- One second mistake is still not good enough! This is what lies at the bottom of Thierry Gueorgiou’s orienteering philosophy - which he shared with the participants at the Norwegian O-Gala in the middle of November. Based on Gueorgiou’s two long presentations at the O-Gala, World of O presents a few short articles presenting some of the secrets behind Gueorgiou’s success. Many thanks go to Gueorgiou for sharing his presentation slides.

Perfectionist

A good illustration of the perfectionist Gueorgiou is the following short story:

- When I started running for the Finnish club Kalevan Rasti, they laughed at me when they saw my control descriptions in which I put up 1 second mistakes [see illustration to the right]. But their attitude soon turned, and they started doing the same themselves. I am not satisfied until there are only zeros along the right edge of that control description.

And as everybody can see - Gueorgiou is getting closer and closer to his “all-zeros” goal.

Thierry Gueorgiou at the Norwegian O-Gala. Picture: Øystein Kvaal Østerbø

PASSIONATE about O’technique

Thierry Gueorgiou’s father had an important role in Thierry’s development as an orienteer. - No training without a map, was the philosophy. Even when running on the track, the map was there. Thierry’s passion about O-technique is also mirrored in the new goal Thierry set after reaching his goal of becoming a World Champion in 2003: To become the best O’technician ever!

Thierry has increased his orienteering training from 170 hours in 1997 to 300 hours in 2007.

Following his fathers philosophy, between 40% and 50% of Thierry’s training has been orienteering since 1997 - quite impressive compared to many others in the world orienteering elite. And also a result of Thierry’s passion about O-technique.

Looking for example at the Norwegian elite, many are satisfied when they get above 20-25%. When looking a Thierry’s training, Thierry has increased his orienteering training from 170 hours in 1997 to 300 hours in 2007. Below you see the development of orienteering training compared to other training between 1997 and 2007:

World Champion in his mind a hundred times

Over the years to come he continued becoming a World Champion in his mind.

At the World Orienteering Champs in France in 1987, Thierry’s dream of being a world champion was born - at the age of 8.

In 1991 at the spectator races of the World Orienteering Champs in Czechoslovakia, Thierry got World Champion in his mind when winning the spectator race in his age category. Over the years to come he continued becoming a World Champion in his mind - playing it before his inner mind time after time.

Until at the World Orienteering Champs in Finland in 2001: After a disappointing 18th place at the short distance in a close to mistake-free race, Thierry for the first time had to admit to himself that maybe he would not be a World Champion after all. - For the first time, I had to admit that my dream couldn’t come true, are Thierry’s words. This lead to Thierry taking his longest break from orienteering ever - a break of several months. Out of this break came Thierry’s rebirth as an orienteer: The “Full speed - no mistake” method - giving higher speed at lower risk. The “Full speed - no mistake” method will be the topic of the next article.

- For the first time, I had to admit that my dream couldn’t come true.

With this technique, Thierry regained his belief in becoming a World Champion - and the next one and a half years he won the 2003 World Championships in Trin, Switzerland over and over again in his mind. - The human brain makes no difference between reality and a mental picture. You have to feel that you are running in your garden. You have to feel that you have already run the World Orienteering Champs a hundred times, is Thierry’s attitude.

- It was “just once more becoming World Champion”.

The ultimate proof about how realistic Thierry’s mental picture of his winning the World Champs was: - When I ran into the finish as a World Champion in Trin in 2003, I was very happy - but not extremely happy. The reason: I had already seen this in my inner mind so many times before. It was “just once more becoming World Champion”.

To be continued with …

• The “Full speed - no mistake” method
• Rebirth as an orienteer: From “slow technique” to “higher speed @ lower risk”
• One general technique valid for all terrain types, mapping styles, …
• They key: Visible & Isolated!
• - It is not on a great day you win the WOC, it is on an average day.
• Orienteering is a game
• Map examples

Have you ever read a Thriller about an orienteering race? Neither had I, until I read the book “Blodføre” by Eskil Åsmul - which was recently published on Forlaget Press. Actually, the word orienteering is not mentioned a single time in the book, but any orienteer will recognize the strange symbols at the cover of the book (see above) as a traditional butterfly-gaffling - and be drawn to the book just as strongly as he is drawn to the next control. I have read the book - and will give you my opinion along with a short interview with the author below. For the ones of you who don’t read Norwegian: Sorry - you’ll either have to start learning the language, or wait and see if there will be a translation…

A long race in Siberia

Eight men from different nations are running a race in Siberia in a fight to find a satellite which disappeared during the cold war. The race is denoted a marathon race, but is actually an orienteering race, where map reading has an important role. A lot is at stake for the runners - and I don’t give away much when I tell that not all of them will stay alive through all of the race…

Some excerpts from the book (sorry for the poor translation),

- The darkness increased his concentration, nearly making him feel that he had better control over the mapreading now than at daytime. However, he knew that the feeling was an illusion, […] the darkness made it impossible to use large terrain features for navigation, and he could pass 10 meters away from a cliff, a hut or a boulder without noticing anything but the monotonous forest he saw in the radius of his headlamp.

- The area was full of confusing knolls and small cliffs, but Vinjar ignored them, and used the compass bearing from the last big marsh into the forest. If a small cliff came in his way, he jumped it or climbed it - while he concentrated on counting his steps.

- Marco run into an area which looked extremely difficult on the map. The terrain was full of small cliffs […]. The map did not even show the cliffs - only the contours they constructed. The only way to solve the task was to read extremely accurately, from cliff to cliff - not missing a single one.

Interview with the author - Eskil Åsmul

Q: What is the relation between “Blodføre” and orienteering?

It’s written to make non-orienteers take interest in the sport. At the time I got the idea I was PR-responsible in my club, and found it difficult to communicate the true excitement of orienteering through traditional channels such as newspaper articles. The sport is so fun from the inside and looks so boring from the outside, so I wrote a report from the inside.

Q: When reading “Blodføre”, I recognized many of the feelings I have when running an orienteering race. What kind of comments have you gotten from non-orienteers about these feelings?

Many seem positively surprised that they could take interest in a book about running. Several of the reviews starts with skepticism about the thrilling factor of orienteering, (the book is classified as a thriller), but ends in positive conclusions. I think Blodføre has challenged some prejudice, but I’m not sure if the book alone will make non-orienteers run.

Q: I heard that you had to rewrite the book and get the word “orienteering” out of it to get it accepted for publishing - is that right?

Well, the word orienteering was never in the book, I was careful not to overdo the orienteering terminology. But at the first attempt I tried to sell it to one publishing house as a book about orienteering. It was rejected due to “too much focus on the orienteering experience”. At the second attempt I did not mention orienteering at all, and three different publishers wanted to publish it.

Q: Could you say a few words about your orienteering career - and about it present state?

I’m not healthy enough to run now. When I could I was no superstar, but I had enough success to have fun with the sport. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? :)

Q: Any plans to translate it to English for all non-Norwegian orienteers out there, or will they just have to learn Norwegian?

I’d love to get Blodføre out in English, or maybe Swedish would be more realistic. But I have no idea how to, I’m a novice in this industry. I guess a decent Norwegian sale would help, so I’m pretty excited these days.

My opinion

I read the book - and I really liked it a lot. The passages about orienteering describes many of the thoughts and feelings you have as an orienteer. You might say that the plot is not the most realistic one, but nevertheless I found the book very interesting to read - and it kept me awake reading until late at night for the three evenings I had until it was finished… For an orienteer who can read Norwegian, I’d say “Go buy it”! You can buy it e.g. at the online bookstore Haugen bok using this direct link - that is were I found it at the lowest price.

Finnish Orienteering Gala: Creator of Routegadget - Jarkko Ryyppö - was last weekend given the prize “Orienteering person of the year” for his work on the orienteering route choice program Routegadget. It is very good to see that Ryyppö gets his well deserved honor for his inspiring work that has helped promoting orienteering - and also helped thousands of orienteers all around the world to understand their mistakes. - It has been just a hobby and I did only for fun, never took it so seriously, Ryyppö comments to World of O. And fun it is - for everybody!

Free to install
Routegadget is free to download and install on your own server - or your own local computer. More than 100 clubs in 24 countries have registered their Routegadget installations - using it for several thousand competitions. In addition, there are hundreds of unregistered installations around. Take a look at all the registered installations around the world here. From there you also find the download page (Note! some technical knowledge is required to install Routegadget locally/on your own server).

PS! There is also an alternative online routechoice program available - Runoway - but it is not possible to install this on your own server.

The English translation through Google of an interview with Thierry Gueorgiou in the French magazine
Forez is absolutely worth a read. Focus is a bit different than in the “usual” interviews in orienteering magazines. For example,

- “We must learn to see the field in 3D. It is not clear at all. I noticed that women seem to have more difficulty in having this vision in three dimensions, even if they offset by other qualities …”