Confident Orienteering

     Left, Right, or Straight #12 Today we will evaluate the routes on the leg 3-4 from  M16 long distance  of the Polish Team Championships. (20/04/2024) At first glance, the route on the left side of the road should be easier and faster. Is it really so? What do you think about it?  A detailed analysis will be posted on the blog soon as usual. You can also find updates and news on the blog's Facebook group  Orienteering Technical trainings . Don't forget to subscribe and recommend it to your friends! Aleksandr Alekseyonok, April 24, 2024

  Livelox Pick of the Week; #5 Of the events that took place over the weekend of April 20-21, 2024, I would recommend watching two particular events. 1. Sprint in Switzerland:  Organising club is ASTI Ticino The natinal level spront  event took place in a picturesque village characterized by small houses, narrow streets, fences, and steps. The course offered a dynamic shift in technical difficulty, ranging from intense orienteering to simpler legs in open terrain. While the Elite courses did not feature overly challenging route choices, victory hinged on precision in navigating on  legs with multi route variations.  2. Long Distance of the Polish Club Championships:  Organising club is  MKS Paulinum Jelenia Góra This event exemplifies how a truly "classic" long-distance course can be created on a relatively small map (about 5 km2), adhering to all the conventions of the genre. Long legs with numerous route variations were interspersed with shorter, tec...

    Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #11 Today we'll be looking at leg 1-2 from the men's long WRE distance race in Halden (April 14, 2024) The pine forest in that area is rather open, and if there are no serious obstacles and no nearby roads or trails, you should try to run as close to the line as possible. In my weekly review ( Livelox Pick of the Week; #4) , I provided a link to the headcam video from this event. The first part of the leg to the road fork runs roughly the same for all routes (near the crossing line). Near the road fork, the routes divide into two main variations. The left route offers several advantages: it involves no altitude gain and allows for a confident approach to the control point. However, there are also some drawbacks. The runnability of the section along the slope and near the marsh is less predictable. Additionally, a decision must be made regarding how to navigate the seasonal marsh just after the road—whether to cross it directly or by...

   Left, Right, or Straight #11 Leg 1-2 is from H21E long distance of "Halden O-Meeting" . Which approach to Control 2 do you prefer: from the top (right-side route) or from the edge of the marsh (left-side route)? Source: https://www.livelox.com Aleksandr Alekseyonok, April 18, 2024

  Livelox Pick of the Week; #4 The competition season in the Northern Hemisphere is really heating up!  Let's take a look at the most delicious highlights from the week of April 8th to April 14th, 2024. With so many events happening, it's becoming increasingly difficult to single out just one. When choosing which events to focus on, I'm guided by the excitement of the distance I'm most eager to run. In today's edition of the column "Choice of the Week," I'll be highlighting three such events at once. 1. Swedish Night Orienteering Championship organised by Ärla IF offers intricate terrain, featuring diverse vegetation and, most importantly, minimal trails. It's a true test of wilderness navigation skills. 2. The first day of the WRE level competition in Halden, Norway, was excellent (Halden O-Meeting). Organized by Halden SK one of the world's strongest clubs with a rich tradition in orienteering. Their middle distance  on Saturday April 13 wa...

  Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #10 Today I would like to analyse the leg 8- from the Relays of "Kolmårdsdubbeln" event,  in Sweden. Men's distance (H17). This race was held 4/7/2024. Here, it was probably a task to disperse the competitors onto different routes. Despite the routes being different, the best one is on the left. And it seems quite obvious to me. To encourage more competitors to choose routes to the right and straight ahead, the control point should have been moved slightly westwards. This would have resulted in more varied approaches from the left side to the control point also. However, it's worth noting that if the control point were moved further, the left routes would become less relevant, leading most runners to choose the right-hand side routes The difference between the left route and the other routes is difficult to assess, as the strongest runners naturally chose the left route. In fact, there was approximately a 2-minute difference ...

  Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #9 Today, we will focus on a detailed analysis of leg 14-15 from the women's long course at 'Spring Spartacus' event in Hungary. I find the route choice for leg 14-15  to be simple and unambiguous.  This perception is supported by the GPS tracks of the competitors. Interestingly, only one competitor from this class took the right-hand route out of all those who loaded their tracks on Livelox. We cannot definitively attribute this deviation to the athlete's error. For many runners, these competitions were part of the training camp for the European Championships 2024. The athlete may have had different objectives than simply completing the course quickly. It's possible that on this leg, she was practicing a challenging technical skill, such as running along a slope. However, based on this iformation, we can assess how effective the right-hand route was.  The leg is 1060 metres long, crossing massive landforms. Therefore, one...

  Left, Right, or Straight #9 If it's evident that taking the right-hand route results in a loss of time, how significant would that loss be? the leg is taken from this distance Stay tuned for a detailed analysis of this leg tomorrow, available here.   Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss out on interesting posts. https://confident-orienteering.blogspot.com/2024/04/left-right-or-straight-leg-analysis-8.html Aleksandr Alekseyonok, April 10, 2024.

  Left, Right, or Straight: Leg Analysis #8 The first long leg  on long distance in M21E class of  'Spring Spartacus' event in Hungary  was a 100% delicious!  This leg 13-14 presented two main options, but due to long way around on left route, many participants opted for a shorter yet higher altitude right route. Let see this leg in more detailed. In the initial assessment, the evaluation of the relative positioning of the controls in terms of altitude plays a crucial role. At a cursory glance, it is not challenging for an experienced orienteer to discern that the controls are roughly at the same elevation. However, it's worth noting that  Control 14 sits even 45 meters lower than Control 13. The unspoken rule of route selection is that 'if there is no need to gain elevation, it's better to avoid doing so.' Therefore, when control points are at the same altitude, routes on flat terrain are always viable options. In our case, the left route, which bypasse...

Livelox Pick of the Week; #3 From the competitions held last week, I highly recommend watching some top-quality races from the 'Spring Spartacus' event in Hungary. These races were combined with a training camp held over the Easter holidays, which is why there were also international athletes participating. Organising club: Tabani Spartacus SE Both days featured excellent courses, although they were all on a single map, which is typical for multi-day events like this. The hilly terrain, characterized by detailed and rugged relief, presented significant challenges in route choice and execution. Long distance is here Middle distance is here Stay tuned for detailed analyses of several runs from these courses, as well as some legs from the relay races in Sweden later this week. You can find the recaps here on the blog and in my Facebook group  Orienteering Technical trainings   Don't forget to subscribe to ensure you don't miss out on any of our future posts Aslo see my Bo...