Comments on: EOC 2023: All You Need To Know

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 17:53:35 +0000

@Knut Wiig Mathisen
Wow, the plot thickens! Toves maneuver to the last control looked really strange when it happened.
And yes, looking back on the transmission – there is an extra ambulance put there when Tove arrives.
Well, Tove’s got lots of medals like these, so no big harm from that perspective. But for the championships it’s a clumsy mistake, clearly.
About Simonas and Megans mistakes to 13 – don’t understand why the setters didn’t put full red colour to mark that dead end side alley, instead of the hard to detect raster over the grey area they now chose…

By: Knut Wiig Mathisen

Knut Wiig Mathisen — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 16:12:28 +0000

Some more information regarding the sprint race on Wednesday, unfortunately unluck and map quality and readability had an important influence on the women race. The reason Tove A. missed the last control was that a large ambulance came and parked between the second last and the last control seconds before Tove arrived to this point. Therefore she could not see the last control visually, and thought she should run on the inside of the ambulance to get to the control and got trapped behind some fence and markers. It is very likely, but not absolutely certain that she lost the gold medal on this “ambulance incident”. Simona`s mistake was due to extremely-difficult-to-read forbidden area towards the 13th control, she tried to cut through a grey corner area, run into forbidden area and got trapped behind some garbage bins. Megan CD did the same mistake, but she had done a large mistake earlier on the leg, too. She took the wrong exit out from the plaza with control 12. Really a pity for the athletes, the organizers and for everybody who loves orienteering. One extra traffic guard and more forbidden area tape on each of these critical locations would have been good, but you cannot have people and tape everywhere either…..

By: Bård Hekland

Bård Hekland — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 20:45:29 +0000

I must agree with what is stated above. After the splendid courses in Denmark last year and also very nice challenges in the previous world cup in Czechia, this was a real disappointment.

Was it really not possible to make something more interesting and challenging for a European Championship?

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 15:42:55 +0000

It’s not that the individual sprint yesterday created some unworthy winners, the people on the podium would have been high ranked on any kind of course. They are that good generally and obviously in great shape right now.
And yes, mistakes, big or small, happens on any competition.
I’m mostly disappointed as a spectator that the ambition level on the course setting wasn’t higher. For non orienteerers I think this must have been an even more dull TV experience.
And in real numbers – is winning times around 12 1/2 minutes and result lists screaming for measures in tenths of seconds a good receipt for a championship race?