Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Saturday, May 28, 2005 Some notes about the Nordic ChampsI've been casually following the Nordic Champs the last couple of days.Sprint problem for Emma (and a lesson for all of us) Compared to most races, sprints seem to test the orienteers ability to read the course, not just the map. In a sprint race you can lose precious time, for example, when you turn over the map and look for the triangle and first control. Emma Engstrand lost a medal in the sprint because she missed a part of the course. She apparently ran right be a control without stopping to punch because she didn't see it on her map. Bummer. The lesson is -- practice the skill of picking out the course. It isn't a big deal in most races, but it can make a huge difference in a sprint. No butterflies Have you looked at the map from the long distance race? If you haven't, take a look at Mats Troeng's map, I posted a link on Thursday. Most long courses these days have a "butterfly" loop to help break up groups of runners. The Nordic Champs course doesn't have a butterfly loop. Maybe it should have. Anders Nordberg won M21. Holger Hott-Johansen finished 3rd. The suprise was Olle Karner from Estonia in second (just one second ahead of HHJ). Karner finihsed 2:58 after Nordberg. He started 3 minutes before Nordberg. Poke around the analysis of the split times and you'll see that Nordberg made up the 3 minutes on the way to the 8th control. At 9, Nordberg was ahead of Karner by 14 seconds. At 12, Nordberg had gotten to 29 seconds ahead of Karner. He'd almost gotten away from Karner. But, Karner then got back up to Nordberg and they were never more than 9 seconds apart at any control. Karner lost about 3 minutes to Nordberg in about the first 3.5 km of the course. Then the two of them ran evenly for the rest of the course. It sure looks like Karner followed Nordberg to a medal. Karner is a very good orienteer. Look at his results on the IOF World Rankings and you can see how good he is. No doubt about it. He's certainly top-ten material. But, you look at the splits, you look at the start list, and you just don't feel like he is legit. I guess that is part of our sport. posted by Michael | 11:53 AM 
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