid you can't compare the UK with the skandi countries as most of you who have commented know, and the main reasons are we just do not have the level of terrian outside our back door as they have, our club levels and participation in the sport will never ever match theirs and last but not least who going to fund everything that has been suggested. Please remember in and around most scandi towns and cities you have terrain that would put our National areas to shame, all supported by an excellent level of public transport.

Why are we behind in sprint, park, town/urban and middle oing, as a country we have been missing the boat for ages. For the most part or certainly up until the last year couple of years it was looked upon as an elite only level of participation, No Brit Champs except for the elites, no encouragement for the young or older frat to get involved and hardly any events worth mentioning. I know when I commented on this subject a couple of years a go on this site I got shouted down by almost everyone and hey we still haven't got a Brit Champs at all class levels. Thank god we are now getting to grips with this problem, many more areas being mapped, inclusion in multi day events and thanks to Nopesport an urban league.

Most of the girls and Brit O have now realised that the junior squad members need run at a more competitive level at home and this year they have adjusted the FCC races to embrace this. Jules has already competed at W21E at National level this year and will from now on enter in this class unless she needs to run down to qualify for representation level. Please remember at first year 18 she as most of other kids coming into this level just do not have the physical strength to be fully competitive with the best of our 20 or 21's and over. However I can assure you her training regimes hasd now been adjuysted to overcome this.

In this family we are able and willing to fund her as much as possible and we have been helped along the way by school, club and district, for which we are most grateful for. I'm afraid as with everything else these days travel is not cheap and yes I would love to fund everything that been mention, but I do have 2 other siblings needs to take into consideration.

As a parent in the last week I have had to bear more than one tearful telephone call and I can assure you Jules eyes have been well and truely opened by her first JWOC experience. she now realises the standard she needs to reach to be truely competitive at this level and what and where she needs to go to achieve this. We are sending her over to the Oringen as a late entry as a starter and we are now looking to see what else is available to her in the future.

However not everything is rosy in her life because she is about to lose her part time job, all down to her poor attendance record I wonder why!!!

[NeilC]

No Brit Champs except for the elites, no encouragement for the young or older frat to get involved

I don't really follow this logic. For the aspiring elite the British Sprint and Middle Champs provide a high level of competition - something acknowledged earlier as lacking at many other events in the UK. Isn't that sufficient encouragement to attend, or is it not worth attending because there is no W18 (for example) trophy on offer?

Next year there will be both an elite and an all age group sprint champs (but for good reasons they will not be combined). With time and cost restraints though it may not be possible to attend both and I suspect that for many pot hunting may win out over the chance to compete against the best.

[geomorph]

p.s. Geomorph:"Do we accelerate the building of cohesive talent pathways?" Come again?

Whoops Too much jargon there.
There was a brief discussion about Talent pathways elsewhere; to work well they have to form a smooth and clearly identifiable way to move on up and have to be fully supported and linked through at all levels in uk orienteering. Too many good concepts take ages to mature, and we need to move this forward fast along with so many other things.

[Ed]

Disagree to a large extent about the effects of terrain - most international races are not held in good technical scandi-style terrain, more usually continental style terrain of middling quality. With a bit of imagination it's not too hard to find somewhere to train fairly specifically for that sort of stuff without looking too far from the front door, with a few weekends a year and/or training camps in classically technical areas (Scotland, Lakes, sand dunes) to get and keep the basic technique going.

As for the clash of education/career or sport - if you're committed to both then it should be possible to do them both to the best of your abilities. Yes, it probably means leaving something else out (like a social life, or other sports & pastimes), but it's up to everyone to make the choice themselves, and sometimes it's a hard choice to make.

Also agree with Jon M about it not just being about training and racing - you learn more about what makes a good course (and what skills are needed to compete well on a good course) by planning one event than by just running. Travelling abroad and going to races where you're stood on the start line with pretty much no clue what the terrain or course (or the surroundings & accommodation) will be like is also good preparation for internationals...

[geomorph]

Axel

thanks for the insights. I think most of us understand the pain of last week.

My concern is that as a country we adopt the 'we don't have it so we can't do it' attitude.
We don't have a sunny summer so Tim Henman could never be #1, we don't teach youngsters the right way to control a football, we don't have a school structure that supports sports excellence, we don't have the right terrain on our doorsteps, our public transport system is poor, our diet is bad, there is too little state money to help out.

Whoaaaa!
What are the realistic alternatives.
If long-term exposure to Nordic/Baltic terrain is crucial, but we must ensure our children are equipped for future employment, can we create the opportunities through an extended summer/vacation school system, funded by...... US, the uk orienteering community? How often/long do our youngsters actually spend abroad each year?

Is the UK orienteering calendar right for youngsters? We are seeing more summer holiday events and that is fantastic, but if you are post-exam you've got another 4 weeks available, and there is not much then, unless you go abroad.

Axel, you've dug deep to help Jules by recognising the additional exposure needed, but you admit it is a bit 'last minute'. With the Talent Pathway you may still have to do the financial digging (whilst we sort out ways to alleviate this), but you would have known what was expected, and what was out there to help achieve it.

And finally, how are the French achieving success, whilst the Germans are not (at least not at the level we've come to expect in sport from that nation)?

[Nails]

The French have Saint-Etienne, and the Germans don't...

[geomorph]

The French have Saint-Etienne, and the Germans don't...

aha
cos I'm one of Big Jon's slower learners...

please elaborate

[Kitch]

but the Germans do have Kraftwerk....

[Becks]

[Kitch]

thought you'd like that

[Ed]

The French have Saint-Etienne, and the Germans don't...

please elaborate

There's a French elite training group centred around Saint-Etienne that is driving the French international results - I think it consists of most (if not all) of the French squad and is also close to some of France's (Europe's?) best terrain.

I assume that was what you wanted elaborating rather than the electro-pop bit.

As for the Germans, I'd say a lot of the problem is a declining O-population and a broken event structure (too few events, too far apart and too-often staged with a "big-event" mindset so a fairly large organisational burden and requiring pre-entry for age-class courses etc.) coupled with a general lack of development work. There are one or two hot-spots (e.g. Dresden and surroundings) that may drive things in the coming years, but generally the picture is pretty bleak.

Even superior music can't compensate for that.

[DIDSCO]

It was quite interesting seeing JWOC first hand again last week. The general set up of the competition hasn't changed much, still pretty low key, but the level of competition has. There's far more non-scandinavians at the top than there ever were 10-15 years ago, even in Goteborg. The jwoc sprint was one of the most competitive races I've ever seen both girls and boys. Knowing the type of terrain, being a classic race, distance behind the winner, level of competition, and due to the hot weather, I'd quite happily rate Hector's classic race as one of the best British junior men performances ever. The other great thing was he set his big goal as the classic, and it seemed like he just couldn't wait to get out there and do the business, no fear. Great attitude.
Another thing I noticed was even when the juniors under-performed they didn't throw abuse at the coaches or other athletes. They took it pretty calmly and dealt with it in their own way. Which is a positive step forward from the 'bitching' of the past!
Many of the athletes were pissed off with their performances, and rightly so, it's time for them to look at what went wrong and what was good, then look to the future. The great thing about orienteering is there's always another race just around the corner, and when when you become a senior your jwoc results gradually diminish in importance as you aim for WOC, Euro's and World Cups.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the number one reason why we don't perform at JWOC is because our junior's technique is simply not good enough. It's not good enough under pressure or without pressure. The juniors make far too many mistakes. Clubs, Regional Squads, Start, and Junior squad need to work really hard at improving our juniors techniques - there should be a 'no tolerance' of mistakes attitude being put across by coaches. Our juniors must start aiming for excellence in technique if they want to compete at the very top. Even a 5-10 second mistake is too much, and juniors need to realize this. Time for change.......

[geomorph]

There's a French elite training group centred around Saint-Etienne that is driving the French international results - I think it consists of most (if not all) of the French squad and is also close to some of France's (Europe's?) best terrain.

So it is a terrain thing........
or is it a veggie thing? The reports back from the world events there indicated that it was that layered on top of amazing terrain detail.
Cos its so different geologically, but the vegetation has that subtle granularity that gives it a feel of Scandinavia?

And of course we have training groups but they are not centred around our best terrain?

[Becks]

But this isn't a problem with their basic technique. I've seen pretty much all this team execute hugely complex legs perfectly in highly technical terrain a million times over, aswell as a lot of their peers just outside the JWOC team. What you do kind of hint at at the end is that it's the pressure of the large competition and the race, and performing this technique despite that, and this simply cannot be simulated in any kind of training exercise, and can't be simulated in the UK at all thanks to the dreadful number of participants in junior classes.