Svetlana Mironova | Elite Orienteering Technique

Yesterday at the World Cup one of my favorite disciplines took place – Long. Let’s see what the strongest showed and make conclusions.

Immediately after the short straight run to the first control point, the first serious choice of option was offered. The leg is similar for both men and women, only with a slight shift. There are options to go around from the sides, as well as go relatively straight:

And the opinions of the participants were divided. However, we see that neither option has a clear advantage, although the straight line was still a little faster for men. And for women, the left option looks slower:

The next significant choice of route was the reverse diagonal stretch, and now the men had these same hills more across. We see a wide variety of options, but the best ones again fall almost second to second: straight (Fosser), forehand (Ojanaho) and right-but-clipping (Basset and Kirmula). And those who switched from the straight option to the right option to get around the last hill have a longer time.

For women, the leg is quite different, and the last high hill lies here radically across the path. The majority of participants still decide to cross it, but only halfway, using a small path under the main peak. This option is also preferred by the athletes who took 1st and 2nd place in the final protocol (Tove Alexandersson and Sara Hagstrom) – A full bypass for women loses on both the right and left, as does the implementation through the top:

“Every long has a little bit of middle.” A beautiful section of the course with smooth shapes, which was great for those who stayed close to the red line and felt at ease there.

The next long leg, which slightly surprised me when I first saw it, assumed direct and only direct implementation. There was absolutely no point in thinking about a detour on such a stretch. After passing through the arena, refueled and received a dose of adrenaline from the audience, the athletes went to the zone of flat and smooth forms:

As you can see from the splits, the top 10 times do not differ by more than 50 seconds, and the paths literally follow the red line.

Well, for dessert, the organizers offered a wonderful long stretch, which made many think: “Which is more tired, the head or the legs?”

Which would you prefer? Two options immediately catch your eye: top and bottom, however, both options are possible… I must give credit to the planner Erik Sandbæk, I did not expect such accuracy of his calculations at all: the two best splits for both men and women were on different options, but with a difference of only about 10 seconds!

This long became special in that completely different options did not provide a clear advantage, and therefore those athletes who were able to purposefully and cleanly cover the entire distance, without getting carried away by sudden detours, ended up at the top of the protocol.

Top 10 in both Women’s and men’s classes looks like that:

Results are here.

Thanks Worldofo for a great tool for analysing – 3drerun!