WTOC 2014 and Nuno Pires: "In TempO we can get closer to the Nordics and faster"

After the first major competition of the XI World Trail Orienteering Championships WTOC 2014 - and with it the emotions of TempO and Luis Gonçalves' fantastic 9th place (!) - it's time to take a look at the Pre-O competition that will have its epilogue next July 11th and whose first day's Model Event took place already this morning. The issues on the table are many, and about which we exchanged a couple of points of view with Nuno Pires, Team Official of the Portuguese delegation present in Lavarone.

Are you fully recovered from the emotions of yesterday? (laughs)

Nuno Pires (N. P.) - It was really a very intense day. At the beginning, expectations were identical for everyone, but after the qualifying, each of us had a very precise idea of what had gone less well. Personally, I struggled in stations 5 and 6, I was clearly penalized by repeating answers in the same stations and I knew that hardly would reach a place in the Final.

And then, in the end, the result that we all know.

N. P. - Yes, a great joy. It is worth mentioning that this joy was shared with everyone in the team and also with Antonio Hernandez, who has been with us all time. Actually, at the course's place, Portuguese and Spanish are always very close and often exchange impressions. This is quite helpful, our teams developing together in terms of ideas and knowledgement. There were also other countries that were associated to our special moment, mainly from Eastern Europe, showing curiosity in how Luis got what he did. Curiosity and affection, a smile that reveals a message of appreciation to anyone who comes to intrude within the countries that usually dominate this discipline.

Is there anything incidental in Luís Gonçalves' 9th place?

N. P. - I cannot answer this question very well... But no, I don't think so. Luis has been an orienteer since a long time, he is an athlete of our national Elite class in FootO, has above all good technical qualities and the fact that he is still young and has a really fast reaction time, gave to him the perfect profile for TempO. Interestingly, given the complexity of the terrain and the challenges in this competition, Luis clearly adopted a strategy which proved much better than the strategy of many so-called “Nordic machine-guns”. They are used to “shoot” in five or six seconds which was, in this case, almost impossible without mistakes. Hence, he had such a good performance and have achieved a result that no one was waiting.

What impact this may have in the further development of this discipline in Portugal?

N. P. - Well, this proves that TempO is, at least, one discipline to work in the future. I would like to see more TempO events in the official calendar in Portugal, maybe to find a solution making possible to fit the TempO in the Portuguese TrailO Cup ranking, a hybrid solution, I don't know. We have to think, but it's like Antonio Hernandez said yesterday, using an analogy with what happens in Foot Orienteering: the Portuguese will never be able to hit the Nordic in long distances, but we already have some nice results in the Sprint. Applying it to Trail orienteering, in TempO we can get closer to the Nordics and faster, while in PreO we still have a long way to go.

Luis Gonçalves reached a historic result, as we already know, but it was not the only Portuguese in the start for this competition. The difference is that both Nuno and Ricardo couldn't reach the finals. What was wrong?

N. P. - In the case of Ricardo, I would not say that things have been wrong. The issue is that for the technical level of Ricardo, these challenges proved to be more difficult than what he's used to face. But it also happened with me. With this map and this kind of forest, both I and Ricardo were unable to make decisions safely. It is very easy to be drawn into the error by questions related to what I would call “optical illusion”. It is easy to be deceived. Clearly, the challenges were placed on a very high platform and we have to recognize that course planning was very careful this time. The key to success could be hit in the first problem in every station. But I must acknowledge that, in this particular, we weren't well.

We had today the Model Event in PreO. Want you tell us your impressions about this morning in Forte Verle?

N. P. - It was a Model Event with ten control points and one more station with two timed controls. The terry was wide open with few areas of forest, but with many depressions - reminiscences of World War I - which makes the map with an increased complexity in relation to the natural elements. The readability of the terrain and the proximity of the flags for the points of view meant that the level of technical difficulty was not very high, but there were some small “traps” to which we need to be alert. Generally our performance was good, we didn't make big mistakes and we always hit averages above 80%. But we think that tomorrow the number of individual elements will be much higher and we are also, of course, waiting for more difficult challenges. Incidentally, if it happens what happened in TempO, we have a huge disparity between the Model Event and the course. But we are going to analyse things quietly and I hope that tomorrow things will go well, opening good perspectives for the second day of competition.

When you say good perspectives, you are talking what about? Luis Gonçalves has assumed the top-25 as his major goal. What about the other members of the team?

N. P. - We haven't yet discussed the subject. Luis pointed to the top-25 and I am convinced that he will be able to achieve that goal. But we also know that one point more or less can vary many places our positions in the classification. I believe that, in this kind of terrain, we'll have more people answering wrong than in the European Championships and one or two wrong answers wouldn't make such a big difference in the final standings.

How is it going, the World Championships, from the point of view of the Team Official Nuno Pires? The increased responsibilities have taken many hours of your sleep?

N. P. - The atmosphere within our team is excellent. I try to remove all troubles from the athletes and the factors that could destabilize before the courses and I have also tried to keep myself calm and solve the problems, fortunately few, that have arisen - a blown headlight on the vehicle, mechanical problems with Ricardo's wheelchair. It is fair to note that we have been able to count on the support of all the staff of our hotel, they are helping us to find the best solutions for the little things that eventually emerge, particularly in coordinating our schedules with the schedules of the Hotel itself.

And the organization? Does it fit with the high standards that are always waiting for an event of this magnitude?

N. P. - Until now, I have to say that the organization has been in a World Championships level. It is true that not everything has gone well and the weather also does not help too much. But I think that, technically, the event is having an excellent quality. The Senior Event Advisor, a Swedish, is an extremely well known and respected person in TrailO. It is a “cold” person, but a person with whom you can talk and know to listen you and answer to your questions. Within half an hour we will have the second Team Officials Meeting and quite frankly, I do not expect that major issues are raised in relation to Model Event and which may influence the planning of tomorrow's course.

In two words, what is your greatest wish?

N. P. - Well, there aren't two words, but three: A great result! I expect a great result from the Portuguese athletes that are here. Tomorrow we'll have with us João Pedro Valente in the Open Class and I think he will be a great surprise, as Gonçalves was a great surprise in TempO.

Follow the XI World Trail Orienteering Championships WTOC 2014 at http://www.woc2014.info/wtoc.php.

[Photo courtesy of Nuno Pires]

Joaquim Margarido

WTOC 2014: Everything is ready!

The XI World Trail Orienteering Championships WTOC 2014 is about to begin. The delegations of 26 countries who will attend the competition begin to take positions in the beautiful region of Trentino, in Italy, and among them, the Portuguese Team, with the headquarters standed in Folgaria. It will be there that our eyes and our hearts will focus over the next week, following closely the emotions of the biggest event of the season.

107 athletes, 26 countries, three individual and one collective world titles in discussion, three Team Official Meetings, six moments of Ceremonies, one Banquet, the General Assembly IOF and a demonstration of the brand new format of PreO Relay. These are, in general, the lines of the XI World Trail Orienteering Championship WTOC 2014 which will be held from today until next Friday in Lavarone, Italy. With Direction by Roberta Falda and with the Swedish Lennart Wahlgren as IOF Senior Event Adviser, the WTOC 2014 has the highest moments of its program, tomorrow, with the TempO Qualifying heats in Albere di Tenna, and later the Final, at Levico Terme. And also in 9th and 11th July, with the two PreO stages, the first one in Millegrobe - Luserna and than at Campomuletto, which will decide the World Champions in the PreO Open and Paralympic classes and also the winner of the Team competition.

China, Estonia, Spain and Netherlands returning to the competition after one or more years of pause, while Belgium and Slovakia make their world premiere here, in Italy. With the Finnish and Swedish sharing the favouritism, Portugal is present in the competition for the third year in a row and with the paralympic athlete Ricardo Pinto again integrated into the team, as has already happened in Scotland (2012) and Finland (2013). The team is completed with Nuno Pires, member of the TrailO Technical Commission of the Portuguese Orienteering Federation and Team Official, and still Luís Gonçalves and João Pedro Valente, all of them making the debut at the World Championships. The Portuguese Team is completed by Ana Porta Nova and Susana Pontes, the two escorts.

Tomorrow it I will be “serious”

The Portuguese Team headed early today to Alberè di Tenna, where took place the TempO Model Event. On terrains considered “relevant in terms of the forest”, the proposal consisted of two stations with four problems each. The profusion of mapped elements and the short distance to the flags leads Nuno Pires and the other members of our delegation to rate the challenges as “medium difficulty”, which eventually translated into good performances in terms of correct answers, considered “even better than expected”. But Nuno Pires is very pragmatic: “The Model Event can be a reference for the course but the difficulty of the challenges, then, couldn't eventually match and revealed not proportional.”

At the moment, our national team heads to Asiago where will meet the remaining Portuguese athletes participating in the World Orienteering Championships WOC 2014, and, together, will take part in the parade and the Opening Ceremony of the WOC/WTOC 2014. Tomorrow, as said before, we'll have the TempO Qualifying heats, in which the Finnish Pinja Makinen will defend her World title and Portugal will be represented by Nuno Pires, Luís Gonçalves and Ricardo Pinto. With the results of the Qualification to be taken into account when calculating the final result, the strategy must be, according to Nuno Pires, “correctly defined since the very beginning, because the gold will begin to be delivered at the first station.”

Follow the competition at http://www.woc2014.info/wtoc.php.

[Photo and map kindly offered by Nuno Pires]

Joaquim Margarido

  

Portugal O' Meeting 2014: Carnival of Gouveia with map and compass

It started to be “cooked” two years ago, when the Portuguese Orienteering Federation decided to approve the application of the CPOC - Clube Português de Orientação e Corrida, and it will “boil” in the first four days of March. The Portugal O' Meeting, the biggest event of the national regular calendar of Foot orienteering presents as tasteful ingredients the magnificent terrains of Gouveia, the quality of the organizaing team and the two biggest stars in orienteering world, Simone Niggli and Thierry Gueorgiou.

For the Portuguese orienteers, this is nothing new: Carnival is at the Portugal O' Meeting ! It is so since 2000 and the party is back once again, extending the revelry to the first four days of March, for the first time in the Serra da Estrela region. The “dating” between CPOC and the municipality of Gouveia had his first big moment in 2011 with the organization of the I Gouveia Orienteering Meeting, continued in 2013 with the Iberian Orienteering Championships and has its highlight this year with the 19th edition of the Portugal O' Meeting. The number of participants amounts to 1737 athletes from 21 countries, having the offer of two Middle Distance stages, one Mid Distance stage, one Long Distance stage, a night urban Sprint and one Trail orienteering stage. From home, it will be also possible to follow the competition with live GPS coverage.

Projected on perfect maps and terrains for the orienteering, the stages of the Portugal O' Meeting 2014 are distributed by Vila Nova de Tázem, Arcozelo da Serra, Gouveia and Nossa Senhora dos Verdes Park, promising to offer to the participants high technical challenges where the pleasure of orienteering will be there permanently. So says the leader of the IOF's World Ranking, Thierry Gueorgiou, that “is in the Winter that you win the medals of the Summer”. And he don't change the Portugal O' Meeting by any other event, even the World Cup first round, which will take place in Turkey at the same time as POM. And if it's true that the world's elite turned his back to Portugal this year and both Thierry Gueorgiou as the leader of the women's world ranking, the Swiss Simone Niggli, are the few exceptions to the rule, the fact is that the prestige achieved by the Portuguese event, especially in the last five years, has meant that the demand, overall, suffered no significant breaks. Even the Trail orienteering stage of the Portugal O' Meeting prepares to overcome the hurdle of one hundred participants for the first time ever in Portugal, with a total of 137 entries, including some of the world's greatest athletes in this demanding discipline.

But the Portugal O 'Meeting 2014 is not just competition and there is a whole social program directly or indirectly linked to the event. It start by the presence of Fernanda Ribeiro, the most valuable ever figure of Portuguese Athletics, which offer its name to the Portugal O' Meeting 2014 as the ambassador. Also the banquet will take place in one of the most well known and respected restaurants in the country. And there is still Gouveia, the traditional Fair of the Serra da Estrela's Cheese and the entire program of the Serra's Carnival, having in the carnival parade and the shrovetide burial its highest points.

All good reasons for a oriented visit to Gouveia, at the rhythm of Carnival. Programs to check at http://www.pom.pt/en/ and http://www.cm-gouveia.pt/.

Joaquim Margarido

[Patrocinado por Orievents e Câmara Municipal de Gouveia]

PreO Challenge - Maia European City of Sport 2014: Maps and Results

Joaquim Margarido

PreO Challenge - Maia European City of Sport 2014: Starting off on the right foot for Ricardo Pinto and Joaquim Margarido

Ricardo Pinto and Joaquim Margarido confirmed their favouritism, winning the opening stage of the Portugal Trail Orienteering Cup 2014, in the Paralympic and Open classes, respectively. The course took place at S. Pedro do Avioso's Park and was the first official event of the “Maia European City of Sport 2014”.

Under the constant threat of tempest, took place yesterday the first stage of the Portugal Trail Orienteering Cup 2014. Organized by the Grupo Desportivo dos Quatro Caminhos, the PreO Challenge - Maia European City of Sport 2014 called to the magnificent and green spaces of S. Pedro do Avioso's Park 44 athletes spread over the Precision and Adapted disciplines.

With 19 points (more two timed controls), along a perimeter of 2 km, the Trail Orienteering course - drawing by Luis Leite and Nuno Pires - confirmed the real evolution felt, especially in the last twelve months, by this so special discipline. With a “sober" planning, appealing above all to reasoning and expertise of the competitors, the course had in Joaquim Margarido (CRN) the big winner of the Open Class, with only two incorrect answers. Two points below, Luis Nóbrega (CO Viseu - Natura) was second while Claudio Tereso closing the podium, five points way from Margarido .

Auspicious debut of the CRN

In the Paralympic competition we witnessed a fierce fight between the top three athletes, separated in the end by the minimum difference. Triumph of Ricardo Pinto (DAHP) with 10 points, just one point ahead of José Leal (CRN). Julio Guerra (DAHP) concluded in the third position, two points behind the winner. Special reference to the great debut of José Leal and his excellent second place, in what was also the start of the Rehabilitation Center of North on official Trail Orienteering competitions. An auspicious debut, first of all because it fills a shortage of clubs and practitioners in this discipline and simultaneously is an invaluable contribution for increasing the competitive level of Trail Orienteering in our country. Also a word to the presence of Antonio Hernandez , the technician responsible for Trail Orienteering in Spain, having the opportunity to follow the work of preparation and implementation of the course.

To conclude, a reference to the opening stage of the Portugal Adapted Orienteering Cup 2014, which had here, also, the kick-off. In the end, Liliana Silva and Domingos Oliveira, both from Gaia Club, were the winners in a ten points course, distributed along 700 meters.

Results Trail orienteering

Paralympic class

1º Ricardo Pinto (DAHP) 10/19 points

2º Laiginha José Leal (CRN) 9/19 points

3º Julio Guerra (DAHP) 8/19 points

4º António Amorim (DAHP) 6/19 points

Open Class

1º Joaquim Margarido (CRN) 17/19 points

2º Luis Nobrega (CO Viseu - Natura) 15/19 points

3º Claudio Tereso (ATV) 12/19 points

4º Hélder Camilo (Individual) 12/19 points

5º Miguel Batouxas (Individual) 11/19 points

All information at http://www.gd4caminhos.com/events/maia-preo-challenge.

Joaquim Margarido

Portugal O' Meeting 2014: Event Director's preview

The major event of the portuguese regular season is getting closer. Four weeks away, with the number of entries closing on the thousand runners, we went to speak to Luís Santos, director of the event. Here are his answers on a event anticipating high quality and major emotions.

The last time that CPOC organized Portugal’O’Meeting was in 2009. Five years more and what major differences on an organizing point of view can you establish comparing to Mora’s edition?

Luís Santos – I would say that these two events are clearly landmarks on the life of our club. All results of our athletes, all other events are so small comparing to the intensity, responsibility and dimension of POM. So the 2009 and the 2014 are similar to us but I can point out some differences between them.

In 2009 we tried to reassure diversity on the chosen type of terrains, but now we seeked mainly high quality orienteering areas covered with rocky elements, although with one major difference because day 1 and day 3 are mainly forest covered areas and day 2 and day 4 are more open rocky areas. In 2009 we had about 80 organizers and now CPOC has a bit more than 60 and will have some help of local entities to complete the organizing team. In 2009 the support of Mora Municipality was very important to the high quality event we organized and now we have also a very supporting municipality in Gouveia. Maybe that happens because we have created similar projects with national events to start and an organizing peak with POM. In Mora it started in 2006 and had POM in 2009 and in Gouveia we started in 2011. Finally I would say that the weakest moment on the 2009 edition was the regional dinner and now in 2014 we are not taking any chances, scheduling the regional dinner for one of the most known portuguese restaurants – Restaurante Albertino in Folgosinho, and the cultural moments being prepared will also help to make it an enjoyable night for those who will participate.

With the preparation processes entering their decisive phase, I would ask you to tell us what is already done and what is not done yet.

L. S. – Well, it’s difficult to answer this question without being very detailed because there are many preparation activities going on on these days (just out of curiosity my next task will be to identify all controls who are on stony ground were we can’t put a normal control point and have to use a different wooden structure). However, for what matters the most for participants, the maps are all concluded, except one of the 2 model events, the courses are all set, have been tested and are now on final revision (the technical information table will be revised soon). Most of the work under way is now on logistic matters and in communication level, were we have a good work going on by the Gouveia Municipality, namely with a press conference scheduled for 11^th February to be held in Lisbon.

For a club located near Lisbon, the issue of the road distances is a major problem. The lack of a connection club on the region makes CPOC work harder, having probably on the municipality of Gouveia its only support. From your words, we can conclude that the work among the 2 entities is going well.

L. S. – Personally, it gives me much more pleasure to do 600 kms to prepare an event on terrains with this quality than to do 40 or 50 kms to prepare events on locations with low technical quality for orienteering. This serves to say that distances get a lot less important when we work with enthusiasm and dedication. A lot of this enthusiasm has to do with the way the municipality of Gouveia has become intensly envolved on the preparation of the event, and also on the sport itself, understanding the fantastic conditions to be a well known location for orienteers all over the world. What we haven’t been able to do is to generate new orienteering clubs in Gouveia, for now.

On the last 2 editions, POM has gained a lot of visibility by the winning elections of its courses. The election of best courses of the year in 2012 and 2013 will be adding responsability and gather biger attention to the technical preparation of the event. How does CPOC lives with the responsability to succeed to these contest victories?

L. S. – These elections were very nice awards to the recognition of the high quality of portuguese orienteering events and for the knowledge of the brand “Portugal’O’Meeting” on international orienteering, but they don’t change anything on the the way we work on the technical choices for our orienteering events. Probably we, alone (Luís Gonçalves on the sprint, Acácio Porta Nova on trail-O, me on the first day and Mariana Moreira on the 3rd day), will be below the quality of the awarded course setters, but the work done has contributions of all the team, collecting the added value of the event advisers (António Amador and Joaquim Margarido) and of our most experienced runners such as Vera Alvarez or João Valente. But our major added value comes from the map makers and course setters Raquel Costa and Tiago Aires. They grew up on the club and altough they are now professional map makers, they work hard with us, and have a major contribution for the event. They did the prospection work, and every inch of all maps produced and they also prepared the courses for the 2nd and 4rd day. They are very experienced having done several works on former editions of POM but they have also been hired to work on countries like Sweden. Raquel Costa is probably the best female map maker worldwide nowadays.

The first round of the World Cup in Antalya (Turkey) colliding on the same date would predict a shortage of entries and on the quality of the event itself. But names such as Thierry Guergiou, Albin Riedefelt, David Andersson, Vilius Aleliunas or Simone Niggli, on a day were numbers are quickly aproaching the thousand of participants, appears not to have anything to do with the worst expectations. What is your reading about this and what expectations do you have for the final number of entries?

L. S. – Well, I would say that for the IOF, Portugal’O’Meeting doesn’t exist or is a target to shot at. We have a World Cup Event colliding with Portugal’O’Meeting and probably Portugal’O’Meeting could be a major threat for the success of this World Cup edition, so, to reduce the danger of runners freely choosing events, they make the presence in all World Cup Events mandatory. More than a year ago we tried to convince the Turkish organizers to change the date but has we have always the carnival weekend, they seem to have their event always on the first weekend of March. This contact was done with the knowledge (and the silence, I might add) of IOF.

I would say that we were working hard for a great event and preparing ourselves to have a smaller number of participants reduced to a minimum of 1200 knowing that most of the major stars on orienteering could be divided, and together with Elite runners, lots of others could choose Turkey. Besides that we also have this year’s EOC edition in Portugal and we were afraid of the proximity of the events (already on April) but we never ceased to make our best bets for high quality terrains, maps and courses. Personally it’s very nice to know that both Thierry Gueorgiou and Simone Niggli choosed Portugal, even though their countries are represented in Turkey. The turkish event might have many Elite participants just for the fact of being a World Cup Event, but runners of other classes are massively picking Portugal’O’Meeting with numbers increasing like in former years (as I write we are already above 1000).

POM is not only a foot orienteering event. The stage of Pre-O, on Sunday afternoon, will gather the attention of the best national orienteers and even some world level competitors like the british John Kewley or the italian Remo Madella. Do you want to talk to us about this stage in Parque da Senhora dos Verdes?

L. S. – We have been organizing pre-o events since 2004, on the first times by the hand of Alexandre Romeiras and now with Acácio Porta Nova leading that stage. We always gave particular attention to trail-o and I think we can support these words with the fact that this might be one of the first (or maybe the first) event in Portugal with a map produced only for the Pre-O stage. Parque da Senhora dos Verdes is a beautiful park very close to the 2nd day’s Arena (about 2 kms away). I believe that it will be an enjoyable stage of POM.

I know you wish to have a very nice weather sponsoring the event, Serra da Estrela also deserves a visit with many beautiful places to visit. But I would let these things for a final question, inviting you to give us some final impressions, as an invitation for potential participants.

L. S. - Yes, it would be very nice to have good weather like in former editions of POM. Besides the weather, Serra da Estrela has lots of beautiful places as you can find in our website. Today, the higher grounds of Serra da Estrela where we have our club map of Vale do Rossim (at about 1400 m high comparing with the 150 m mark of the stages of POM) are beautifully covered with snow, what will have a slight impact on the event only conditioning one of the model events, scheduled for Vale do Rossim to offer this fabulous location if the snow allows us to offer it. We can not forget about the knownk Carnival Festival of Gouveia with a strong tradition and also on a gastronomical level with nice moments on Albertino of Folgosinho or even on Ponte dos Cavaleiros inside Arcozelo’s map. Inside the event, we will have spectators’ control on all days except the 2nd, we will also have a map switch on the first day, and a chasing start on the last. We are also planning to use for the first time in Portugal’O’Meeting, gps tracking for the main competitor’s on the 3 stages of Arcozelo.

You can find all information on http://www.pom.pt/pt/.

Joaquim Margarido

Portugal O' Meeting 2014: A short update

We can already smell the Portugal O' Meeting 2014 and we made today a short update based on a lot of information released almost daily by the great team of Communication and Image of CPOC. “Two or three things I know about the Portugal O 'Meeting...” or just an excuse to see and review the extraordinary presentation video of the event?

1. 44 days left to the start of the 19th edition of the Portugal O 'Meeting. For the first time in its history, the event heads to the high places of Serra da Estrela, more specifically to the Municipality of Gouveia. Over four days full of challenge and emotion, the participants will be invited to experience the terrains of Vila Nova de Tazem and Arcozelo, for two Long Distance and two Middle Distance courses, the second of which (on the third day) counting for the World Ranking. The program includes also a Night Sprint in Gouveia, on the first day, and the next day one stage of Precision Orienteering.

2. At the moment, the number of participants is 424, representing 16 countries. With 104 entries, Portugal is the most numerous country, followed by Switzerland (80 entries) and Norway and Sweden (48 and 47 entries, respectively) . The ADFA leads a list of 117 clubs, being the one that has the largest number of participants (52), then the TT - Tur , Norway, with 29 entries and GOLD, Switzerland, 15. In terms of classes, M60 and M65 share the command, with 36 entries each. Dinis Lopes (Portugal) and Biger Garberg (Norway) are at opposite poles with respect to age, separated by a difference of 76 years!

3. In the Elite classes, the most valuable athlete to submit his entry to date is the Swedish Albin Ridefelt. Third in the 2013 edition of the Portugal O 'Meeting, the athlete spoke to the Portuguese Orienteering Blog and the interview can be read at http://portugueseorienteeringblog.blogspot.pt/2013/04/albin-ridefelt-work-talent-and-ambition.html. The organization, however, announced yet the name of Thierry Gueorgiou as a sure presence in this year's edition. And leaves the question: “Will it be the third consecutive victory for the Frenchmen, the king of the Middle Distance?”

4. In the meanwhile, the organization update some technical information, including the distances of each courses. It is known also that the official Banquet of POM 2014 will be at the Restaurante O Albertino, a place of recognized merit in Portugal, combining quantity and quality on a perfect way. Finally, a reminder of the presentation video of the Portugal O' Meeting [above], an extraordinarily well made pice, the perfect “business card” of an event that promises quality and variety. Not to be missed, absolutely!

Everything to know about the Portugal O 'Meeting 2014 at http://www.pom.pt/en/.

Joaquim Margarido

WTOC 2013: Moments

Joaquim Margarido

WTOC 2013: Portuguese on high wheel

For the second time in its history, Portugal has attended the World Trail Orienteering Championships. Despite the modesty of the results, the four athletes present in Vuokatti showed some truly interesting notes that allow to design a bright future in this particular discipline.

From July 7th to 14th took place in Vuokatti, Finland, the 10th edition of the World Trail Orienteering Championships WTOC 2013. Held in parallel with the World Orienteering Championship, the Precision event was attended by 92 athletes, allocated on Open and Paralympic Classes, together representing 19 countries. After the premiere in 2012, at the World Champs in Dundee (Scotland, UK), Portugal repeated its presence in the largest world exhibition of Precision Orienteering by aligning two athletes in the Open Class - Alexandre Reis and Joaquim Margarido - and two in Paralympic Class - Diana Coelho and Ricardo Pinto.

The courses took place in forest terrains, with a varied cutout relief, excellent visibility and depth of field, calling for a thorough reading of the contour lines and an overview the most accurate as possible. With sections “one way” involving an assessment of anticipated problems, "traps" to peek at every turn and the tiniest details acquiring an unusual importance at the decision moment, the competition proved to a need unique, appealing to the technical qualities of the participants, their timing and their maximum concentration.

Portuguese, one by one

It was under this premise that portuguese athletes have evolved over two days of competition for a total of 45 points, including six timed controls. "Scoring twice" its presence in the World Championships, Joaquim Margarido and Ricardo Pinto reached percentages above what they had achieved a year ago, in Scotland, the first to reach a total of 24 points (twelve on each days), which earned him the final 51st place in the Open Class. Ricardo Pinto concluded its participation in Paralympic Class in the 31st place with an amount of 20 points. Failure to properly manage the time of race eventually proved fatal to Joaquim Margarido. The athlete recorded on both days an excellent early test, but that was diluting the rapid flow of time to finish somewhat bleak, especially on the second day. Already Ricardo Pinto corrected on the best way a less positive entry in the Championships, achieving a motivating performance on the last day.

Newcomers in the PreO high wheels, Alexandre Reis and Diana Coelho eventually surpass the expectations. As Ricardo Pinto, Diana Coelho also demonstrated an extraordinary evolution from the first to the second day, which allowed her to skip a few holes on the table to settle in 32nd place in Paralympic Class, with 16 points total. As for Alexandre Reis, turned out to be a special case in the context of the Portuguese participation, since he is the responsible for mapping and course setting of the next European Trail Orienteering Championships, to be held in Palmela (Portugal), in April next year. So it was in dual quality as observer and athlete that he was in Vuokatti, demonstrating since the beginning a technical strong "muscle" and an innate talent for Precision Orienteering. The 18 points by the end of the first day speak for itselves, particularly given that were achieved in impressive time of just over one hour. The athlete would again be identical provision in the decisive day, finishing in 34th place with a total of 34 points. Portugal also had the opportunity to have a presence in the team competition, finishing in 14th place with a total of 42 points and leaving behind only Hungary with 39 points.

TempO of our discontent

The final day of competition was voted the "timed" variant designated TempO, a kind of "PreO Sprint" and consecrated its first World Champions ever. With the competition restricted to three athletes per country and Alexandre Reis racing "out", was under Joaquim Margarido and Ricardo Pinto that fell the responsibility of representing Portugal in this particular competition. The Portuguese were unable to overcome the qualifying series, finishing on 48th and 52nd position, respectively. In a competitive model identical to the World TempO Trophy 2012 (eight seasons with three problems each), Ricardo Pinto finished with a score of 763.5 sec (8 correct answers). Despite having hit two more problems than his teammate, Joaquim Margarido failed to do better than 898.5 seconds since he was too slow making the decisions.

Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic shared between them the gold. Finland finally take advantage in the final accounts, with Jari Turto winning the PreO competition and Pinja Mäkinen getting better in TempO. The Czech Jana Kostova was the winner of the PreO competition in Paralympic Class, while Sweden (Martin Fredholm, Stig Gerdtman and Michael Johansson) snatched the gold in the team competition. Croatia and Denmark also reached the medals, in the first case thanks to silver in the team competition and in the second case the mercy of the bronze won both individual (Søren Saxtorph, Paralympic Class), and collectively.

See the full results at http://www.woc2013.fi/woc/sp?Open&cid=content73E48B.

Joaquim Margarido