Vol. 24, No. 3
DECEMBER, 1999
(Slightly adapted for better web presentation.)
Rob Hughes in Upper Kingsclear
This issue wraps up the year, and, as you will by now be severely sick of hearing, the millennium. Personally I had a pretty good orienteering season, enjoying the rigours of the Maxi Moose rogaine in May through to the screams of the Spook-O in Odell Park in October. I still find it hard to know quite why it takes so long to get around a course 5, even when all seems to go well, but most of the time it's fun so I intend to keep showing up.
For what was one of the hottest and driest years for a long time, it did seem uncanny how often we ended up orienteering in the pouring rain in 1999. The Maxi Moose rogaine was a good example...beautiful weather driving there and back...rain, drizzle and fog during the event! Then the Sass Peepre....monsoons of rain...and cold. Shad Valley, more downpours. Autumn Amble, soaking wet again. However there were some perfect days as well, such as the NB champs in Rockwood Park and for those who ventured "over the border", the Bluenose event in Wentworth, Nova Scotia. The Mactaquac meet was also held in good weather.
Editors routinely appeal for copy. I hereby continue this tradition. Consider yourself, O reader, appealed to. In plain English: write something, and send it to me for publication! You can consider that appeal to be perpetually in effect. There are many benefits of writing for ONB Notes. The more stuff you send in, the less editorialising you will get. You will be educating and entertaining orienteers, contributing to their well being, and improving the health of the nation. You will be exercising your right to free press and the principle of one person one article (instead of one editor, seven articles). I was tempted to pad out this edition with the full minutes of the 1999 ONB Annual General Meeting. I managed to resist it this time, but I might flip any day.
On that festive note, the editor, production team, ONB Board of Directors and Contacts, the Executive and their families wish you all a great holiday and New Year. Remember we are hosting the COC's in 2000, so start training now (and volunteering!).
The email address for all submissions to ONB Notes is rustics@brunnet.net. See you in the woods, or on the ski trails!
The Falcon Orienteering Club hosted an orienteering event for Startrek 99. The annual Scouting event of the Moncton District attracted 60 scouts and venturers in a Score-O format held on the morning of October 23 at Chignecto North campground. There were 25 controls in a sixty minute time frame, with penalty points of one point per minute late.
Results:
VENTURERS: St. Mark's Venturers 145 points Holy Family Venturers 120 points 4th Moncton Venturers 100 points SCOUTS: Chocolate River 170 points 4th Moncton Scouts 100 points St. Michael's Scouts 93 points Birchmount Scouts 35 points
Unofficial Report
The (insert appropriate number here)th annual Spook-O was held Friday October 29 at Odell Park. It turned out to be a perfect evening for being scared out of your wits by vindictive orienteers while stumbling about in the darkness looking for small orange flags. Once again, a considerable number of club members and others proved that they were actually willing to pay for such an experience.
Thanks to the dedicated Spooks, Shannon Lemire and Jenny Clayton, Graham Smith and friend, Anne Hughes, Lucy Hughes and fellow ogres, Daven Hughes, Vicky Whaley, Rob Hughes, Andrew Green, and probably others. It is believed that all who participated did eventually emerge from the woods.
Your Ed. Reviewing notes...
This is another opportunity to remind everyone that ONB is hosting the Canadian Orienteering Championships in 2000, with an exciting slate of events now in the advanced planning stages. There are several event venues, including Saint John, Hillsborough and Fundy National Park. In addition to regular events there will be a junior national training camp. The enclosed flyer gives more details, and there is a form to fill in to indicate how you can help out. There are many things to be covered, so please sign up for something. Every bit of assistance helps. For more information, contact Stig Skarborn, or look here.
Editor, going through the diktionary again..
Congratulations to all those who noticed the deliberate mistakes in this feature in the last ONB Notes.
Klippa c) NOT control punch, but cliff!
Hygge b) NOT a hedge, but a clear cut!
A few new ones:
Tjärr - marsh
Myr - bog
Träsk - swamp, and at last....
Vilse - lost!!
If you find yourself following Alain Berger or another of the Swiss team, you might hear some of the following. What does it mean? Email your suggestions to the Ed.
"Gruzig.....trekkig....es schiefft!! Ich muss auf die Schiessie!"
Sandy Smith
This summer I was one of (count 'em) 5 New Brunswick Orienteers who competed at the World Orienteering Championships in Scotland in August. The others were Cherie and Doug Mahoney, and Mike and Wil Smith. A real family affair, we comprised more than half the Canadian team selected to WOC. The other team members selected to WOC were Pam James (NS), Marie- Catherine Bruno (QUE) and Alaric Fish (AB). Ross Burnett was the team leader and coach.
The races were based around Inverness, which is in the Scottish Highlands. Needless to say the terrain was hilly and quite tough, with lots of heather underfoot. The vegetation and degree of contour detail varied with the Classic terrain being quite large hills and features with fairly open forest in most places. The Short final was flat as a pancake with thicker forest and many point features, while Relay terrain was wide open with deep heather and intricate contour detail.
The Canadian team gathered in Inverness about a week before WOC began, and participated in a training camp which was organized by the Irish orienteering team. This was a great experience -- in return for a little help organizing, we participated in training sessions every day for the week. These were mostly short technical exercises done at fairly high speed, not lasting more than an hour total a day. We managed to experience all of the different terrain types that would be used in WOC, so it was extremely valuable from a "reconnaissance" point of view. As well it sharpened our orienteering skills and gave us a chance to race in some exciting head-to-heads with the Irish, who are at about our level of Orienteering development. Aside from that it was great fun.
The opening ceremony was simple and fun. We got decked out in our fancy new bright red warm-up suits. There was highland dancing and bagpipe music, as well as speeches from several people including the mayor of Inverness. The ceremony should have been punctuated by a parachuter who was supposed to drop out of the sky and deliver the IOF flag... which would have been an exciting highlight had it happened.
Finally the day of the classic qualification rolled around. It was nerve-wracking and exciting. Ross Burnett, who was there as team leader and coach, did a great job helping us to be in the right places at the right times. His moral support and vast experience at international competitions, as well as knowledge about orienteering and racing, were invaluable to the team. He gave advice and calmed our nerves at the start and was there to meet us at the finish. As well, he supplied us with bug dope for the midges, which were present in incredible concentrations even for New Brunswickers. Ross, who hails from Yukon, didn't seem to be bothered by the bugs.
The classic qualifier didn't go well for Canada, and in fact none of us qualified. I was particularly disappointed in my race, making a couple of dumb (and costly) mistakes. It basically boiled down to two controls between which I lost a total of about 12-14 minutes. I missed qualifying by about 4. I knew already in the woods that I had missed my chance to qualify, even though they announced me in the finish as on the edge. It was an incredible disappointment for me - to me the classic is the most important race, and I was ready to run well. To see so many hours of training and preparation fly away in a few moment's lost concentration was very frustrating. Such is the nature of orienteering.
While it was disappointing to not be running in the classic finals, it was also very exciting to watch. There was a speaker and reporters out in the woods giving updates on split times of the runners at different points so it made following the race very interesting. The home crowds were out in full force and the British runners put on quite a show for them. When Yvette Baker finished, she was in a leading position, which was very thrilling. She ended up finishing fourth, behind Kirsi Tiira, Hanne Staff, and Johanna Askloef. Johanna and Kirsi are sisters I imagine their parents were proud. The men's race was also very exciting. Bjoernar Valstad led the race from the very first report and ended up winning by nearly 3 minutes. This was especially exciting for me, as Bjoernar and Hanne have become both friends and club-mates of mine in Norway it is inspiring to know them and an honor to be able to train and race with them.
We had a rest day and then the short qualification races. I was determined to have a good run in the short qualifier, to make up for the classic. I started out with a small miss on the first control but managed to put it out of my mind. I ran well through the next few with good flow and concentration; I started to relax and feel positive. Then I made a miss on the fourth control. I found a control right away that looked like mine but wasn't and suddenly I didn't know where the heck I was. Everything looked like the feature I was looking for and I remember the area as being very dark and confusing to my frantic mind as time ticked away. I was basically randomly searching and I don't recall looking much at the map. There were several controls hung in the area on similar features. I found them all before finding mine, some twice. I finally found the control after what seemed like forever (and was actually 4 minutes). I tried to quell my panic, figuring that I still had a chance to qualify if I ran well for the rest of the race. Throwing caution to the wind (for any beginning orienteers please do not try this at home) I raced off in the vague direction of the fifth control and ran into an even bigger mistake. Reading the map at all probably would have helped but I had worked myself into such a panic that it totally slipped my mind. By my split times I lost about 7 minutes on that leg but if someone had told me it was 30 minutes I would not have been surprised. I wondered a few times if I was off the map. I found a lot of controls that I wasn't looking for (with 8 qualification heats going on, there were many controls in a small area). I eventually decided to bail out and found the control easily from my new attack point (yet another hard lesson learned.). Having resigned myself to not qualifying, I ran well for the rest of the race with only a couple small misses. Funny how that happens. In the end I tied for 16th in my heat (top 15 qualify), about 1 ½ minutes away from qualifying. Well, well.
There were many who made mistakes on the same controls and almost none of the top runners did clean races, so it was a very unusual race. Jana Ceislarova and Carsten Joergensen, who have long been in the world's top, did not qualify. I felt somewhat better knowing that but still was disappointed not to qualify, especially being so close.
Canadians did better in the Short qualifying, with Pam James running the race of her life to finish second in her heat. Mike Smith also qualified quite handily. As well some of the Irish made it through, so it was with even greater anticipation that we awaited the short final, so we could cheer our comrades on to glory. As with the classic final, the highest qualifying runners start latest. However with the unusual qualifying of the previous day, we ended up seeing many of the best runners coming through from the very beginning, so it was very exciting. Mike Smith finished well, having run a good race. He placed 53rd, which is the highest placing for a Canadian man in the short distance ever. Pam topped her race from the day before and finished 20th which is the highest placing of a Canadian at WOC since the days of Ted de St. Croix (10) and Denise Demonte (18). We cheered ourselves hoarse with the Irish and had a very exciting time. The women's race came to a very exciting and emotional peak with Yvette Baker emerging from the woods to a deafening home crowd. She won by a minute, a large margin in short distance. In the men's race it was Joergen Rostrup, the young Norwegian sensation, who took the gold.
The next day was the relay, a greatly anticipated event. Our main goal was to beat the Americans (always a noble cause). The terrain was open with lots of contour detail and very heavy running with heather underfoot. Pam and Wil ran the starting legs for Canada but neither was particularly pleased with their race, finishing both in 22nd position. I ran the second leg, running out alone and not seeing many other runners in the woods. I made several mistakes but managed to keep them smaller than previous; still not a satisfying run but better. I passed several teams (including Ireland and USA), to pull the team up to 18th position, which Cherie and Marie-Catherine managed to hold until the end. We crushed the Americans. On the men's side, the race was closer. Mike held 22nd position on the second leg but we dropped behind the Americans on leg 3, run by Alaric Fish. On the final leg, Doug passed the Mark Everett, the American runner in the woods, and came through the spectator control with a 3- minute lead over him. He ran off into the woods shaking his fists in the air as we did the "wave" on the sidelines. We were sure we would beat those nasty Americans. The last loop was short but complicated. We watched the finish control with bated breath, not paying attention to the awards ceremony which was now taking place. Suddenly, who should appear over the crest of the hill but Mark, heading for the control. Doug had made a mistake. We let out a collective groan of disappointment. Then suddenly from woods to the left of the control sprinted a blur of red and white. Doug. Down by 20 metres. We cheered ourselves hoarse as Doug and Mark sprinted down the finish chute, flying past the winner's podium and the awards ceremony. Doug vindicated himself as he sprinted by Mark for the victory by a hair. In the official results the times are listed as being the same but Canada is listed first. Lucky for Doug.
So ended another WOC. Successful for some and disappointing for others. While I am much more on the disappointed side, I definitely learned some valuable lessons (again) and will take it all with me as I take my next steps toward WOC 2001 in Finland.
Thanks from all of us to everyone who made this trip possible, especially ONB, the COF, Falcon OC, Ross Burnett, and of course the Mahoney and Smith clans.
Ray St-Laurent
Anything worth winning is worth cheating to get. This philosophy is applied regularly in other activities leading to industries corrupted by drugs, bribes, blackmail and espionage. These situations arise only when the goal appears to be worthwhile. Perhaps if we rigorously applied this philosophy to orienteering, the perception of its value would also increase.
Two basic approaches can be applied. The simplest, but clearly naughty one is to use the Simple Cash Advantage Method (SCAM), It requires no skill on the part of the perpetrator. Simply bribe the best runner and a meet official. The appropriate meet official must be bribed to give the top runner a start time before any other serious contender. All the runner has to do is go out there and hang around one of the early controls. When a contender arrives, the runner puts on the best imitation of a focussed competitor at the top of his form. The contender will realize that by simply following the leader' the contender will have the shorter time and win. The leader will accidentally' punch the wrong control and any followers will automatically do so. Then all you have to do is complete the course properly. Try to be amazed by all the DSQ's from mispunching. Relish the opportunity to admonish the followers for getting what they deserved.
At current market values, one can expect to require an $8,000 bribe for the top orienteer and $2000 for the meet official. Although this method is simple to implement, I cannot recommend it due to its crassness and the fact that no skill of any kind is required. It also is expensive.
A more ascetically pleasing approach is to adopt the Comprehensive HEuristic Advancement Technique (CHEAT). This is the study of non-traditional orienteering skills to advance the external perception of one's traditional orienteering skills.
First let's look for a loophole in the COF Rules of Competition. The rules clearly state that you cannot ask or receive help. But, there is nothing stating that you cannot hinder someone. Bingo. The opportunities for self-help seem endless. Let's concentrate on those that can be performed by someone with a limited budget and below-average ability (Anyone else would not be wasting their time reading this crap).
If someone is gaining on you, the old "bend the branch out of the way then let it slap the follower's face" trick can be surprisingly effective. With practice its execution can appear effortless.
Any serious CHEAT practitioner should have their own CHEAT kit. Always make sure you carry a spare punch in it. If you are lucky enough to get an early start, you can slip it into your pocket. To the casual observer it will appear to be a whistle. At an early control, punch your card then replace your punch for the correct one. Remember to detour to return to that control before you finish to restore the correct punch. Although your time will suffer a few minutes, competitors that started after you will have all "mispunched". When someone goes to check the punch, it will be confirmed to be correct. It is always amusing to listen to bogus theories trying to explain the mass DSQ's.
Hiring an out-of-work actor can be a noble, philanthropic gesture as well as open a cornucopia of clandestine creations. The goal here is distract the competition through mis-direction, confusion, or fear. The basic premise is to have the actor in the woods performing multiple roles to achieve the goal. A good actor should be able to flesh out the seed ideas presented here:
However the purist may want to do everything alone. After all, orienteering is supposed to be a solo event. Team efforts may seem dishonest.
Here is a technique that takes a bit of effort but its results can be very rewarding. It is only available if you are local to the area. There are a limited number of controls in New Brunswick. Each has a unique identifier on a card and a punch that are never changed. Attend a few meets throughout the province and you will have visited the majority of the controls. Personally, I use a control cardholder that is basically a clear plastic envelope that the control card is inserted. Its alleged purpose is to protect the control card and to allow efficient punching. Obviously when you punch a control, the pattern is also recorded by the envelope.
Although you return the control card at the end of a competition you may keep the control description sheet. This allows you to cross-reference each control on your course to the identifier and its punch pattern.
If you had the foresight to use a new control cardholder for every race, you have already acquired the necessary database. Otherwise you will need to attend every meet before the COC's to build your database sufficiently.
Next you will need to make a template that matches the grid used by the punches. I prefer recycling a piece of clear plastic from the blister' packaging used to sell items in stores. With a pointed tool, such as an awl or a prick punch that can be obtained at any hardware store, make a pattern of holes that matches the grid used by orienteering punches.
You are now ready to go orienteering. Make sure that you take your whistle, compass, the prick punch, template and a sheet of paper that cross-references the control identifiers with the punch patterns.
Right after your start, make a small diversion to get out of sight. Look at the controls assigned to your course and compare them to your master list. Decide what controls you wish to virtually visit. Then take out your template and punch and puncture your control card accordingly. Then visit the remainder of the controls. Here are some guidelines:
It will be left as an exercise for the reader to devise an explanation to handle a situation where punches on controls were changed from those on your master list.
The occasional reader may question the fairness of a few of these suggestions. I think these concerns are unjustified:
(Ed. on the net)
The Hudson Highlander, hosted by Hudson Valley Orienteering, is a long orienteering and trail running race traditionally held on the Sunday of Columbus Day/Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. It consists of three orienteering courses and a trail run, set to a total 'metric marathon' distance of 26.3 kilometers. The 1999 event was held on three separate maps.
Total times and final positions:
Mike Waddington 3:47:15 (1) Mike Smith 3:47:55 (2) Marc Lauenstein 4:03:06 (3) Wil Smith 4:14:04 (4) Ken Walker, Jr 4:14:07 (5) Matt Stuckey 4:21:58 (6)
As you can see, familiar Canadian names dominated the top spots, a least in the men. Here are some quoteable quotes from those taking part:
"Congratulations to Mike Waddington and his compatriots for showing us how it's done. Kudos also to Kenny Walker Jr., for proving his mettle and doing the school proud". J-J Cote
"Saw (or heard) hardly a runner after the trail run, and that was a bit eerie at times. All-in-all had a lot of fun, and was glad to be here. Orienteering rocks! " Randy Hall
"Every time I took my eye off the map I lost my place and had trouble just finding the circle again". Tim Good QOC
"I was standing next to a whole lot of Canadians at the start, although I didn't have any intention of trying to go with them..." Ken Walker Jr
"For point one I decided to use Mike Waddington as an attack point". Matt Stuckey
For more information, see the Billygoat web site, http://www.billygoat.org/.
The following are the events your clubs have planned for you for 2000 - so far. More will be added. Some of these fixtures may be subject to change, so check the spring 2000 ONB Notes for final confirmation. The COC events from Aug 20-27 are not likely to change.
Date A/B Event Name Location
Apr 30 B Street O Fredericton
May 13 B B meet Odell, Fredericton
Jun 4 A NB Champs UNB Woodlot
Aug 20-24 - Jr Training Camp Hillsborough, Saint John
Aug 19-20 A Eastern Canadian Champs Hillsborough
Aug 22 - Fundraiser event Rockwood, Saint John
Aug 23 A COC Short distance Rockwood, Saint John
Aug 25 - Model Event Fundy National Park
Aug 26-27 A Canadian Champs Fundy National Park
Oct 15 B Sass Peepre Mactaquac
Oct 27 - Spook-O Odell, Fredericton
Also, don't forget to check the ONB website at:
http://fan.nb.ca/info/ip_info/onb/
This site has a lot of useful information including results, more details of the COCs in 2000, plus useful web links to other orienteering sites.
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