Orient'Show video

As you might have read, last weekend was the first Orient'Show in France. De Laatste Post was there, wearing both a Press and participant hat.

Overall, Orient'Show was a fantastic experience. The organizers did a major effort to make the event as media and spectator friendly as possible. It was a shame that only a few participants showed up.
But when these few include names like Thierry Gueorgiou, Damien Renard,
JB Bourrin and Fabien Pasquasy, you know the competitions will be tough.

The first event of the weekend was a middle distance. It was easily won by Fabien Pasquasy. The map wasn't that special, except for the far more contour lines than expected in this part of France, but the course had a few route choices in the final part. Something more interesting was the presence of a group of a school. Both the kids and teachers were quite interested in Orienteering. They had promo folders of the French Team and papers to get autographs of the "stars". Even we considered for a moment to go to Thierry and ask
his autograph, but when
thinking of our goal for the weekend (ie. be faster than Him at least once), we thought it wouldn't be that appropriate. Anyway, this shows
that the French
are doing some efforts in promoting orienteering and that it actually works.


The Orient'Show itself was the next event. It took place at a terrain close to Decathlon, a large sports store. It was a perfect spot for such a competition. Spectators were a few meters higher than most of the terrain, so they had an excellent view on whatever was going on down there. Problem was that there were hardly any (if at all) spectators from outside the orienteering world.

Most things about the Orient'Show are
already told. The most notable thing we can contribute is that we have a little video from the "great final" between Thierry Gueorgiou
and Amélie Chataing. Quality is rather low, but it still gives you an impression
of the speeds and map reading skills as well as the terrain.

Our own results were quite good. Out of 6, 4 made it to the 1/2 final and Thomas missed the final because of the slowness of his SI. Since we're used to Emit, where it's ok to be just close enough to the control, waiting for the beep is frustrating.

The last competition was the long distance in and out an old fort in Lille. This time, the map wasn't quite suited for a long distance, but you had to keep
your eyes open, since
you have that sprint feeling for more than an hour. Fabien's giant steps made the
difference and he won quite easily.

SPECIAL RULES FOR WORLD CUP 2007

At its meeting on 18-19 November 2006, Council decided that, for the 2007 World Cup, the maximum number of runners allocated to a federation be 8, and that the minimum number of runners be 3. Further, Council decided that the national quota be based on the total points of the
10 leading athletes per nation in the Federation League Table as published on 1st January 2007, and that each group would include 3 countries.
The allocation of places will thus be:
•Top 3 nations get 8 places
•Next 3 nations (nations 4-6) get 7 places
•Next 3 nations (nations 7-9) get 6 places
•Next 3 nations (nations 10-12) get 5 places
•Next 3 nations (nations13-15) get 4 places
•All other nations (nation 16 onwards) get 3 places.
In addition, Council has asked the Foot Orienteering Commission to provide advice regarding the implications of having 8 events (6+2 events in final round) count for a competitor’s total score.

This is a relieve for many runners. Many athletes were already planning to focus only on WOC in 2007 but now this might change again.

Never run straight

Imagine a leg through 2 types of forest, first forest is slower than the second one. The straight line has an angle of 45° to the contour line. But is running straight the fastest way? You can imagine that it depends on how much slower the first forest is in comparison to the second.

I give the results of some easy calculations.














Conclusion: NEVER RUN STRAIGHT if the speed in the two forests is different. It's easy to calculate in a fast way while running. If you think the speed in first forest (50%) is 2 times slower than second forest (100%) you should aim at about 50% of the angle between red line and contour line.

Run fast but think even faster.

Tom Herremans and Wim Peers no longer member of national team

Two of the best orienteers we have in Belgium are no longer member of the national team.

Both of them decided not to be a candidat for 2007 for personal reasons. Wim had some knee-injuries and will focus more on mountainbiking while Tom will move to Italy and focus more on familylife.
Both runners are 30 years old now... We definitely expect a comeback of them sooner of later.

Mat(h)s in orienteering

The first picture describes the runnability of the forest(IOF.org) But which is the best route choice? I have always been wondering what would be the fastest direction to run in when heading towards a path with runnability of 100%. Not Mats Troeng or Mats Haldin will give the answer, but some simple Mathematics.
It wasn't that difficult to calculate. Pythagoras helped me a little bit.
The results were a little bit surprising to me.(0° is straight towards the path)

The best angle to run towards a road when running in white forest (90%) is about 60°. When runnability is 70% the best angle is 45 degrees. When the speed is reduced to 20% the best angle still remains 10°.

Will this affect the way of orienteering ... do you trust more on your orienteering instinct than on Pythagoras?

New orienteering video

It seems the Belgian media is more and more interested in orienteering... after a comic video about orienteering last weekend on the national television, the francophone regional television channel Télé Bruxelles broadcasted a promotion video about orienteering during the 3-Day competition of the 'Zoniënwoud' around Brussels. Jean-Noël Debehogne and Johan Goubeau explain everything about orienteering and what you need to do it...

Orienteering VIDEO

The public television of Belgium makes every week a report on a sport which is not that popular. Orienteering was the subject of this week.
First is explained what orienteering is about, after that a belgian humorist is trying it out, but this doesn't work out that well. It end up in a kind of "blair witch project"-story.

There's a link to the video at the flemish orienteering federation website:
www.orientatie.org. you can choose between high quality (=hoge kwaliteit) and low quality.
enjoy the video.

Orienteering in Belgium - Sylvester 5 days

Fancy a trip that has more to offer than just orienteering? Then Belgium is the place to be!

With the fantastic new tool WoO Calender available on World of O it’s time to plan you Christmas Holidays!

The Sylvester 5 days are held every year between Christmas and New Year in the northern part of Belgium. It is an organization from Flemish and 1 Dutch clubs.
With the Scandinavians training in the snow, there will probably be no snow for this event.
Some years we have had a little bit snow, but never enough to keep the runners out of the forest!

You can’t expect very technically difficult maps in an area like Flanders, but the high running speeds combined with a lot of paths will still be a challenge. Some of the maps will have tricky sand areas as well.
It will be fast definitely, with the elites probably running under 5’/km some days, so it's definately good speed-training!
Some of Belgians top elites will be racing there. Usually there are a few international runners present and last year's M21 field was made up of 30 runners.

Besides the orienteering there is a lot to see and taste in our country :

A lot of tourists come to Belgium for our beautiful cities, and cities like Antwerp, Brussels (see picture), Gent, Leuven and of course Brughes are less then 2 hours by car or train and definitely worth a visit!


Belgium is of course famous for our great beers and chocolate. I haven’t been to many orienteering events in other countries where people are drinking strong beers like Leffe after their race :)


Belgium is pretty central in Europe and has very good transport possibilities. Ryanair has an airport in Charleroi and the airport in Eindhoven, Netherlands is even closer to the races. Trains and buses can bring you close to the competition areas from the airport within 2 hours.

The national airport near Brussels, also offers quite cheap flights to Brussels (Try SN Brussels Airlines, Virgin,...)

The website of the event has some suggestions about accommodation.
Because Belgium is so tiny, most orienteers just drive from home every day, so there won’t be a camping site or sports hall or so were everybody stays.
Looking at the maps that they will use, staying near the city of Hasselt probably is a good idea if you would like to have some entertainment as well. (shops, restaurants, cinema…)

If you can’t hire a car, staying near Leopoldsburg is probably your best option as a lot of orienteers live near that little town and you could try to arrange a lift beforehand. There is however not so much to do....

If you still want to spend Christmas at home, you can decide to skip day 1, as only the 4 best results of the 5 days count and travel on the 26th.

Entries have to be made before 2/12. Entry fee is only 20 euro for 5 days of orienteering!!

If you have any questions about this event, add a comment to this post or contact the organizers from the event’s website!

Herr Seele gaat orientatielopen

Aan mediabelangstelling heeft sport in het algemeen geen gebrek. Maar de momenten dat kleinere en minder bekende sporten aan bod komen, zijn toch eerder schaars te noemen. Dit weekend was het nog eens zo ver: een verslag over orientatielopen in het programma Vlaanderen Sportland.
Op de één-website wordt de reportage als volgt aangekondigd: 'Vrijdag is het tijd voor Herr Seele! Hij bezoekt sportevenementen en belicht alles in zijn eigen stijl. Herr Seele ziet er misschien niet meteen sportief uit, maar stille waters hebben diepe gronden!
Herr Seele is soms het noorden een beetje kwijt. Gelukkig kan hij rekenen op de hulp van enkele doorwinterde oriëtatielopers! Herr Seele doet mee aan een oriëntatiewedstrijd en hopelijk vindt hij de weg naar huis nog terug.'

De reportage begint in de omgeving van een mooi kasteel waar Herr Seele en de voor ons bekende Yves Briers gezellig een praatje maken. Yves vertelt ons in mooi Nederlands wat orientatiesport juist inhoudt en hoe het ontstaan is. Na deze korte inleiding is het de beurt aan Herr Seele om de sport zelf eens uit te proberen. Hij verandert van tenue en verschijnt in knalrode overall aan de start. Hier wordt hij eerst nog wat bijgestaan door Miek Fabre waarna ze elk hun eigen weg vervolgen.

Enige tijd later zien we een spurtende Miek aan de finish verschijnen, terwijl er van Herr Seele nog lang geen spoor is. Nu blijkt dat onze kale reportagemaker vermist geraakt is en men achteraf enkel zijn camera terugvindt (het concept gebasseerd op de film The blair witch project). Op deze camera krijgen we dan nog enkele beelden te zien van de straffe verhalen die Herr Seele onderweg allemaal meegemaakt heeft.

Naar mijn persoonlijke mening was het een goed initiatief van VVO om Herr Seele (na de initiatie op het eilandje) nogmaals te contacteren om orientatielopen in primetime op de beeldbuis te brengen. Het is sowieso reclame voor onze sport en heel wat mensen gaan dit gezien hebben. Ik vind het wel jammer dat er niet meer van het competitieve en de wedstrijd te zien is om zo toch een juister beeld van orientatielopen te verkrijgen. Er kwamen weliswaar enkele lopers, wandelaars (het recreatieve aspect van onze sport), de start, kaart en kompas in beeld. Maar toch, het is Herr Seele zijn keuze om absurde televisie te brengen en zich meer te focussen op boomknuffels, konijnenpijpen en opvallend outfits.

Dus is het nu aan onze site om de winnaars nog eens in de kijker te plaatsen: proficiat aan Jeroen Hoeckx en Mieke Fabre met hun universitaire titel. En voor wie het programma gemist heeft; zondagavond 5 november om 17u35 wordt het nogmaals heruitgezonden.

don't trust the sun

Of course it is possible to orienteer on almost any map, but it is much more enjoyable to use maps made specifically for orienteering.
Most of the characteristics of orienteering maps are related to those found on hiking and general use maps produced by the government. However, one feature of orienteering maps is specific our sport: the north lines. These are parallel lines drawn running from magnetic south to magnetic north, and are spaced 500 meters apart on the map.

Luckily north lines on orienteering maps aren't drawn pointing to true north. The angle between magnetic north and true north (the declination) varies widely in different parts of the world, and because orienteers use compasses to orient themselves (to magnetic north, not true north), it has become the standard to provide a series of reference lines on the map so that it is easy to use an orienteering compass to take a bearing.

Pasi Ikonen is one of the best orienteers who is running without a compass. But what happens if he would orienteer himself on the sun in Brazil?
The sun is in the geografical north at noon, But the north of the map isn't. This map gives the declination differences in the world.

For Brasil (Paraná): the location of the Military World Championships next week, we find a declination of 15°. In New Zeeland you can find a declination of 20-25° while moest of western Europe has a declination lower than 5°.





If we take an example for Brasil (Pinhao), declination 15°, what would be the deviation over 100m?











If you run 100m in wrong direction you would end up 26meters from the control . To correct this you have to run 26meters in 82,3 degrees (slightly backward ).

Conclusion: don't trust the sun.