Svetlana Mironova | Elite Orienteering Technique

Overview and analysis

The second day of the Mediterranean Open Championships moved the competition to the charming lakeside town of Torri del Benaco, continuing the opening weekend of the sprint season with another technical and exciting race.

Short, tricky, and intense

The second stage offered a short but very tricky sprint courses, including map flip (2 map flips in ME class) that forced runners to quickly adapt and stay fully concentrated throughout the race. The compact format meant that every second counted, and any hesitation could immediately affect the final result.

The terrain consisted of two main parts. The first section ran through the old town, where narrow streets and tight passages demanded precise navigation. The course included many circles, meaning athletes crossed the same area by different but looking similar streets from different directions, increasing the risk of confusion and requiring constant map contact.

But the course went as well to the park area with better visibility allowed for faster running but still demanded accurate decision-making at high speed.

We are also happy to welcome athletes from 15 different countries, making MOC once again a truly international meeting point at the start of the sprint season.

Results

In the Men Elite (ME) class:

🥇 Yannick Michiels (Belgium) – Turun Metsänkävijät – 11:04
🥈 Oskar Andrén (Sweden) – OK Tisaren – 11:41
🥉 Hirokazu Osaki (Japan) – Individual – 11:58

In the Women Elite (WE) class:

🥇 Vilma von Krusenstierna (Sweden) – OK Kåre – 11:48
🥈 Caterina Dallera (Italy) – Park World Tour Italia – 12:05
🥉 Martina Palumbo (Italy) – Gronlait Orienteering Team – 13:43

Look the life results HERE

Route choice analysis

Today at the 2nd day of MOC the course has both longs leg with the opportunity to increase the gap by fast run on the long legs and tricky parts with short legs through the detailed old town that test the ability to maintain focus even when the speed is high and the heart rate is approaching the highest zones.

Right from the start the course gives you very short time to go into the map and establish good navigation process: bigger scale (1:3000 in all the classes) always feels like everything happens faster than expected.

Second leg, the first route choice with minimal difference in distance but due to the turns can help to save up to 5 sec:

Leg 3, route in the middle (green) is shorter but going around is faster, in wider streets:

Taking short route to the 4th helps to gain some advantage:

The leg 6 right before the long leg doesn’t look like tricky but it is always challenging to control the distance in the scale 1:3000 and avoid running to far. Valter Pettersson who had a lead by control 5 by 8 seconds misses the control 6 and drops to the 3rd position here:

Since now and until the end Yannick will be in the lead.

First long leg to the park is important because there is a significant difference in the route choices and taking long option can cost 10-15seconds at least. Here we see that Marco di Stefano is taking the wrong route choice and loses around 15 seconds to the best splits and this is probably the moment where he lost the chance to take the 3rd place (Marco Di Stefano 12:01 +3sec to the bronze in day results):

Map flip at the 8th control with following route choice out of the park towards 9th control. The options are almost same so every second of hesitation is making the split worse. Those who do the map flip in advance have the opportunity to prepare the croute choice better and don’t stop at the 8th control:

Surprising splits at the second long leg back to the town. The left option is significantly shorter than the right with almost 30m difference but Valter and Yannick have almost equal splits here:

Some shorter route choices later on:

Leg 14 spread people and here is where Yannick takes the shortest route but misses a little just at the control point:

Control 15th, where many lose the time by taking the longer route left around:

Leg 16:

And right before the 2nd map flip, another not very obvious route choice that can be an advantage:
No one takes Blue, but left option is much slower than the central route with zigzag:

Then a block with not a big difference in between options but intense navigation process:

Towards the end Yannick is increasing the gap winning last 3 legs:

Maybe it is not a surprise that world top sprint professional Yannick Michiels is taking the lead again in the day 2 of MOC champs but there is definitely a surprise today by Hirokazu Osaki from Japan, who implements the course smoothly and winning only 3 splits takes the bronze in todays race!

Women Elite Class

In women Elite Class the course has the similar approach beginning in the old town, long legs toward the park and then back to the center again.

Longer leg to the first control gives a little more time to start a good contact with the map, but still challenging navigation in the area of the lake side due the extra cafes and kiosks that are usually appear unpredictably here and there on the weekend in such touristic places

To the second control the course gives the similar route choices as men’s course and we can see that runners take different options and execute it in similar time:

Leg 3 is same as $th leg in mens course, and good route choices here. Martina Palumbo takes the longer options and misses around 5 seconds on this leg:

In the first longer leg Martina takes longer right option (green) and that throws her back to the current 5th position:

After the map flip, the leg out of the part is same as in ME class, but participants take mostly right route choice and have better split of the right route:

Long leg back to the town is different in WE class giving advantage to those who make the choice to the shortest option. Caterina Dallera executes the fastest left option and gets very close to Vila von Krusenstierna after the long leg. Only 5 seconds divide them by this point of the race. The opposite, Martina loses time going on the right option:

Two short legs follows after the long leg:

Then another variation of the medium leg into the inner garden towards leg and smart decision to take the left shorter option:

Then a short loop with intense navigation:

Vilma increases her gap just a little bit during the short legs in front of Caterina but every small mistake could cost a lot because the gap continued being very small during all the second half of the course, and she finishes with 17seconds in front of Caterina. Martina Palumbo is +1:55 to the winner. Congratulations to the winners!

Livelox is HERE

Splits are HERE

And of course we are happy to announce that the courses of MOC champs are available for purchase from 9th of March! There will be no flags anymore on the terrain, but all the points are checked and you can enjoy the WOC relevant terrain here in Garda region.

And the MOC camp starts tomorrow! More great courses and more sunny days are forward. MOC camp package include 8 trainings (+2 courses from MOC champs) and will be available continuously until the WOC. More information about courses at MOC camp can be found in the bulletin HERE

Please contact PWT Italy for more information info@orienteering.it

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