World Meeting - ahead of the times

Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s IFK Sodertalje held something called the "World Meeting." They were trying to make the sport more professional and more spectator and TV friendly. Here is the map from the 1991 World Meeting:



The race was a 3-leg relay. I remember watching the start. The first leg runners ran along a road, preceded by a car (or was it a truck?) with a TV camera on it. My memory is a big foggy on the details, but I think they had a big-screen TV screen at the start/finish area.

The race was the first time I ran on a map drawn on a computer. The boulders weren't quite round. As you ran and looked at the map, the boulders gave the impression of being little buildings.

Another memory - the unusual finish chute. From the last control to the finish line you didn't do a straight shot. Instead, the finish chute turned left and climbed up a little hill, then turned around and went back down the hill, and then you had to leap over barrier and water (a bit like a steeple chase) just before the line. I have a dim memory of someone (Annika Zell?) falling in the water just before the finish.

Looking at the 1991 results, I find that I ran on IFK Lidingo's 3rd team with Rolle Gricksas and Erik Gyllenstierna. I remember a few hesitations and taking a few extra-safe routes but having a pretty good run. We finished 67th, 23 minutes (ouch!) behind Halden SK (which had a really strong team, anchored by Petter Thoresen). It is fun to look at the old results. I don't think I looked at them back in 1991. I see, for example, that I had a long fork. So while Thoresen beat me by almost 9 minutes, I had a good bit longer fork (8.73 K versus 9.01 K). I like to think those extra 280 meters would have given Thoresen some trouble.

If you can read Swedish, check out the page with reports from all 3 World Meetings.


More fake tilt-shift

The view out my window at work


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