Dušan Furucz isn’t "just"
the World Champion of TrailO Relay. He is also the Director of the
European Trail Orienteering Championships ETOC 2018 and one of the
IOF Trail Orienteering Commissioners. Versatile, pushy and highly
committed to TrailO, inside and outside his home country, Slovakia,
he is the guest of the Portuguese Orienteering Blog for another great
interview.
Some time ago, I had the chance to
interview, separately, your brothers Ján and Peter. It's now your
turn to be on the Portuguese Orienteering Blog's tribune and the
first question is about Orienteering as a family sport. How important
were your brothers (and, maybe, your parents too) in choosing your
career?
Dušan Furucz (D.
F.) - I think family is always very
important in everybody's career. My father was a very good 800 metres
runner but ended his career soon after he moved to the adult
category. When I started orienteering, at the age of 10 and was
coached by Pavol Mesiar, my father supported me enthusiastically. My
brother Jan and my sister Ivona followed me shortly and, soon after,
my father had taken over our training group, focusing on the
Athletics' training method, balanced with a large amount of training
with map. I can't forget about my mother, as well. Can you imagine a
group of 20-30 children in our small flat before and after trainings?
(laughs) My youngest brother Peter joined us about 10 years later. He
was considerably younger. I can confirm that my best results were
reached when my family directly supported me on the competitions.
Would you like to remember one or
two decisive moments that made you adopt TrailO as your favourite
sport?
D. F. - I wouldn't say that
TrailO is my favourite sport. I'm still feeling more comfortable as a
Foot orienteer (I like longer distances, as Long and Rogaining), but
the reason for choosing TrailO is my family, of course. My brother
Jan is very committed to developing TrailO in Slovakia and “blood
is thicker than water”, so I'm helping him. After my first TrailO
competition, in the Czech Republic, I was a little confused because
it was too strange for me, but my opinion changed with the TempO.
Now, I feel like balancing on the edge of TrailO. Nordic style
competitions move me up and TrailO ones move me down. I have to say
that we are very competitive, me and my brother, and we can't accept
to be worse in any discipline. This is the main reason to improve my
results in TrailO.
When you first appeared competing at
the highest level – WTOC 2014, Italy -, the results achieved were
totally surprising for many. We now know that your performances
weren't a fluke and the world title in the TrailO Relay, achieved
last year, is here to confirm it. Where is the secret of your
success?
D. F.
- I've always been a better mapper than runner and I'm able to read
the terrain very quickly. I created a lot of maps for my club
Farmaceut Bratislava and TrailO is a kind of competition for map
makers or orienteering university for mapping techniques. As for
success? I don't think that I'm a successful competitor. There have
been some great results that may have caught me off guard (usually a
podium on the first days or when my chances of achieving a good final
result are gone), but all the time I had the possibility of getting a
medal, I failed. I need to improve on my skills, specially those
regarding focus. We get medals on the relay competitions because both
Marian [Mikluš] and I are team players and we usually serve
responsibly and perform greatly for the team in any orienteering
discipline.
What are the most important skills
for being a good trail orienteer?
D. F. - Good map reading and
visualization are the two most important skills. But there are two
other skills which provide a significant difference between average
and excellent results. The first one is to stay calm when it counts
and the second one is to understand what the course setter means on
two or three control points which make the difference. This is the
reason why my brother is better than me in the big competitions.
Please, complete the sentence: To be
a Trail orienteer in Slovakia means...
D. F. - To be a Trail orienteer
in Slovakia means to be a scout or pioneer. We are discovering this
sport. Orienteering is a small sport in Slovakia but I think people
know it historically, even from the time of Czechoslovakia. For
example, the name Jozef Polák is still well-known and I could keep
going with some other names. The TrailO is new and totally unknown
for the Slovak public. We are presenting it as an integration
orienteering discipline and we have to explain what TrailO is, but
the awareness is improving. The main difficulty is the number of
organizers. We need to improve it.
You're in charge of organizing the
European Trail Orienteering Championships next year. How is the
event's preparation going? Is everything under control?
D. F. - I hope that we are in
time with the preparation's schedule. We would like to end all
mapping work before summer. I finished the maps for the Relay and
PreO day 1 and I'm working on spare terrains now. I'm expecting that
the most courses will be done and checked by advisor Ari Tertsunen
this month. My brother is preparing maps for TempO and we asked our
well-known Slovak mapper Robert Miček to help us with the map for
PreO day 2, to save time for other activities. I have to say that I'm
also struggling a little with bureaucratic activities as Event
Director because it's a totally new experience for me.
What kind of event can we expect?
D. F. -
You can expect different terrains for each discipline, from flat in
TempO to high steep slopes in PreO day2. We would like to prepare a
fair competition with clear Zero tolerance and we want to be closer
to Foot orienteering competitors. You cannot expect tricky tight Zero
answers from us and controls with “between” description. I'm
expecting that distance between the Zero answer and the closest flag
will be more than 5m. You can find more information on our pages at
www.etoc2018.sk.
Other particular task is the IOF
TrailO Commission. How did you realize your nomination?
D. F. - I didn't expect to be
nominated and it was a complete surprise. There are a lot more
experienced IOF TrailO members, but I accept the position seeing a
tendency for fresh air on it and acknowledgment of our effort to
improve TrailO. I asked IOF for time to think about it but I finally
agreed. It's a big privilege for me to help the TrailO community. To
be honest, on this first year, I have to spare my time for another
responsibilities, too. By the way, I would like to congratulate you
on your nomination to the TrailO commission, too.
Thank you so much. Is Trail
Orienteering moving in the right direction? Are there some priority
subjects on which we have to work in order to have better and fair
TrailO competitions?
D. F. - It's difficult to
discuss the TrailO movement because I've only been doing it for a
very short time. But my personal opinion is that we must make our
sport more clear and transparent. It is not acceptable that other
people see TrailO as a very complex and subjective sport and one day
the answer is correct and the other day the same or similar answer is
wrong. In brief, we need to simplify the rules, not create problems
to the problems and finally, somehow, define the Zero tolerance.
Your brother Peter is developing an
amazing game called Virtual-O. Did you ever think of it adapted to
TrailO as an instrument for training?
D. F. - Yes, we discuss it very
often during our training and consultations. I believe that TrailO
courses will be part of VirtualO and we would like to use some live
presentations on his program in our European Championships, too. To
be honest, he needs more time for implementing all the features and
new maps. Do you know that he spent his last year programming and
left his job for this period? He returned to work in January and now
he continues programming during his free time in the evening.
The season has already started and
you were one of the attendants to Lipica TrailO 2017, for the
Unofficial European Cup in Trail Orienteering's first round. Are you
happy with your results?
D. F. - Yes and no. I don't like
urban TempO and I knew that it would be totally different from last
year's TempO in the forest, which I won. I tried to change my
technique, reading all of the descriptions and finding safe answers
but, in reality, I lost 60-90 seconds by reading, plus I made some
stupid mistakes finding some “creative” solutions. I have to
return to my old, quick style. The PreO competition was very tight
and I lost my focus on two controls. It was too much for a good
result.
The World Trail Orienteering
Championships 2017 will take place in Lithuania. Are you looking
forward to them?
D. F. - I hope to see a lot of
contour lines reading during PreO and especially in the TrailO Relay.
I am not so excited with the TempO, which will probably be urban
again. I am expecting difficult courses where you won't see winners
without mistakes.
How hard will it be to
defend your TrailO Relay World title? Do you have any other goals?
D. F. - I think that big
countries, such as Sweden, Norway and Finland will be fighting, as
always, for the medals and we cannot forget the strong Portuguese and
Italian teams. Croatia and the Czech Republic can be nice surprises,
too. Yes, it will be very difficult but we will try to keep the World
title. I will also try a surprise in the other disciplines.
Would you like to share your biggest
wish with us?
D. F. - I have two wishes. The
first one is more real forest TempO competitions than urban
competitions. The second one and my biggest wish is to win over my
brother in TempO on a big competition. I know and believe that I can
do it.
Is there anything that you would
like to add?
D. F. - I would like to wish all
orienteers in each orienteering discipline fun and fair competitions
in difficult terrains.
Joaquim Margarido
