JWOC

[mharky]

For me, I don't see how it is possible even with a huge amount of effort, whereas if I lived in Sweden I believe that just from lazily turning up to the races and puntering around I would after 6 months be *so* much more confident in that terrain just from the pure experience of spending that time running in it, without actually doing any training at all.

Practice makes perfect eh? Wrong. Very very very wrong. Practice makes permanent. If you train sloppy technique you will reinfornce sloppy technique. Just going out and doing and orienteering course is not enough. Look at all other sports. Footballers don't just play football games during the week and one that counts at the weekend. They break it down into its basics and practice them to perfection; passing, shooting, heading etc. They have specific training goals which they focus on intensely and then they bring it all together. That is what great orienteers do, they will have focused sessions; compass bearings, contours, attack points etc. And they perfect these individual techniques and then bring them all together. Just plodding round o-events week in week out in Sweden isn't going to make you better. I lived in Sweden for 18 months and believe me, there are some seriously crap orienteers there who have spent hundreds if not thousands more hours more than me in that terrain and found hundreds if not thousands of more controls in that terrain, yet they still can't navigate very well. Why? Because they havn't tried to improve their technique, merely activating their poor technique, guarenteeing that they don't improve.

With regards to living in Cambridge. I've never lived there so I've no idea about what training areas are available. If you only have 90mins spare 3 times a week then you must have busy weekends. Let's say you get up at 8 and go to bed at 11, that leaves 30 hours of time at the weekend. No junior has that much school work, they probably don't have vast amount of domestic duties, so where is the time? I havn't looked into it, but imagine you could jump on a train and get somewhere. In Edinburgh we travel for 3 hours to do a lot of our technique work, there must be places within 3 hours. You can do your work when you are on the train. This is really something a junior in this situation should be bringing up with their personal coach. If they don't have one, they should get one.

[Guest88]

I do not dispute the importance of technique training in orienteering.

What I was trying to elucidate in that paragraph is just the spatial recognition experience and familiarity of relating the shape of the brown contour lines and the black and grey on the map against the 3d-landscape around you. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that the more time your brain spends relating what is on that map in 2d to what is on the ground around you in 3d in that complex terrain will give you much increased familiarity and confidence.

If you are spending 3 hrs there and 3 hrs back, then fine, maybe that is the level of commitment required - not sure I believe that you will be able to get to much good terrain from cambridge in that time (using public transport) - but don't you have a problem in that your rival from Sweden who is equally as committed as you can spend the same time over a week, and get 3 or 4 technique training sessions for the same "time-cost" of your one?

[mharky]

No.

[mikey]

Maybe we should move East Anglia to Sweden.

I'm up for that.

[marcus_weatherburn]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that the more time your brain spends relating what is on that map in 2d to what is on the ground around you in 3d in that complex terrain will give you much increased familiarity and confidence.

Couldnt agree more.

[geomorph]

I think you missed the point. I think Kitch's comment was directed at the "Talent Pathways" business bullshit comment. BOF, Regions, Clubs and even Individuals like to come up with schemes and plans using bullshit phrases rather than doing what counts; training.

Julz B
Mharky's right - NOBODY disputes the effort you guys put in. Everybody agrees that to be where you are the only way is to TRAIN (body) TRAIN (mind) and TRAIN (execution) relentlessly. We just all have our own ideas how to do it best, and how to make enough time in the day to do enough of it. We also wonder if the support system is the right one. What we don't want is for good people to be let down by some factor that was within your/our control. And we certainly don't want the system putting stupid barriers in your path.

Kitch - WRT Talent Pathways - yeah the languague is NEWSPEAK. It ain't a substitute for getting off your arse. These things are a necessary evil when dependent on handouts.

But rather than leave them as valueless drivel, let's see if as a result of these discussions we get to produce something that will help those on the outside looking in express/develop their talents as fast as possible and to the best of their ability.

[Kitch]

Para 1 - yep
Para 2 - yep
Para 3 - yep

So Mharky and others have suggested that you can train for it - so my question would be that suppose you live say in Cambridge, .....
For me, I don't see how it is possible even with a huge amount of effort.

There are problems and there are opportunities.

Steve Nicolson had a problem:
He was at Cambridge Uni and he wanted to do well at JWOC (not sure if it had the title in 1988 but it was the same competition).
Bu Steve Nicolson found an opportunity.
Miles across the fields he found a scrap of wood, just a half mile scrap but good enough to make sure he could work on his terrain fitness.
So through the winter thats where he ran to, thats where he ran up and down, up and down, up and down - who knows how many times.
Come the summer he stood on the start line and told himself - "Ok lets not waste that hard work"
result - 5th place.

[J.Tullster]

A lot of very interesting comments on this thread.
Some of the comments about lack of good terrain etc vs Sweden as an excuse are too defeatest. Of course scandis do have an advantage it that respect but we can't transplant swedish forests into the south of England so we have to make the most of our situation instead. We have more and more good street maps which can create very tricky orienteering, we lots of good xc/hill races etc which we can make the most of. We have a winter where we can run and orienteer pretty much unhindered by snow (why shouldn't this be an advantage?!) and many of us to have the means to get cheap ryanair flights out to Sweden to train.

Secondly, I agree a lot with Mharkys comment about the mental side letting us down. I've run twice at JWOC and sepctated this year. When I ran to be honest I was a bit like a rabbit in the headlights, in awe of the level of competition, not having really high aims, not confident of doing well basically. Now I wasn't in shape to get top tens but I could have done a lot better.
This year we spectated at JWOC (crap spectator organisation from the Swedes bit nevermind, that's another story. It was a real eye opener. I got to run three of the JWOC mens races on the day after the juniors. At the moment I'm not in great shape (unfortunately), and we'd stood about in the blazing sun all day using up a lot of nervous energy in the process. I'd also done no prep at all before the race (although we had spoken to the finishers so we new it was tricky, but big deal). So I ran, and actually ran a pretty good race, not a great race though (mistakes at no.s 2, 3 &4 is not the best start) and I was pretty surprised to do a time that would have put me 28th. Now I did of course have the big advantage of no pressure and I'd like to think I maybe am a better orienteer than when I was at JWOC. However, this proved to me a few things: I know for a fact most the guys in the years team were well capable of the result and better and it wasn't down to lack of physical or mental preperation.
Jess and Jo Halliday also went out and did times that would have been 25th in the girls, so our girls are well capable of it too!!
Now this is not meant as a direct criticism of this years juniors. I know a few of the guys especially well and I know the worked really hard for JWOC and some of their results were really good (Hector's long especially). I feel it shows to me that we do have juniors of the ability to do well at JWOC and they should have more confidence that they can and will do well. What they do need is exposure to pressured high level competition so they can experience something like the pressure and emotions beforehand. Racing to compete against the 21s is a good way, as long as you are aiming to COMPETE, not just running for the "experience", there might be less pressure doing that than running your age class. Also taking 16s to EYOC (which I think they might be doing?) would be a good way to expose people to international competition earlier.

[ruth]

everything tullie just said

I would totally agree that for me at least it was by far and away the mental side that let me down. As someone who massively underperformed at JWOC and someone who now can look back on it in an objective manner, i'm sure it was largely the pressure (mostly put on by myself) that meant i didn't achieve my potential. I knew that I had trained really hard, physically and technically and I was fully prepared, but this in a way increases the pressure you put on yourself, especially in your first JWOC. every training session you've done day in day out for the last x number of years and this is your oppurtunity to show what you can do, you HAVE to do well. I think you can sometimes want it too much and not be able to relax - this is top level sport and everyone has to learn to deal with it. Its just hard at such a young age and with so little experience.
For example, in the jwoc classic 2006 i made 3 fairly major mistakes when I stopped short of a control worried that I was not 100% in contact with the map. Any other race I would have carried on knowing that my line was good and would have been absolutely fine. But i knew it was jwoc, and I wanted to do well so badly, I panicked thinking i had lost time and ran off to relocate, and then completely lost contact with where I was. This is something I had never done before and have never done since.

Anyway...these are just my experiences and I don't know if it had been the same for anyone else?? The obvious solution to this is races, big ones and lots of them. But before that jwoc I had run 2 JECs, an EYOC and 4/5 spring cups so not completely inexperienced. Personally i think the thing that would have helped me the most (as well as more big races) would have been talking to a sports psychologist before the competition and talking more to people who have already been to jwoc about specifics of what the experience will be like.

[DIDSCO]

While the mental side certainly plays a role with athletes not performing at their best under pressure, I still think the junior athletes basic technique at speed is not good enough, and this is the key reason for under-performance. I'm convinced if the junior athletes were excellent technitions their confidence would rocket, and thus lead to improved performance under pressure, like at JWOC.
I ran JWOC's, I thought I was a really good technical orienteer at the time, I wasn't. I only realised how poor technically I actually was when I moved to Sweden, and got punished for every little mistake / hesitation.
I know the athletes at this years JWOC are not excellent technitions because they all made mistakes on the 'no' pressure training I put on for them in Gothenburg before JWOC. However I was very impressed with them, and with the right guidance, many of them could be very succesful.
100% technique is the way forward

[Tessa]

Just to repeat what Ruth said. We kind of had the same experience in Lithuania where we put so much pressure on ourselves and went mental.

That summer I thought so much about where things went wrong and what I needed to do the next year. I was lucky enough to be able to speak to a sports psychologist (partly due to TASS funding) about 4-5 times in that year. We made a special imagery script for my thought processes to cope with when I saw other athletes out on the course. That was one of my problems in Lithuania, I thought everyone else was better so kind of ran after them. We also talked about managing myself through out the week and how being at JWOC was so much about managing the 90% of the time when you are not in the forest. In many ways, the races were the easy bit, you knew what you had to do and how to do it.

So I was lucky enough to get the chance to go again, this time to Australia and see whether I had learnt anything. I myself aimed for top 30s, but I think most people would have seen a top 40/50 as good for me then. I went out and I can't say I had perfect runs. In fact, I felt so slow on the classic and made some major mistakes, but I kept going where as before I'd bottled it. And I saw loads of other runners and just ran past them doing my own thing - even the gold medallist from the day before, something I would never have done before. My confidence grew hugely that week and my performances got better as the races went on. I got 2 top 30s and I was 4th in qualifying for the middle. I can honestly say I wasn't running hugely fast and I still made small mistakes but I was in control and happy and therefore I think I did the best I could at that time.

I attribute a lot to the sport psychologist that year. I think all the girls who make a JWOC team can do that - I think at the start of the week I was the weakest girl in the team. Top 30s could/should be standard because that is the level we can run at. I would recommend sports pyschologists, they are not just for athletes when they have 'problems' in either sense of clinical or when they are performing badly. You can gain so much from seeing a psychologist when you are super confident and performing well. I'm not sure team meetings are best, as we orienteer individually, but it may be a start. Obviously this is no substitute for hard training physically and technically but I don't think it should be written off by any means.

[RS]

2nd attempt as Tessa posted while I was writing!

James and Ruth were not the only juniors who would have benefitted from some 'mental' input. At the time, Steven Sylvester was employed as a sports psychologist but I don't think any juniors were able to access and benefit from his advice and expertise. Obviously Tessa didn't and had to find her own therapist. Another negative mark for BOF.

[EddieH]

As I see it to be right at the top you need ALL three aspects to be top rate - physical, technical and mental and I suspect that the latter is not given much due.

It is one hell of a balance getting the adreneline right for a big race - it is vital to perform really hard, but too much and technique goes out of the window. I have always been able to turn it on at major domestic races but have often been very suspect in the World Masters (which is my main race of each year). It has taken me a long time to sort this out and I am sure sports psychologist would have helped. It is hardly suprising that most of our juniors don't get this right for the biggest race of their life.

[awk]

A long and fascinating thread, with a lot of interesting comment.

What struck me reading this is that there are a lot of single solutions put forward: some say that juniors are not fit enough, others that it's technique, others that it's mental preparation, others it's lack of high level race practice, others......

I do agree with many (most) of the ideas, but maybe there is no one solution to fit all. The JWOC team is after all made up of 12 individuals, all with strengths and weaknesses.

I think we also do need to be careful. JWOC is not the final be all and end all. It is a stepping stone. With some very rare exceptions, many of our best seniors did not have exceptional results at JWOC. Indeed, some had very ordinary results (at least by their later standards). And vice-versa - many of our best results at JWOC didn't result in longer term success.

Yes, the teams should be aiming for good results, and if those are not being achieved, then that needs to be examined and improved on, but we should also recognise that JWOC is about learning. It strikes me from the comments here from JWOC team members that to that extent at least, JWOC was pretty successful.

Having said that, I do think the moves over the past year or so to smaller Start squads (if you're going to have them at all) and smaller junior tours to be particularly self-destructive. I've also heard rumours of BOF shedding support for activities such as the M/W16 weekend. If true, it's even more so. To that end, I totally concur with Becks's comments about training groups. I'd also suggest that this extends further to club level training.

My own view, FWIW, is and always has been that the Start squad system is counter-productive, narrowing selections far too early, and that BOF should be, and should have, focused its efforts in this sphere on strengthening regional and club coaching for juniors and younger seniors, and providing stronger competition pathways for all levels (pretty much every initiative on that latter front has been done by individuals), at least maintaining (not shrinking) the tour structure that enabled a good number of youngsters to experience Scandinavian competition and terrain, and starting national squad at 18s. Whilst I think the work done by coaches and athletes within the current system has been excellent, the system itself hinders rather than helps - even worse so because it seems to have developed a dependency culture that is now backfiring (as was warned when it was adopted).

[Mrs H]

I've also heard rumours of BOF shedding support for activities such as the M/W16 weekend.

Well that would be tragic! It's the one thing that BOF seem to have got right in the most junior end of their training programme - keeping the pathways open for late beginners/developers and I also think the Start programme should be scrapped and Lakeside style tours extended upwards for those coming in from university.