The Norwegian Jorn Sundby is IOF WOC
SEA which means event advising at World Orienteering Championships
with TV-development as one key part.
Tell us about your work as IOF WOC
SEA?
– The mission is to secure the
quality of WOC-events. I have a SEA-assistant for all WOCs, and we
also have at least one national controller in our team. In addition,
we have different experts within the IOF we can involve in technical
details if necessary. The SEA is the main link between the IOF and
organizer. One main task is of course to make sure that the IOF rules
are strictly followed. Some IOF-rules are different from national
rules. We have to approve the solutions chosen by the organizers in
all areas, making sure that they not only follow the rules, but also
have the quality that we want for our main event. Fairness is the
most important guideline in judging all aspects of a WOC. Our aim is
to be a support and a help for the organizers (not only a
controller). Most WOC organizers do this once in their life time,
while the SEA-team have a lot of experience from
many WOCs. In many cases we know what
works and what doesn’t work.
Describe your work?
– I started working for IOF ahead of
the 2015-season, replacing Bjorn Persson. I had some previous
SEA-experience as Bjorn´s assistant at WOC 2014. Right now I have
the responsibility of the WOC’s from 2016–2018. Normally we visit
the host city once or twice each year in the three years prior to the
WOC. Every visit is normally three to four days. Beside the visits we
stay in close contact with the organizer through E-mail. For WOC 2016
it is a bit different, both me as the SEA and Unni Strand Karlsen as
the assistant SEA lives quite close to the area, so we are visiting
more frequently. We might just go for an evening meeting or a day in
the forest.
We spend a lot of time on the different
things that are different at WOC compared to a “normal” event.
This is often where the organizer needs support and advice. Very few
have experience with television, with the infrastructure needed,
demands for IT, and so on. The demands of an international event,
language, fairness for all countries is also new to many. Still, in
the end, most time is used on maps and courses. There are many events
at a WOC, and we want the best possible quality for the athletes.
What do you like with this job?
– Meeting organizers from different
countries and finding good solutions together as a team is very
rewarding. There are so many people who spend so many hours for our
sport, making these events happen. They all have this desire to make
their event as good as absolutely possible, and this is fantastic to
see. Especially I enjoy the early part of the event planning, when
the main concepts are made. To find an arena and a terrain that can
have world class courses, and at the same time give us a great
presentation on TV and for spectators. I enjoy the challenge of
trying to improve the standard of our events every year to the
benefit of all our stakeholders.
The biggest challenge?
– The biggest challenge is to find
the concepts that can fulfill all the intentions of a WOC. We need to
have world class maps and courses at the same time as we need world
class TV-production and presentation. This is often a challenge to
combine, many of the best terrains are often in remote areas with
struggling mobile connection no internet or infrastructure. The
athletes will be happy there, but TV Broadcast and presentation will
suffer. They need more infrastructure to be able to do their job.
Many arenas that have the necessary infrastructure for the forest
event don’t have the best terrain nearby, leading to compromises
that in the end neither athletes or TV are happy with. So it is
absolutely crucial that we search for the area where we both have
access to world class terrain, but also have the infrastructure
needed for spectators and media/television.
In such a big organization as a WOC
there are many different people with many different opinions. This is
often refreshing as it brings different ideas to the table. But
sometimes it can be very difficult when decisions need to be made and
it is impossible to keep everybody happy. This is a big challenge,
most organizers are volunteers and if they are not happy with the
decisions they may choose to do other things than organize a WOC…
So it is important to have a good and clean communication with all
the key people in the organization.
The sprint events are also a big
challenge. Held in an urban area, it is very difficult to secure
everything with so many people living and moving in the competition
area. You always seem to get some unpleasant surprises.
The financial part of the event is also
very challenging for most organizers, and it is sometimes necessary
to choose second best or third best option because of financial
issues.
Give us an example of an incident to
avoid.
– The most important is of course to
avoid incidents that makes the competition unfair or even cancelled.
The most important is to think about possible scenarios and have
back-up plans ready. So we spend a lot of time discussing potential
problems. What if the area loses power? What if a bus breaks down on
the way to the start? What if the competition maps get lost on the
way to the start? And so on. The WOC 2015 organizers were great at
making such plans. When a bus had problems on the way to the long
distance start, they had already thought about this and could make
fast decisions on what to do.
How do we prevent incidents as the
punching system fail in the World Cup?
– By having done proper testing in
advance with the same people, in the same conditions. It is very
important that the organizers have test events where they test their
systems (and people) in the same roles and with the same goal as in
WOC. When people have to do something for the first time at WOC it
increases the risk of error. People should have done their task so
many times already in tests that they feel safe and know what to do
during WOC. Many people were concerned about using punch-free system
in WOC 2015 after the failure in June, but the organizer had done a
really professional job testing many times and it worked well at WOC.
Who are you?
– I have a mixed background in
orienteering. I competed myself at JWOC and Euromeeting for Norway,
but I had to give up the national team early due to an injury. I
worked as the coach of the Norwegian junior team for four years, and
I was one of the assistant coaches of the senior team for four years,
helping the athletes with the technical preparations (maps, courses
and trainings) for WOC being my main task. So I know a lot about how
the coaches think, and how the teams prepare. Beside coaching I have
been working in media for the last 25 years. In orienteering I have
been an announcer for many World Cup events and also WOC. In
television I have been a commentator for the last 15 years, doing
winter sports, football, handball, and also some orienteering. I have
also been involved in productions from events.
For three years I worked full time for
the Norwegian Orienteering Federation as their event manager, this
included responsibilities in connection with WOC 2010. I have also
been a course setter for many big events, including many Norwegian
championships and also World Cup. I am a part time map maker, having
maps made for Norwegian championships and for local events. So I have
a very mixed background that hopefully can help the understanding of
all aspects of a WOC, and to find the best possible solutions.
Can you compare the big orienteering
events with other sports event?
– Our sport is very demanding to
organize. So many details are important for a successful event, and
this makes orienteering one of the more challenging sports to
organize. What makes it even more challenging is that we don’t
have a fixed arena, we pretty much have to build everything from
scratch every time. There are also big costs involved, especially for
mapping and TV-production. It is easier (and much cheaper) to put up
a couple of cameras at a beach volley or tennis arena than putting
several kilometers of heavy cables out in tough forest. One advantage
is that our maps can be reused for years after our events, for
everyone from elite to youngsters.
Orienteering organizers are generally
good in the technical matters of the competition, but many other
sports are much more professional in their work with presentation,
TV, sponsors and partners. In this area we need to improve.
How can we develop big events in the
future?
– I believe that we are moving
towards a more professional handling of our main events. This means
that some tasks will be done by specialists, who will do the same job
every year. This is already the case with areas like TV-production
and mapping, but also some other areas, like IT/time-keeping should
have a professional team who secure high quality every time. I think
this will benefit everyone, especially the organizers, as they can
spend more energy on the tasks that they have experience and feel
comfortable with, and they can sleep better, knowing that some of
their critical tasks are taken care of.
From 2019 the new system with split
sprint and forest WOC will start, and it will be very interesting to
follow this development. There are some challenges with it, but it
also gives us possibilities that we didn’t have before. New
countries, new areas can be used, and with fewer events during the
week it should be easier to improve the quality of the events held. I
am hoping that we can improve the financial side of organizing a WOC,
that would make WOC much more attractive and means that we can choose
from more and better concepts.
The TV-productions are moving in the
right direction now, with more and more countries buying the rights
for WOC. Hopefully, within five-six years, we no longer lose money on
our TV Broadcasts.
I also hope that the level of the
athletes continues to improve, hopefully we will have many countries
fighting for medals also in the coming years. I want us to give them
some WOC events that gives them positive memories for life, and as
long as I have this job I will do everything I can to make that
happen!
Photo: Erik Borg
