IOF Athlete of November: Gaëlle Barlet

Massif des Bauges, Chartreuse and La Vanoise are three of the most beautiful natural parks of the Rhône-Alpes region, in eastern central France. Under their shadow lies the small town of La Rochette, where we meet one of the greatest MTB Orienteering world stars who, at the age of 27, has been crowned European and World Champion in Middle Distance. These and other stories are the core of a memorable conversation with Gaëlle Barlet, IOF Athlete of the Month of November.

Name: Gaëlle Barlet
Country: France
Club: SCAPA Nancy
Date of Birth: 5th February 1988
Discipline: MTB Orienteering
Career highlights: World MTB Orienteering Championships – Long Distance 4th (2015), Middle Distance 1st (2015), Sprint 1st (2011), Relay 4th (2015); European MTB Orienteering Championships – Long Distance 2nd (2015), Middle Distance 1st (2015), Sprint 2nd (2011), Relay 2nd (2015). World Cup 2015 overall – 3rd .
IOF World Ranking: 3rd.

Surrounded by impressive countryside of great beauty, working as a wooden house designer, living five minutes by bike from her job and sharing her life and passions with someone who has MTB Orienteering also as his way of life. What more could Gaëlle Barlet wish for?

“I’m a timber construction designer. In brief, my work involves drawing on the computer, in 3D, the wooden structure and the metal assemblies that make up the building. I work full-time, but I have the advantage of working just five minutes by bike from home. Once work is over, I can quickly go and train without wasting time in transport”, starts Gaëlle, in a conversation that will take us from La Rochette, where Gaëlle lives, to the top of the world.

– Do you feel the mountains and all this nature around you calling you constantly?

“Yes, the nature and the mountains to do the sports that I love! Mountain biking, road biking, and hiking when I’m tired! I also do cross-country skiing in winter. Right now I’m excited that the snow is coming! The advantage is that I can adapt my work-outs according to my plans, my condition and my mood. Even in winter I can go skiing in the morning and mountain biking on the plain in the afternoon.”

From Gymnastics to Orienteering

Gaëlle Barlet has been a gymnast since she was a little girl. Moves such as the forward roll, backward roll, cartwheel, handstand, bridge and back bend were part of her life for 10 years. And then she encountered Orienteering. It was in the year 2000. “My brother had started orienteering and I followed him two years later”, she remembers.

To add to her great flexibility, agility and strength, Gaëlle was progressively learning some other important skills: improving her navigational ability and tuning her map reading. This background brought her into the French orienteering junior team. So it was natural to see her in Dubbo, Australia (2007), competing for France in her first Junior World Championships and then in Göteborg, Sweden the year after where 5th place in the Relay was her best-ever result. And then she changed to MTBO. The reason was simple: “The choice was hard, but repeated sprains in my ankles made me realise that I couldn’t train and progress in Foot orienteering”, Gaëlle explains.

If not Orienteering, maybe… dance

– What do you see in MTB Orienteering that makes it so special?

“Contrary to Foot orienteering, MTB orienteering gives a real feeling of speed”.

– Is MTB Orienteering a sport that completely fulfils you? If not MTBO, what would be your sport?

“I think if Orienteering didn’t exist, I would have tried all sorts of sports without restricting myself to a particular one, except maybe dance…”

– Have you ever thought of stopping Orienteering?

“I just love running or cycling with a map so much that I don’t think about stopping. It’s amazing when I go Orienteering, I don’t realise the time or distance I am spending in the nature. In every race I just want to find the controls and do my best.”

Queen of Middle Distance

After the gold medals at the European and World Championships this year, Gaëlle Barlet deserves the title “Queen of Middle Distance”. To be in top shape when it counts is not a fluke, and a well prepared season is the key to success. Motivation is all you need: “The beautiful terrain of the upcoming Championships, the course setting, the great atmosphere at the international competitions, that’s what we’re looking for. We also try to vary daily the different types of training. It’s fascinating to experience different things and see the body’s reaction!”

Gaëlle remembers some of the most important moments of the year: “After the World Championships in Poland in 2014, I was very motivated for this season. Portugal and the Czech Republic both promised uneven terrain, which could suit me well. First I did my preparation work with “quiet” long trips on a road bike and some cross-country skiing, trying to vary disciplines in order to lose weight. In March, we had a training camp in Portugal to work on the Orienteering techniques needed on these terrains. Then, the training work was in parcels of three weeks each, with the training load gradually increased and eventually a week to recover. All my workouts were done on a slope, as interval training, in order to be effective on the uphills.”

Gold twice

– Would you tell me about these two gold medals?

“During these two races I was in a good frame of mind. I couldn’t complain about the physical training, the nutrition … And I was convinced that I had done my best in terms of preparation for the Championships. D-Days: I have to be concentrated on the present moment, I have to give all physically and I have to stay focused, anticipating constantly. I want to be regretting nothing at the end. And I must, above all, have fun! That’s what I felt during those two races and that’s what I’ll try to do in my next races.”

– Which of these two titles is the most significant for you?

“The one from the World Championships, because I really managed to discipline myself. However the race wasn’t won from the start, because I made a mistake at the first control and because of the weather conditions (I’m not comfortable in mud). Yet I managed not to allow myself to be destabilised by the race conditions and I stayed focused until the end.”

Grateful memories

The gold medals, both in European and World Championships, weren’t the only great moments of the season. Gaëlle Barlet remembers another significant one: “Yes, our victory in the Mixed Sprint Relay at the European Championships with Baptiste [Fuchs]. However, he wasn’t sure that we could run the relay together, as only one team per nation is allowed. Yoann Garde, Hana Garde or Cedric Beill could have been perfectly good choices by the coach. It was great to be able to run as a couple, but winning the title together was really a great moment. It will remain as one of my beautiful memories.”

I look now towards Gaëlle and it’s clear in her eyes that she’s eager to say something else, and I’m ready to please her. Veneto, Italy, August 2011. She gets the Sprint world title in an epic race, the six top athletes separated by a tight sixteen seconds. “It’s one of my greatest memories. I didn’t expect such a great performance that year, so early, it was a wonderful surprise. I remember well the waiting for the final result … I didn’t start in the Red Group, so it was a long, long wait”.

Baptiste and Gaëlle, hand in hand

After some great results by the French team the MTBO Elite Team, in which Gaëlle Barlet is one of the top stars, was set up at the end of 2014. “We created this team to be able to pool our skills, to exchange our experiences, and to try to improve and reach the highest level, but especially to work on the development of French MTB Orienteering. It is above all a group of friends where everyone has a role to play, and that certainly had an influence on our results this year”.

Baptist Fuchs – surprising silver medallist in Long Distance at the World MTBO Orienteering Championships 2014 – is one of the members of this special team and plays a special role in Gaëlle Barlet’s life. “I completely trust in Baptiste in terms of physical training. He has experience in this area. Thanks to him I have improved a lot over the past two years”, she says. And there’s something more: “I think Baptiste doesn’t expect results from me, he just wants that I enjoy the courses. That’s why I have to be in the highest physical shape on D-Days, and sometimes he motivates me to go training when the will is no longer there. But he never forces me to go, whatever the situation. Sometimes I think he might be more demanding but the fact that we are together in life prevents him from being more rigorous with me. We talk a lot about MTB Orienteering during the season: We share our opinions on the maps, terrains, how to prepare this or that race …”.

Three questions, three answers

– In what sense is being a woman a “disadvantage”, when talking about MTB Orienteering at the highest level?

“Since I’m planning to have children, being a woman can be a disadvantage, actually. I think it’s very difficult to get back on top one year after stopping, even though Hana Garde has managed to do that this year.”

– MTB orienteering and Mountain Biking are two distinct realities. Why is it so difficult to call people to experience MTB Orienteering?

“Mountain bikers love speed. When trying MTB Orienteering, the mountain biker is required to stop at every crossroads to study the map and take options. Most of them feel frustrated in a sport that isn’t 100% physical action”.

– Is MTB Orienteering on the right track?

“Yes, MTB Orienteering is on the right track. To be known, we need spectators. For spectators we need to be seen even in the forest. I think we should plan (in addition to tracking with GPS), a ‘show crossing’ in each race. A screen in the arena with GPS track and map background with shots from cameras in the forest. I think it has been done in the Czech Republic – in the Sprint it is a very good model for future competitions”.

“Portugal is just what I like!”

The World MTB Orienteering Championships 2016 in Portugal are the biggest goal for the next season. Gaëlle Barlet knows this western part of the European continent well, and to talk about Portugal is to talk of “beautiful terrain, great courses, top organization… the sun, the heat, hilly places, beautiful landscapes… Portugal is just what I like!”, she says.

The winter is about to come and the plan is set: “Cross-country skiing when there is snow, and some weight training, running and biking before getting back to the road bike when temperatures allow me to do it.”

– And for how long will we see you doing MTB Orienteering?

“Probably another year”, Gaëlle ends.

[Text and photo: Joaquim Margarido. See the original article at http://orienteering.org/gaelle-barlet-is-the-iof-athlete-of-the-month/. Published with permission from the International Orienteering Federation]

"Is Facebook killing Blogger?": Catherine Taylor's opinion

“Is Facebook killing Blogger?” During the last years, I've been worried about this subject and decided now to explore it with your help. Let my give you an example, a kind of starting point: We have in Portugal a webpage lodged in the Portuguese Orienteering Federation's site, which is called OriOasis. It's kind of a “mini-World of O” site, where 23 Portuguese Blogs and Sites are represented. More than a half of them are completely dead and only six blogs have articles published in 2015. Five of them have 25 articles overall published along this year. The other one, Orientovar –www.orientovar.blogspot.com –, has 390 articles published so far. Orientovar is my personal blog and I know what I'm talking about; but I also have to say that I have now around 80 visitors each day, while that number, three years ago, was higher than 400 visitors each day. At the same time, I can see that the “dead blogs” administrators, are still quite active on Facebook, which mean, probably, they moved their attentions from Blogger to Facebook in an almost definitive way. So, I tried to listen some top bloggers about this subject, having their feedback about five questions (the same for everyone). Emily Benham, Catherine Taylor, Mikhail Vinogradov, Lizzie Ingham, Hans Jörgen Kvale or Jan Kocbach are some of the bloggers that, during the next days, will leave here their opinions. Of course, you're also free to participate, leaving your contribution on the Portuguese Orienteering Blog's commentary corner. We'll certainly appreciate that!

Looking for the Portuguese example above, do you feel the same with your blog and blogs around you? Is this a problem for you?

Catherine Taylor (C. T.) - Of course you notice that some people post on their Facebook more than their blog or website or increasingly so. I think it's a natural thing to happen when there is a new resource available - people will adapt and use it! I think it's mostly a positive thing to use a variety of media to promote, discuss and share things to do with our great sport. It is a bit more difficult for those who do not have Facebook to follow, though I've noticed WorldOfO does also link to athletes' Facebook pages now.

Do you have an Orienteering Facebook page? Could you tell us about your experience in having both a Facebook page and Blog?

C. T. - I don't have a Facebook page as an athlete, I keep Facebook with just my personal page. But I can understand how it can suit other people to use Facebook as well as or instead of a blog or athlete site.

Is it clear that Facebook is a quick way to talk about Orienteering, but is it also the best way to promote our sport? Is the Blogger condemned to be extinguished?

C. T. - The best way to show the world instantly how beautiful and exciting orienteering can be, is with pictures and this is why Facebook can work really well - you get the pictures and then more story/explanation than you can fit onto Twitter. So it's great for that quick impression.

I don't think blogging is dying out at all! I think there is definitely still a place for reading longer texts that can tell a more complete story. Not everyone has the time or confidence to sit and write a full article but for those that do, there is still an audience - at least I really enjoy reading some nicely constructed writing. It feels like you can "know" the writer and their story a little better with longer posts.

Have you ever felt like stopping writing? Are you loosing the interest in writing and reading – and sharing! - about Orienteering?

C. T. - No, I enjoy writing and that's why I carry on! I haven't written in a while because I'm in the process of changing my small blog page to something a little better, but also because I'm not doing anything so exciting at the moment. I try not to force posts out of myself just because I haven't written in a while. In the new year, when I'm travelling more, I'll get going again!

Have you any general ideas about Communication in our sport that you would like to share?

C. T. - I'd say that if you're trying to reach more people than just a small audience of keen orienteers, it's always good to keep in mind that orienteering is full of complicated concepts that not everyone is familiar with. Think about how to explain things in a way more people might understand, or concentrate on the more universal aspects of sport rather than the technical elements. But it all depends who you want your audience to be! And some nice pictures reflecting your subject are never a bad idea :-)

Joaquim Margarido

"Is Facebook killing Blogger?": Emily Benham's opinion

“Is Facebook killing Blogger?” During the last years, I've been worried about this subject and decided now to explore it with your help. Let my give you an example, a kind of starting point: We have in Portugal a webpage lodged in the Portuguese Orienteering Federation's site, which is called OriOasis. It's kind of a “mini-World of O” site, where 23 Portuguese Blogs and Sites are represented. More than a half of them are completely dead and only six blogs have articles published in 2015. Five of them have 25 articles overall published along this year. The other one, Orientovar –www.orientovar.blogspot.com –, has 390 articles published so far. Orientovar is my personal blog and I know what I'm talking about; but I also have to say that I have now around 80 visitors each day, while that number, three years ago, was higher than 400 visitors each day. At the same time, I can see that the “dead blogs” administrators, are still quite active on Facebook, which mean, probably, they moved their attentions from Blogger to Facebook in an almost definitive way. So, I tried to listen some top bloggers about this subject, having their feedback about five questions (the same for everyone). Emily Benham, Catherine Taylor, Mikhail Vinogradov, Lizzie Ingham, Hans Jörgen Kvale or Jan Kocbach are some of the bloggers that, during the next days, will leave here their opinions. Of course, you're also free to participate, leaving your contribution on the Portuguese Orienteering Blog's commentary corner. We'll certainly appreciate that!

Looking for the Portuguese example above, do you feel the same with your blog and blogs around you? Is this a problem for you?

Emily Benham (E. B.) - I have certainly noticed many athlete blogs that are no longer active. It's a real shame because I think blogs provide a great opportunity for athletes to tell the story of their races, and other interesting things they've been up to. I also think, that in our small sport, it's a good place to promote sponsors in a small way. Society today tends to be a lot more 'here and now' than it was a few years ago, so race reports tend to be confined to just 149 characters on Twitter or via Instagram. I've always been a 'wordy' person, so I still like to write about my races on the blog (often in 1000 words or more!). In 2015 however, I was often quite slack and didn't write anything for a week or two post race - because I'd already done that work on social media. I don't think we've had less hits on our website, but there are definitely posts that seem to attract more readers. It's been interesting to note the difference between SkiO and MTBO in recent years. Both Hans Jørgen and I have been near the top of our sports, but we often had more hits for HJ's occasional SkiO posts than for my fairly regular MTBO reports. It's often struck me that more Ski Orienteers are using social media and blogs. In MTBO, the number seems to be far fewer - amongst the top ten women only myself and Susanna Laurila have blogs, but Susanna hasn't written anything for a few years. It would have been great to read about Martina's gold medals from her perspective; or Gaëlle's mistakes in the Middle Distance that still led to gold; or even Svetlana's fight for silver.

I also think an important role of the blog and race reports is to show to developing athletes something about our thoughts about races, our mistakes and our training. Giving others something to aspire to and motivated to achieve themselves will hopefully raise the competitive field in future years, and allow us all to develop further as athletes.

Have you an Orienteering Facebook page? Could you tell us about your experience in having both Facebook and Blogger?

E. B. - Our Facebook page takes all of our Twitter, Instagram and blog feeds, and promotes it on Facebook for us. I often forget it's there!

Is it clear that, being Facebook a quick way to talk about Orienteering, it's also the best way to promote our sport? Is Blogger condemned to be extinguished?

E. B. - I think there will always be a space for blogs. Interviews with athletes, and post race analysis 'World Of O' style. MTBO really lacks a site where all the blogs, social media feeds and websites feed into it. I'm sure if this were the case, and we had a 'go to' site to find all the latest athlete generated info, we would be in a better situation in terms of sponsors, promotion, athlete idols etc. I actually no longer see Facebook as the best way to generate interest in anything. Whenever I browse my FB feed, it's full of rubbish; people sharing videos that are often neither interesting nor tasteful; or lots of (very) opinionated political statements. There rarely seems to be anything happy and joyful there - mostly negative comments or news. I think people often click and view the things they are already interested in, so I don't see that we 'the MTBO community' can use FB effectively right now to generate interest from other users groups.

Did you ever felt the wish of stop writing?

E. B. - Not at all. I wish there were more blogs out there in the MTBO world to read. There are only a handful of users who post their maps to DOMA post race. It's becoming increasingly difficult to stay in the MTBO world and I often feel like we are just individuals who attend events, race and go home. Sometimes it doesn't feel like there is a community to support outside of events. We should be making a bigger deal of our national champions, we should all know who won the Russian sprint champs, or the Finnish long distance. Without valuing these achievements within the sport, it will become increasingly difficult to attract sponsors to support us: as individuals, teams, or event organizers.

Ultimately, that's what writing comes down to. The promotion of 'I' on personal sites and social media, and the promotion of 'we' on journalistic blogs such as the Portuguese Orienteering Blog. It's about allowing others a view into our secret world - whether that's friends and family at home, or a wider public who may develop an interest in following or participating in our sport.

Have you some general ideas about Communication in our sport that you would like to share?

E. B. - I've started getting into cyclocross this year. It's never been a branch of cycling I've considered before, but last winter, when fed up of snow and cold, I started watching their World Cup races and following the athletes on Twitter and Instagram. Every day, my feeds were full of the latest mud fest, race wins, and crashes. Videos were shared, cheering spectators thanked and more and more media and public interest was being generated. All of those factors made me think this was something fun to do, so I tried it. I'm utterly sh*t at it, but I finish with a smile under all the mud. The reason I've kept going back, just for fun, is because I am continually bombarded with CX posts on social media. Every day it's on my mind at some point of the day, much as XC is in the summer months and fatbiking in the winter, mostly down to those frequent posts. If it weren't for following these athletes, my feeds would be pretty empty, and I wouldn't find much else to be inspired by.

I would love to find myself inspired and motivated to do MTBO every day, through the posts of other athletes; to see the cool places they train around the world and the amazing trails that make me want to ride there too.

I hope that we aren't losing athletes after junior level because there are other interesting sports out there that are at the forefront of their attentions day in day out. I really hope that the next generation are inspired by MTBO thanks, in part, to the work put in by athletes now who are active on social media. We've made a start, but we can do a lot more!

Joaquim Margarido

"Course of the Year 2015": You can vote now!

From today, and during the next seven days, you are invited to choose the “Course of the Year 2015”. The World of O initiative offers you 70 courses, from different competition levels, several countries and even different Orienteering disciplines. Now it's up to you!

It's not an easy task. Indoor races in Stockholm or outdoor at Tasmanian jungle? A charming Sprint in Denmark or a tough Ultralong in Norway? An OOCup “ultimate” or a Vyborgskaya “troika” (which is another ultimate)? A Night-O Fight in Wroclaw or a 10Mila Long Night? A MTBO Long in Pilsen or a Ski-O Long in Hamar? World of O is offering, for the sixth year in a row, an amazing set of course, opening in front of our eyes and remembering some of the best moments of the season. But also those who remain behind the scenes, the map makers and the course setters.

The World Championships Middle Distance in Italy won last year's contest, and the two years before we had Portuguese winners: a spectacular Sprint between boulders and old buildings in Monsanto, during the Portugal O' Meeting 2013 and some great technical orienteering in the Portugal O' Meeting's 3rd stage in 2012, in Satão. In 2011 the WOC Middle Distance in France took the first place and the year before a very special Jukola Relay was the big winner. From today to next Monday, 7th December, you have the power to choose the “course of the Year 2015”.

Voting is done by setting up your “Top 5 List” based on the nominated maps. Based on all the submitted “Top 5 Lists”, the best course in 2015 is found using a simple formula: For each 1st spot in a “Top 5 List”, a course gets 100 points, 70 points for each 2nd spot, 50 points for each 3rd spot, 30 points for each 4th spot and 10 points for each 5th spot. The “Course of the Year 2015” will be found based on summing all the votes. You are only allowed to vote once (if several people share one internet connection, only one can vote, as the IP address is used to identify the voter along with the email-address of the voter). Among all people voting and submitting suggestions, great prizes from the contest's sponsors will be drawn.

The collection of maps nominated in the poll “Course of the Year 2015” can be found HERE. Now, it's just follow the instructions and vote at http://omaps.worldofo.com/course2015.php. Good choices and... good luck!

Joaquim Margarido

Ski Orienteering World Cup Long Distance: Victories of Khrennikov and Alexandersson in the farewell to Ylläs

Eduard Khrennikov and Tove Alexandersson finished in the best way their participation in Ski Orienteering World Cup 2015-2016's opening round. In a tough Long Distance, hardly contested, victories for this two giants, saying goodbye to Ylläs with the gold on their chests.

Like two long waves, first the Men and then the Women came in to the Ylläs snowed forest after an always amazing mass start. It was in progress the Long Distance, the last of the four stages of the Ski Orienteering World Cup's opening round of the season 2015-2016, in Lapland, northern Finland, hold this morning. In the Women class, Tove Alexandersson did again a perfect race, leading since the beginning and keeping all the time the Russian Mariya Kechklina and Polina Frolova at safe distances. In the end, Tove took her third victory in a row in this SkiO World Cup's opening round, registering 1:01:11 for a 16,2 km, 2:30 faster than Kechkina and with Frolova being third, with more 3:37 than the winner. In the immediate positions, three “home athletes”: Sally Koskela, Mira Kaskinen and Sonja Moersky. Sprint stage's winner last Friday, the Russian Tatyana Oborina started very well but did a couple of really big mistakes during the race, falling to the final 21st position.

In the Men class, we could watch an amazing fight between the Swedish Ulrik Nordberg and the Russian Eduard Khrennikov, separated by short seconds all over the race. Both did great performances, with Nordberg taking the lead for most of the course. The Bulgarian Vladimir Belomazhev seemed to be ready to fight for the victory since the very beginning but a tremendous mistake in the first fork was fatal for his goals. Khrennikov was stronger than Nordberg in the last section, with the Russian finishing the 23,5 km of his course with the time of 1:23:58. Nordberg got 13 seconds more than the winner. In the third, fourth and sixth positions, also three Swedish athletes, Martin Hammerberg, Erik Rost and Markus Lundholm. Tuomas Kotro, from Finland, was fifth, at 2:11 from the leader. Like Oborina, the Russian Andrey Lamov, Middle Distance's winner last Sunday, also saw him in big trouble after a good start and the result was a 24th final place.

Results

Men

1. Eduard Khrennikov (Russia) 1:23:58 (+ 00:00)

2. Ulrik Nordberg (Sweden) 1:24:11 (+ 00:13)

3. Martin Hammarberg (Sweden) 1:25:49 (+ 01:51)

4. Erik Rost (Sweden) 1:25:50 (+ 01:52)

5. Tuomas Kotro (Finland) 1:26:09 (+ 02:11)

6. Markus Lundholm (sweden) 1:26:12 (+ 02:14)

Women

1. Tove Alexandersson (Suécia) 1:01:11 (+ 00:00)

2. Mariya Kechkina (Russia) 1:03:41 (+ 02:30)

3. Polina Frolova (Russia) 1:04:48 (+ 03:37)

4. Sally Koskela (Finland) 1:05:11 (+ 04:00)

5. Mira Kaskinen (Finland) 1:05:20 (+ 04:09)

6. Sonja Moersky (Finland) 1:06:24 (+ 05:13)

Full results and further information at http://ensilumenrastit.fi/2015/.

Joaquim Margarido