Dave Peel

[EddieH]

Tzetkov's performance was very interesting. Having won the EOC long in what by all accounts was the most technical long major race since the idea of Classic was dropped. Yet here he was orienteering worse than some UK club punters.

The immediate thought is that this is pretty unique to orienteering but thinking about it this is quite common in technical sports - look how some tennis players come out one day and can scarcely hit a ball in.

I thought the map looked awesome and am really impressed how the majority flow through with only minor mistakes. Also, by all accounts, the athletes were not expecting the terrain to be as it was - this does not seem to be te norm nowadays for major Elite races where everyone usually has a very clear idea what they are about to encounter.

[Patrick]

Now if you really want to "produce" top class orienteers, you should be planning on kidnapping the top 20 in the National Schools Cross-Country, and spiriting them away to a secluded training camp (no boys, bling or bacardi breezers) in the middle of Sweden for a couple of years...

Nice idea, but most young female distance runners are stick insects - run them through a Swedish forest and they'd break! Most of the top female orienteers are a lot more, well, normal looking (Minna, Helena Jansson or indeed Yvette are/were good examples). Converted athletes might do well at Sprint distance (cf Mr Lubina) but for the other disciplines you need a different set of attributes.

Dids is right, both about the Women's Final and about the opportunities it suggests. The difference at the start between Minna and all the other women was amazing - she must have gained 10 seconds on most of the field in the first 100m - and unless Hausken gets her act together I can't see anyone beating her tomorrow. It's a lot clearer after seeing that why Simone has been so dominant for years and why the gaps can get so big between the top few and the rest.

The biggest difficulty in achieving the kind of setup Dids describes is that it requires the kind of long term focus and planning that sports governing bodies aren't good at, especially when grant income depends on short term results. A simple snapshot of results over the last 12-18 months would suggest that the men (senior and junior) are closer to the medals than are the women. The trick is to look at where things are going to be in five years. Competition in all categories will only become more intense, but the disciplines I can see being weakest are Long and (perhaps) Relay for the women - just look at the spread of times in the EOC Long for evidence. The worry is that some of the other nations have stolen a march on us - the Aussies are clearly doing something right and the French junior women at JWOC may be winning senior medals in a few years.

Patrick

[DIDSCO]

greywolf > yes, using your words, going on yesterdays race it's quite clear that women are more crap technically than the men. Watching the live TV coverage and the Trictrac GPS routes, clearly shows this. Now we should take advantage of this, train our girls up, and reap the benefits.

[Patrick]

Tzetkov's performance was very interesting. Having won the EOC long in what by all accounts was the most technical long major race since the idea of Classic was dropped. Yet here he was orienteering worse than some UK club punters.

EOC was low visibility, marshy sand dunes. Tsvetkov had also won JWOC in Estonia 5 years ago in similar terrain, and much Russia is covered in boggy, low visibility forest. I suspect he's had a lot less practice in rounded hills covered in rocky bits.

Also, by all accounts, the athletes were not expecting the terrain to be as it was - this does not seem to be the norm nowadays for major Elite races where everyone usually has a very clear idea what they are about to encounter.

I didn't think it looked that different to the training maps I've seen, except that maybe the rocks at the west end were more complex. Last year's Middle in Kiev was expected to be pretty fast, but turned out to be low visibility jungle. Good news for Thierry who was right at home in it, but a bit of a shock to many of the rest.

Patrick

[geomorph]

The biggest difficulty in achieving the kind of setup Dids describes is that it requires the kind of long term focus and planning that sports governing bodies aren't good at, especially when grant income depends on short term results.... The trick is to look at where things are going to be in five years.

Hence the need to gain a wider funding base.

Of course we could just get backing from Sir Clive Woodward - he seems to know how to 'manage' UK Sport

Nice idea, but most young female distance runners are stick insects

Is this just a female characteristic?

[harry]

Tsvetkov had also won JWOC in Estonia 5 years ago in similar terrain, and much Russia is covered in boggy, low visibility forest. I suspect he's had a lot less practice in rounded hills covered in rocky bits.

Whereas the Aussie girls were brilliant in the rocks!
But were the rocks really that much of a shock? We had a training camp last September where the training up near the Middle area had lots of crazy rocks and we were guessing that they would have saved the most special bit of terrain for the Final.

Just going purely on results the British Men & Women were comparable in middle 19th & 28th and 22nd & 26th. In sprint the women got 13th, 21st, 34th and the men 12th & 22nd. So it seems our Men & Women are about equal so far.. but perhaps not on Saturday.. But according to Dids the women are all crap anyway
The fact that our athletes were not always satisfied with these performances and can do better is irrelevant -you are as good as you are on the day, mistakes are part of it.

I didn't mean we need more focus on the Women. To win medals (what we are supposed to be aiming for) both teams need to improve quite a lot, not just the Women. But lets just see what happens at the weekend..

[Patrick]

Hence the need to gain a wider funding base.

Not really - it would be nice, but that isn't what I'm trying to say. So many discussions on here about elite orienteering end up coming back to funding, but other countries - ones with vastly less in the way of resources than GB - outperform us on a regular basis. Funding is not the point. Forward planning, good coaching, identifying and nurturing talent, building a team ethos and spirit, setting targets that match reality rather than ones which might please a governing body - all of those things are the point. They can happen with or without large wedges of cash being thrown at the problem. Sometimes the cash helps, but sometimes it (or rather, what you have to do to get it) prevents you doing what works best.

So let's not get bogged down in funding bases and who pays for what (yes, I know I brought it up, but only as a throwaway line). Let's concentrate on what we need to do to help our athletes get to the top.

Patrick

[Becks]

If we're looking to Eastern Europe, we can't forget they have less of a funding base but a huge amount more of competition.

[Gross]

So let's not get bogged down in funding bases and who pays for what (yes, I know I brought it up, but only as a throwaway line). Let's concentrate on what we need to do to help our athletes get to the top.

Actually it would be interesting to know how much of the £650000 BOF International Budget actually makes it as far as the forest. There are various people in Matlock to keep in jobs etc etc etc before any money reaches the forest.

Anyone any ideas of the breakdown????

Overall I agree with Patrick... money is nice but it brings it's own problems....

[Gross]

If we're looking to Eastern Europe, we can't forget they have less of a funding base but a huge amount more of competition.

Not a huge amount... but much better quality:) The biggest competitions here in Lithuania hardly attract the numbers at a GB middle sized Badge Event... but they have a good structured programme of coaching & for example any promising athlete will have a personal coach to work with ........ but then there are problems in retention of top athletes here... the 'old guard' have gone & the newer 'youngsters' seem to disappear by the time they reach Harry's age:) So the grass isn't really any greener on this side:)

[greywolf]

Nice idea, but most young female distance runners are stick insects - run them through a Swedish forest and they'd break! .... Converted athletes might do well at Sprint distance (cf Mr Lubina) but for the other disciplines you need a different set of attributes.

Most female orienteers seem pretty skinny to me... but anyway you'd only need two or three converted athletes a year to double the talent pool - my point was that we don't get anywhere near enough people generally and talented female athletes particularly even trying the sport...100+ GBR women a year run under 10mins for 3k, how many of them ever see an o - map??

Yes - Sprint is most obvious discipline for converted runners, but Long too if the IOF succeed in turning it into trail-running..

[geomorph]

Funding is not the point.

The amount may not be the point, but the piper playing the tune is

Forward planning, good coaching, identifying and nurturing talent, building a team ethos and spirit, setting targets that match reality rather than ones which might please a governing (or funding) body - all of those things are the point.

Exactly.

Back to the opportunity in hand
How much opprobrium will I incur by suggesting the opportunity needs to step up a level? Does a Performance Director need to be home brewed?

[Gross]

Does a Performance Director need to be home brewed?

BOF have had a Lake District based Performance Director for the last 7 years.

[geomorph]

Does a Performance Director need to be home brewed?

BOF have had a Lake District based Performance Director for the last 7 years.

and that gives what advantage?

[Barny of Blandford]

We seem to always be thinking that money is the crux of the problem.

I was amazed to find out last year that there is absolutely no funding for athletics in Sweden (they are bankrupt) and even their world champion has to survive with no support - yet they are as a country miles ahead of us in athletics.

Some comment was made about the women being .... - rather unkind - it may actually reflect the different ways in which male and female athletics react to pressure when making a mistake (typical man like me rushes everywhere when testerone kicks in and gets in a bigger mess - sensible Mrs Barney stands still for a moment, works it out and gets it right) Kauppi was amazing when she crossed the map from west to east - the gap just got bigger and bigger - a reflection of her sheer running ability and ability to orienteer at speed. If you can run that fast you can afford a few mistakes and she certainly does have a few good ones as we saw in Denmark a couple of years ago and she still won.

We talk as though runners are incapable of orienteering. They only need to be taught - something I think we are very bad at in orienteering. Some will get it - some will not. Jean Claud Keilly (spelling probably wrong but a famous downhill French skier in the 70's) was a hot head who used to go off at incredible speeds and crash after four or five gates - everyone gave him up as a loser - then suddenly he could get through the gates at that speed and won an Olympic Gold . Surely if we manage to teach some of our high flying athletes they might eventually do it. They come from a background that is used to disciplined training - they only lack the skills. To train orienteers who might have the skills but not the background in disciplined sports like athletics or swimming is extremely difficult - they are already usually too old.

I am also surprised about athletes being describe as 'stick insects' I would have to admit there are a few but also there are many other distance runners in the English Schools set up (800/1500/3000m) that are not. When you look at professional sports like football, rugby and cricket it is amazing how many of them have come through English Schools athletics at some stage and hold records for a wide variety of events.

Also if you look at successful sports in this and other countries much often revolves round a particular coach. In the 70's and 80's the top swimming coaches were 'bribed' to move to Canada and their swimming went from useless to winning Olympic medals all over the place. Tied in with a coach needs to be a centre of excellence for him/her to operate from. In this country if you want to succeed at swimming, athletics or gymnastics each sport has probably less than five coaches and centres where you need to go to be successsful (diving probably only two). The centre of excellence does not need to be somewhere 'posh' - it just needs to be somewhere to operate from. The coach is the important factor. However having being to Bath Uni recently for a South West Elite Sports meeting I would have to admit it does help to have a nice place (however the coffee was horrible and the muffin stale in the coffee bar)

I had probably better shut up now before a get into trouble.