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World Masters Orienteering

When you think of veterans sports, forget Golf and Lawn Bowls.  Orienteering is where it's at.  Every year thousands of people from 35 to 95 gather for the jamboree that is the World Masters Orienteering Championships.  This year, Riga in Latvia was the venue.  About 30 Aussies made the trek.  Including us.  While I (Eric) tackled the Masters competition, racing against more than 200 other competitors in the 50s class, Elise and Sam enjoyed the public races that ensure Masters is also a family friendly event.


First up was the Sprint.  The qualification races were held around a suburb of Riga, in and around some apartment blocks and a local park.  With navigation being very straightforward, it was fairly cut-throat to make A finals in many of the popular classes with few seconds separating many competitors.  

Eric in the Sprint Qualifier: credit Janis Ligats official event photographer

The final was raced around the centre of Riga's old town.  While this was quite interesting (though very easy navigation) it posed a problem.  Our accommodation was in the old town itself meaning that I had to leave our apartment early in the morning while Elise and Sam were still in bed lest I be disqualified when they started placing the controls out at 8am.  Oh and it was raining.  By the time I started 3 hours later! the rain had stopped but the cobblestone streets were quite slippery.  19th place in the A Final was a very good result for me even at the expense of a slightly tweaked hamstring half way around.  Sadly due to a colossal error by the organisers most of the A finals had to be cancelled.  Oh well.  Just to add another "dampener" to that, a colossal hail storm hit just as the public races kicked off.  Sam got saturated and Elise didn't even bother starting.  So not the best day.

Eric in the Sprint Final: credit Janis Ligats official event photographer

In contrast the forest races were much better.  The terrain and maps were fantastic, a lovely stretch of fast open forest on sand dunes on the west side of town (qualification race and middle final) and a steeper area on the Baltic Coast about 50km from the city (long final).  Elise hadn't seen orienteering like this before and found the complex terrain very challenging.  I was lucky my hamstring was good enough to run and after taking the qualification carefully I was at 100% for the two finals (39th and 24th).

Who put the flag the wrong way around!

Samuel in the colours of Nolaskogsarna


Not everything was perfect with the middle final map - can you spot the error.


Nolaskogsarna boys: Eric and Tom before the long final

All up I was very pleased with my results.  Travelling the world for 6 months with a backpack isn't the best preparation for an event like this and I really did about as well as I possibly could.  I can only marvel at the guys who won the medals.  I don't know how they find the time and motivation to keep training so hard once they turn 50.  As I agreed with a few friends after the last race, most of us enjoy the good life too much these days!

A few links...
Article on Nolaskogsarna website
Eric's route tracking - Long final






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