World Cup Final 2014

The international IOF O-season came to its end with the World Cup Final races in Switzerland, this year around Basel area.

Three races were on the schedule - mixed sprint relay on Friday 3rd Oct., WC Middle on Saturday and WC Sprint Final race on Sunday 5th Oct.

Results, TV broadcasts, GPS and more



Sprint Relay 3rd Oct.

We got ourselves into the racing mode already on Friday with Sprint relay in Basel - Neuewelt. With the team: Míša Omová, Miloš Nykodým, Jan Petržela and me on the last leg, we took the final 8th position in quite tough competition. Good performances from all my teammates! Could have been way better from my side, loosing 45'' in a mistake is not a thing to do in a sprint relay and it's way too much time to run it up then.

The course and terrain were really nice, with clever forking and then quite many interesting routechoices. The only upsetting thing was an untoward frobidden area (purple stripes on the map) which was barely visible on the map nor it was marked in the terrain. (See the map in the link below and try to find it for yourself.) Maybe could have been solved some other way (different map symbol, tape in the terrain,..). Fortunately I had a different forking in that part of the race so I didn't have to think about this (no)routechoice.

MAP with GPS tracking



WC Middle 4th Oct.

The next day the World Cup Middle distance race was waiting for us - typical 'Mittelland' type of the forest with numerous paths and quite many green areas. While finishing the race on the outskirts of the town of Liestal, you could already feell that special atmosphere that always prevails throughout the World Cup races in Switzerland with all those fans cheering for the runners.

My goal was to make a stable race without bigger mistakes. Which may sound a bit unmotivational and 'cliché'. But right now that's what I was working on and what in reverse works for me.
(Of course, there will be other things going on during the trainign season.) So from that point of view I was satisfied with my race. No bigger problems, except for finding K19 and some useless hesitations. 24th place also meant a start place in the World Cup Spritn Final for me :)

MAP in GPSSeuranta
WoO analysis











WC Sprint Final 5th Oct.

The last international IOF event of 2014 took place in the old town of Liestal. Again the atmosphere in the arena was amazing, but more, the courses were really nice and I enjoyed it the whole way! I did quite well, unfortunately lost some time in the second part of the race while running past the stairs  that I should take on K13 and then making a wrong routechouce to K16. But still I can say I'm satisfied with 26th place with 1'45'' behind Tove Alexandersson - winner of the Sprint Final as well as the winner of the whole World Cup 2014.

MAP in GPSSeuranta
TV broadcast
WoO analysis







The races came to and end, yet I was still not going home. I planned staying in Switzerland for few more days visiting Karin & Matthias Leonhardt in Winterthur. We had great time visiting the city, as well as the city fo Bern and Zürich, running in the mountains near Interlaken and making a run trip to Schnebelhorn (the highest mountain of Kanton Zürich). The autumn is amazing in Switzerland..well it's probably amazing almost everywhere..but still :)

Thanks to everybody for making my swiss stay such a wonderfull time!
Special thank you goes to Karin & Matthias for being the best hosts I coudl wish for;
to Rahel for taking me for a run and friendly talk;
to Philipp and Michael for being the best Bern guides (otherwise I wouldn't know where to go in Bern when feeling like literally jumping off the bridge :D);
to Vanessa for showing us yummy burgers place;
and to all of you I met but forgot to mention above :)

SILVER AND BRONZE! - WUOC 2014 Olomouc

19^th WORLD UNIVERSITY
ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIP
12. - 16. 8. 2014

WUOC 2014 was held in the Czech Republic with
the centre in the city of Olomouc. There were people
from 32 countries taking part in the Championships
and the names in the startlists promised tough competition.
As well as the terrains chosen promised challenging races.


I was selected for running long, middle and relay.



Long was held in Nectava valley, really hilly terrain with deep valleys and steep slopes.
Course setter prepared physically tough but nice course with lots of interesting routechoices. Basically you had to choose between long road running or shorter uphill. And I found myself
running quite much around (which was not always the best - referring to K2 +1'). Anyway,
I felt quite strong and knew that if I wouldn't do any mistake I could take a nice result.
And that's how it came! I took BRONZE! My first medal from a senior event. It felt great,
although it took me some time to get the whole thing that I was 3rd. I was so happy I finally
made it! Recently I had always screwed my races with mistakes and my uncontrolled mindset,
it's nice to actually see the work paying off.

And it was amazing to stand on the podium next to Gøril and Bettina with the medal on my neck and looking at and at the same time trying to avoid an eye-contact with my mother-coach,
'cause I was afraid she would break into tears.


So it was time to leave emotions behind and focus on the middle distance race.
The terrain for middle, near the village of Protivanov, was totally different from the one
we knew from the long distance. It was flat so it promised some fast running but there were
also many green parts that were rather tricky. Good compass work and good change of speed
were the keys to the success, I guess. Unfortunately, I did few smaller mistakes (like 10" to K6; 20" K13; 25" K15; 35" K19). But I could pick almost no control without being far right, few meters to the left, ahead, etc. So no smooth orienteering for me that day and I felt a bit frustrated about it. But then I came to the finish on the 7th place, which was good and even
better was that I shared it with my teammate and friend Venda.

Last day came another highlight of this amazing week. We got SILVER medal in relay!
Venda H. did a really good job on the first leg and came in the first group. I did okay race on the second one and Iveta Š. ran great and really strong last leg! She came to the finish second,
just 15 seconds after Sweden.
And we were happy for boys too as they also took the SILVER!


Maps, results and more can be found either in my czech post or on the official event webpage.

JUKOLA 2014 Venlojen viesti

Jukola a.k.a. the biggest orienteering event.
This year in the beautiful area of Kuopio Finland.


I ran 4th (last) leg of Venlojen viesti for my swedish club SNO.
We took 35th place. Which is nice among so many teams running. But my performance could have been better (see below), yet still it was an amazing competition in a beautiful terrain and forest!
My admiration goes to Frida, our first leg runner, for her outstanding performance! But of course many thanks to the whole team!

Kuopio-Jukola 2014 website
GPS 

Stony Slovenia

In the middle of march I attended a TC with the Czech national team in Slovenia. It was a week

of good quality training in challenging terrains and also some nice sprint training in the cities

of Izola, Koper and Vipava.

Three stages of the competition Lipica Open 2014 were also part of the camp. Really stony

and demanding terrains but amazing experience, I have to say. We ran a few trainings, as well

as those three stages of the competition, together with runners from the Norwegian team which

was beneficial in the sense that we had more data to analyze afterwards and it was a good comparision, although quite early in the spring. 

more maps, results and analysis here
/ mapy, výsledky, rozbory a české komentáře na webu Reprezentace

link to Lipica Open results

Climbing to new heights

The O-season starts quite early this year which is also the reason why I'd attended two map TCs already. That, I have to say, were both of top quality. And I hope they helped me to finish this another step onto the next level in my orienteering skills, the step that I'd been trying to make for so long without achieving it. So let's see if I managed to make a proper and stable step forward and what will it brig this new season.


TC in Alicante, Spain

• A week spent on the maps near Alicante. Some terrains were especially challenging.
• Great trainings with the team-mates from SNO
• Interesting presentations from Jonas Leandersson and Scott Fraser as well as from the cyclist Bernt Johansson, winner of the olympic gold in Montreal
• thanks to SNO and Performance By Health

 


TC with the Czech team in Slovenia

• a week in karst terrains in south-west part of Slovenia
• stony challenging terrains; nice sprint trainings
• more reading on this camp will come..