Damir Gobec is, surely, one of the
most committed persons with Orienteering worldwide. His work at the
helm of the World Trail Orienteering Championships WTOC 2015, in
Croatia, remains a benchmark in terms of the highest standards of
technical and logistical requirements. Already in February, this
year, he was at the epicenter of another great event, this time in
Egypt. The Portuguese Orienteering Blog is proud to have him on its
tribune, recalling intense moments and talking passionately about the
future of our sport.
Time goes by quickly and the WTOC
2015, which saw you as Event Director, in our minds, seems to have
been so recently. What memories do you keep from those days in Zagreb
and Karlovac?
Damir Gobec (D. G.) - WTOC 2015
is something that I’ll never forget. It was a life experience from
which I learned a lot about myself, my friends, politics, marketing,
transport, catering and a lot of other things, not necessarily
related to sport. I also learned how we (WTOC team) work under
pressure. We learned that it’s impossible to predict everything
that can happen in a big organization like that. Many of us spent a
few years working on this project and it still remains quite alive in
our hearts. One of the big things (except for the technical part of
Event) we did was a huge picture gallery with few thousands of photos
and I often go there, remembering some particular moments. It's
interesting, the way you see the whole organization afterwards and
you’re able to enjoy every moment of it, saying that this is
something we are proud of and we did it right. Even the well-known
"mud day", from this perspective, looks like a special
moment which made our work even more interesting and challenging.
I remember a lot of nice little
moments behind the scenes, which kept us going from day to day and
night to night. The whole organization team is still full of memories
which will probably never fade away and we will talk about them for
many years to come. I think that most of the competitors don’t even
think about the amount of work which has been done. For example, we
spent more than 30 days just preparing paths for the first PreO day
and then we had a "millennium rain" which ruined all that
work. You cannot predict something like this.
Looking back on it with almost two
years of distance, how do you assess the event in a global way and
how satisfied are you with the final result?
D. G. -
I think the whole team can be proud of the work which has been done.
We know that we made a good job, the best possible at that time, as
we had to have on our minds that we stepped in much later than other
countries which were organizing WTOC. We learned our weak points and
we know that some things could be done better. We are also extremely
proud of our report which came out more like a book or Guideline for
future organizers and I hope that it helps future organizers to learn
even more from our experiences and mistakes
(http://www.vihor.hr/assets/iof_report_part_one.pdf).
In my opinion future organizers should
make the effort to be better than WTOC 2015, so we can all enjoy good
events and we should look forward to the Championships which make you
proud to be part of it. We should treat our Championships with honour
because, if we don’t do it, nobody else will. Something below the
standards which were set would not be good. We have to show the World
that we are part of sport community with developed competitions. WTOC
must be our show room.
How was the break or resting period
after the event? Did you think about giving up Orienteering?
D. G.
- I can’t say that I had a proper rest, as we continued our work in
orienteering. We are still working a lot with kids within the club,
we are working on new maps, new events. World Orienteering Day is
also one of the projects we accepted and we are developing it in
Zagreb.
Forgetting about
orienteering was something that was done in some days after WTOC, as
you can feel really tired after spending few years preparing
something really intense and, as Ivana and I were together in that
work, it is normal that we had tough times when we also had to deal
with our ordinary and professional obligations, not connected with
orienteering. Our escape was spending two weeks cruising around the
Greek islands and spending some time in Turkey on the coast, far away
from everybody and then we restarted all over again, thinking about
new projects.
One of the projects you took up this
year was the Supervision of the Egypt International Orienteering
Championships and the organization of a TrailO stage as part of the
event. Would you like to tell me about your experience in Sharm El
Sheikh?
D. G. - The supervision of
Egyptian International Orienteering Championships was more like
organizing the event. First, I was just supposed to help out with the
project, but, finally, seven of my club members, from OC "Vihor",
ended up contributing to a big, successful orienteering event. We
spent ten days in Egypt and made a three-day TrailO seminar for all
interested competitors, one PreO competition and three Foot-O
competitions (one WRE Event) and we also spent a lot of time
adjusting the maps for FootO and specially for PreO.
Sharm El Sheikh turned out to be a big
crossroad for Egyptian orienteering and, especially, for the TrailO
team. Working in different environments and with people of different
cultures is always challenging and we learned how time can be
completely irrelevant. We found out that the Egyptian TrailO team can
be very good. They are strong-willed, have some basic map reading
experience and now they have some knowledge. After gaining some
international experience, I believe they will be competitive even on
international level. You know that Croatia came out of nowhere at
WTOC in Czech Republic and there we picked up our first IOF medal so
I hope that this Croatian-Egyptian work will give us some new very
good results.
What does it mean to talk about
Orienteering in Egypt?
D. G. - Orienteering in Egypt is
taking big steps. Maybe even, steps that are too big, as they cannot
follow the needs of organizing International Events and they want to
make big events every year. At this moment, Egyptian orienteering is
developing within universities, Military and foreign schools. There
are lots of people keen on developing orienteering, but they don’t
have experience and knowledge on how to do that, and nobody from the
Federation can also help them as they are all new to our sport. The
only solution is to get help from more developed countries. Tamer
Mehana, President of the Egyptian Orienteering Federation, is trying
his best and we can see progress and we can see that Egypt is already
an orienteering country with national teams and International events
but still lacking knowledge and experience.
IOF support,
implementation and development of Orienteering in new countries
should be better and more efficient . IOF should not focus just on
World Championships and "big countries" which are taking
medals on those events. There would be no World Championships if
"smaller nations" didn't participate in such events and if
they didn't get support to develop. Of course money is always a big
issue and sending one or more instructors from IOF to the developing
countries, with paid flights and everything, could be a good solution
to it. Developing countries need everything, from basic equipment to
well educated people. Sending some old orienteering flags, compasses,
old organizing equipment, etc. would help out a lot.
What other projects do you have to
deal with this year and in the upcoming ones?
D. G. - This year we already did
one big project which was challenging, as it was in another
Continent. At the moment we (I’m always saying “we”, as my wife
Ivana is also working on all of these projects and, of course,
without the support of club members most of those projects wouldn’t
succeed) are preparing several Foot orienteering and PreO events. The
main focus at the end of the month will be on our orienteering
school, which we do annually and where we try to get as many people
as we can to our sport.
Afterwards we will have WOD in few
school locations in Zagreb. Last year we did it in three locations
with over 600 participants and this year we hope to add a few more.
Of course, in the meantime, we will participate on many orienteering
competitions. During summer we hope to be able to send a small team
to Lithuania, to help the WTOC organizing team. Developing our sport
in the region is also one of the things which are on our list of
priorities, so my work in the South East European Association is part
of that. This year, the SEEOC and the South East European Masters
Championships will be held in Montenegro and I hope that it also is a
major success for their federation and for the development of
orienteering within their country.
Working as an associate lecturer at the
University of Kinesiology in Zagreb, where I have the chance to teach
orienteering to future PE teachers, is also one of the important
steps towards better understanding orienteering and involvement with
orienteering within school curriculum in Croatia.
Have you already started working
with the Portuguese Orienteering Federation on the WTOC 2019'
Supervision?
D. G. - Just a few days ago, I
had a first contact with organizers of WTOC 2019. There were some
issues with venues and dates and they are still working on it, but I
hope this will be settled very soon, so we can start working
properly. Two years and few months until the Event seems like a lot
of time to prepare the WTOC but it is actually a very short time and
we can say that we are a little behind schedule. I hope the first
visit of SEA will be soon and we will then approve all the proposed
terrains and accommodation facilities, so we can publish Bulletin 1
two years before the event and just before WTOC 2017.
The next visit, the Assistant Event
Adviser (hopefully Ivana) will join me and we will check all the
courses and maps and this should be exactly one year before the
Event. So, in 2018, the organizers should be done with most of the
technical stuff. Some final technical adjustments, additional
advertising, promotion of Event and all other issues will be taken
care of in the last year of preparations. I know how much help my
team had from our Advisers Vibeke Vogelius and Lauri Kontkanen so I
hope I can be useful to the organizing team, even on the days when we
will push them to work better, harder, more accurately, more
precisely and more in advance.
How do you assess the TrailO in
Croatia currently?
D. G. - Unfortunately, TrailO in
Croatia didn’t develop much after WTOC 2015 as I hoped for. The
Croatian team is still very competitive and good but we are missing a
major step towards the development of this discipline within the
clubs. In my opinion there are too many discussions about how to
participate in ETOC, WTOC or some major Event, rather than how to
develop the sport and how to attract more people and foot orienteers
to try this discipline. Only a few are willing to spend some extra
time teaching others or organizing training and events in the
country. We are still the only club working hard to get more people
to try our sport and specially to TrailO. It’s somehow easier for
others to sit in the car and to go to the Event which is organized by
somebody else in the country nearby.
Would you like to add something
else?
D. G. - Orienteering is a great
sport and we all are like one big family. Wherever you go, if you
find a local orienteering club, you’ll get a warm welcome and the
help you need. This is really great. Most of those people are local
enthusiasts which are spending most of their free time setting
courses, putting controls in the forest, printing, drawing maps,
giving lectures and doing a lot of different things for orienteering
and for others.
In my opinion, we are still missing
support to all those people within the local community and within
national Federations and worldwide. If just every national elite
runner after his carreer gives back some small part of the experience
and knowledge he gained on the work of those enthusiasts, we would
all have more help and energy to move on developing our sport.
Joaquim Margarido
