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Oeuf, that looks painful

Tuesday evening, following club circuit training at our local school gym, my wife, Cath, was running home when some Chavs in a speeding Saxo decided it would be fun to throw an egg at her.

Unfortunately it didn’t break on impact and Cath was left doubled over in pain as the car sped away, the egg finally breaking as it hit the floor.

We managed to get an icepack on it 5 mins after it happened but the photo below taken a couple of days later shows quite how hard the impact must have been !

Idiots…..

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British Orienteering Major Events Conference 2010

Following my role as technical lead (web, entries, timing and results, IT, commentary etc) at the British Championships in 2010 I was asked by new major events manager Dave Peel to speak at this year’s Major Events Conference, held just down the road in Birmingham.

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/downloads/documents/events_majoreventsconferenceflyer.pdf

The conference is designed to pass good practice, experience and lessons learned on to the organisers of future major events such as the British Championships and JK. As major events pass around the regions of the UK, it means that many years can go by between events in any one place and therefore skills are lost or sport development overtakes individuals existing knowledge.

The introduction of the major events managers should alleviate this to some degree but the conference is still important and is a informal forum for discussing new developments in orienteering.

I knew I had a very varied audience, from those practically IT illiterate to those very experienced in various areas. I tried to keep my presentation un-techie and concentrated on those areas I felt were often neglected, that most event officials were unaware of, or held out of date information. I also tried to get a few laughs at the expense of my dear wife, just ask her about programming check boxes…

The thing that surprised me most when putting the presentation together was when I thought it good to present my orienteering ‘CV’ to get some credibility with my audience at the beginning…… Yikes its been a long time since I organised the British Student Champs in 1995 !

I ended the presentation with a piece about version control and mentioned a free product called dropbox http://www.dropbox.com/. I was shown this by a friend a few months back. It enables an event team to seamlessly share event documentation, ensuring everyone always has the most up to date files, very important and something that has tripped up many organisation teams in the past.

My very hastily prepared presentation is here if anyone is interested ….   major events.PPT

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Teolo & Parco Colli Euganeo

The 2010 Italian World Mountain Bike Orienteering Cup race http://www.mtboitaly2010.it was based in the town of Teolo in the Parco Colli Euganeo hills, approximately 70km south westish of Venice. The World MTBO Championships in 2011 http://www.mtbo2011.org/ is to be held just up the road in another range of low hills, Berici, and many riders have stayed on for a several days training in preparation for WOC following the World Cup event. This years races were held in the vineyard covered valleys between Teolo and Vo, a small town down in the valley.

The hills of Parco Colli Euganeo rise sharply to 450m from the level plane that runs from Venice right across to Milan, and are a road bike mecca. Teolo’s many cafes seem to be a popular stopping off point after a hard climb on the way to higher cols above. In fact, the cafes and restaurants of Teolo with their ice creams, coffees and pizzas tuned into a focal point for teams after the races, everybody enjoying the great atmosphere.

The steep sided hills with their vineyards and woods gave continual views as the roads and tracks wound their way upwards, every so often giving longer vistas over the surrounding plains towards the sea.

The organisers had a big challenge after being forced to replan the entire event following storms that brought down many trees and washed away tracks on the original areas. They also managed to secure some major sponsors http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/sponsor.php . As well as copious amounts of wine supplied to the top 10 at the prize givings there were also helmets, clothing and regional products.

With great walking and riding, lots of wine tasting opportunities and relaxing village squares, partnered with a trip to Venice, a visit to this national park would make a great weekend away.

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MTBO World Cup 2010, Relay, Italy

After a poor result on the middle mountain bike orienteering race on Sunday I gave my place in the relay to Ifor who had ridden so much better the day before, and watched the relay, taking lots of photos and generally soaking up the atmosphere as Steph Fountain made her debut in a GB top taking over after a great ride by Andrew W.

The relay at World Cup races is a mixed team, 2 men and 1 women, the women riding the same length as the men! Strategy is still evolving with teams putting off their women either first or second, but of course still putting their big guns on the last leg ready for the inevitable head to head battles.

It makes for exciting racing with lots of chopping and changing of the lead, and rewards countries with strength in depth.

On the last leg it became a 4 way battle, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland andFinland. Coming out of the spectator control Kevin Haselburger had a 20-30 secs lead over Dane Eric Skovgaard Knudsen with the Finns and Swiss not far behind. Everybody rushed over to the finish tunnel to see who would crest the hill first. A very happy looking Eric coasted down the ramp from the last control, with a very frustrated Kevin just behind. Post race interviews by Maria revealed they had been swapping the lead all the way round the course, exciting stuff!

The minor event over it was time for the most important race of the day! The Italians had kindly agreed to let Danish rider/coach/organiser Johan Jacobson and I go out on the elite relay courses as soon as the winning riders were home rather than waiting till the afternoons open races. Cesare the event organiser insisted though that we did it properly getting us to lay our bikes down as in the relay for a proper showdown on gaffeled courses..

The Danish Team and the Brits lined up to watch us go. I got a good start but missed a track on the left opposite our hotel forcing me to go the long way round to number one. On the big climb from 2 to 3 I pulled Johan back in and passed him as he made some mistakes on the way to 5 before we turned for a leg across the map.

The idea of the race was for me to just enjoy it and finish the season with a good ride after the disappointment of the day before, though it didn’t make me any less competitive.

After a mad flat out high speed decent down the mountain road from the col, tyres howling on the tarmac, I made a mistake before the spectator control, it turns out the same as Kevin and Eric, missing a tiny track on the right forcing me onto a difficult to ride track working its way down a technical wooded valley bottom losing me time.

After a nicely taken 180 at the spectator control I gunned it for home but climbing the last hill could just see Johan ahead of me at the top just going into the town. Punching the last he was about 40 secs ahead. Great fun though and the sun had dried out the tracks around the vineyards making it much much faster.

Then came the standard rush to pack the bikes and head off to the airport and home but not before ice cream in the town square.

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Hana “Zaba” Dolezalova

Many of you may have heard that at the World MTBO Championships in Portugal this year, Czech rider Hana Dolezalova sustained  broken dorsal vertebrae (D5 e D6) after a very bad fall. After several weeks she was transferred by air ambulance back to the best spinal rehab unit in The Czech Republic.
At the recent World Cup race in Italy she sent this short inspirational video to her fellow competitors which we were shown at the opening ceremony. There has been a fund set up to help Hana, see below.

Details of fund (translation from Czech):

Our friend Hana Dolezalova suffered a serious injury during the long distance qualification race at the recent World Championships in MTBO in Portugal. It took her the most valuable, her health. Hanka remains immobile from her chest downwards. Let’s try to help Hanka and her family to ease the difficult fight they face. We have opened a public collection with cooperation with the Czech Foundation for Orienteering. Donations that will be gathered will be used solely by Hanka and her family to help Hanka in therapy. We all believe that also in return to full and genuine life.

Donations can be transferred to bank acount IBAN: CZ7255000000001500043001 with variable symbol/note: 111222333.

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MTBO World Cup, Italy, Middle Race

Sunday morning dawned with bright sunshine and blue skies, such a contrast to the torrential rain of the day before. However the water had already done its worst on the clay claggy soils surrounding Teolo and we were all prepared for another day of mud plugging.

I had a very early start (6th person off) but saw this as an advantage as the ground wouldn’t have chance to get too cut up by the time I approached it.

I was steady through 1, got a good route choice to 2 but then totally fluffed number 3, losing approx 4 mins. I was never lost, just phaffed my way down a complicated path network before getting stuck on what on the map looked like a cross roads but was in fact two tracks with a 20ft overgrown bank between. I slipped and slithered my way down but continued to be very slow until eventually I got the control.

I got out on to a faster track and started to ride slightly better but never seemed to get into the zone reading the map and subsequently was continually stopping. We had some horrible climbs on muddy tracks in the vineyards, and I noticed some riders taking some very long route choice options to avoid them as mud seemed to ball up in no time on wheels frames and shoes.

We finished in Teolo town square but I had not had a good ride, the results confirming this with 53rd position.

Its hard to see where I went wrong other than number 3 as due to overlaps between the days we have not had the maps returned to us yet for a post mortem but splits show I am fairly consistently losing time.

I have decided to give my place in the relay to Ifor who had a much better ride today and instead tomorrow ride in the mass start middle public race and just try and enjoy myself to finish the season on a better note.

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World Cup MTBO – Italy, Sprint

The view from our hotel balcony on the morning of the World Cup MTBO sprint was shrouded in mist and fog but it started to clear by mid morning and as we descended to the event it cleared completely revealing the vineyards planted on every available piece of ground on which we would be racing later.

The finish area was in the town square of Vo, complete with large festival tent, it being the time of year for grape harvest and so a time for local celebration.

The pre start quarantine was at a vineyard tasting room next to the barns where the wine is produced. The whole place smelt a little like a pub in the morning, alcoholic! As the rain started to fall the worlds best riders huddled together surrounded by bottles of wine until their allotted start time.

After a strange start where we did not get the full minute with our maps (although everyone was in the same boat) I took a safe route to number 1 but the muddy conditions showed themselves straight away, the bike sliding all over the place on corners and whilst braking on the slippery tracks.

Number 2 involved a muddy slog uphill, where most riders were off and running, unable to gain any traction on the slime, the mud collecting on the bike in big dollops.

Every time I looked at the map, it seemed, it was covered in mud and water which meant judicious wiping with the back of the glove to be able to read it!

The mud also seemed to make my hand-grips very slippery, two or three times one of my hands slipped off the bars.

The technical course with lots of complex route finding wound its way around the terraced vined valleys descending most of the way. I made an error in the middle of the course losing perhaps a minute or so getting confused with the multitude of tracks but then quickly recovered and rode well through the last few until a small mistake missing a tiny opening in a wall lost me another minute on the last control (many missed this as it was not at all obvious).

I finished less muddy than most of the later riders, using my knowledge of mud avoidance tactics from the UK to ride around the worst bits and keep the gears working well but it is the first time I have ever had consistent traction problems in a race. Post race chat made it clear that everybody was having problems not matter the tyre choice.

The course I felt was more of a middle that a sprint, certainly in the early parts, with complex route finding and route choice meaning it was difficult to ride quickly but I enjoyed it and it would make a cracking area in dry conditions.
Given my mistakes I was very happy with 36th showing everybody was having a tough time with the conditions.

Note: WCup Results available at http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/download/result_sprint_wc.rtf

Open results at

http://www.mtboitaly2010.it/download/result_sprint_open.rtf

Photos available at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mark.stodgell/WorldCup2010ItalyTeolo?feat=directlink

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