SpringCup in photos and numbers

SpringCup 2009 as experienced by the Belgian team:

Liters of gasoil left in tank: 0

First outdoor meal of the year.

Number of team members with stomach problems: at least 4 (Jeroen x2, Thomas, coach)

First team to arrive at the event.

Number of ordinary Silva headlights in the front row: 2

(An approximation, blinded by the other lights)

First team to arrive at the event.

What am I doing here?

After the Vlaamse Kermis...

Van der Kleij: 39, Peeters 46.

Very fast...

...but just not fast enough.

Kilometers in the forest that day: 0

Kilometers by car: 0

First team to arrive at the event.

Jeroen will not be speaker at the Belgian 3 days, unless he gets a speaker position like this.

Changeover position: 13

Changeover position: 7!

Changeover position: 29

No photos of the final leg runner, but finishing 32nd.

New club found...

Springcup: starttimes H21E and D21E are published

On the official website from Springcup (a top competition in Denmark next weekend), the starttimes from the elite classes are available now. On friday evening a night relay will take place, followed by the classic race on saturday and the relay on sunday.

Startlist Springcup

In elite class a lot of strong runners are present, for example in H21E: Hubmann, Merz, Stevenson, Haldin, Tsvetkov, Holger Hott, Fraser, Ohlund, Sirmais, Lund,...
Also in womens class some strong athletes will take part at this event: Niggli-Luder (she's on the startlist, but injured), Soes, Söderlund, Holmström, Vröne Koning-Salmi,...
Also some other runners who are not in the list above will fight for the medals.

Also some Belgian runners will be present at this competition in the elite classes. Benjamin Anciaux (Belgium national team) is injured and replaced by Dries van der Kleij. Jeremy Genar (Trol Belgium) is sick and replaced by Adriaan Pelckmans. An overview:

Classic distance on saturday:

H21E (190 participants):
Quentin De Neyer BEL-Belgium Team 10:10:00
Jeroen Hoekx BEL-Belgium Team 10:33:00
Ken Peeters BEL-Trol Belgium 11:09:00
Jeroen Van Der Kleij BEL-Belgium Team 11:13:00
Desmond Franssen BEL-Trol Belgium 11:14:00
Thomas Van Der Kleij BEL-Belgium Team 11:15:00
Dries Van Der Kleij BEL-Belgium Team 11:41:00
Bruno De Lat BEL-Belgium Team 11:43:00
Wannes Hendrickx BEL-Belgium Team 12:02:00
Fabien Pasquasy BEL-Belgium Team 12:44:00

D21E (93 participants):
Vinciane Mulpas BEL-Belgium Team 10:16:00
Miek Fabré BEL-Belgium Team 10:26:00
Els Talloen BEL-Belgium Team 11:32:00

H20E (72 participants):
Adriaan Pelckmans BEL-Trol Belgium 11:53:00

H21A (54 participants):
Winston Franssen BEL-Trol Belgium 12:25:00

H40A (44 participants):
Noël Nijsten BEL-Borasca 12:26:00

H55A (30 participants):
Rogier Vanaken BEL-Belgium Team 12:07:00



Relay on sunday:

Mens open (106 teams):

88 BEL-Belgium Team 1
Fabien Pasquasy (11km)
Thomas Van Der Kleij (11km)
Jeroen Hoekx (7km)
Jeroen Van Der Kleij (14km)

49 BEL-Belgium Team 2
Quentin De Neyer (11km)
Bruno De Lat (11km)
Wannes Hendrickx (7km)
Dries Van Der Kleij (14km)

51 BEL-Trol Belgium
Ken Peeters (11km)
Desmond Franssen (11km)
Winston Franssen (7km)
Adriaan Pelckmans (14km)

Womens open (54 teams):

224 BEL-Belgium Team 1
Miek Fabré (7km)
Els Talloen (7km)
Vinciane Mulpas (9km)

Flemish district champs long distance

In the north of Belgium the disctrict championship long distance took place. A lot of runners were absent because of HOCup 2009 in the south of Belgium.

Despite the absence of many strong runners, it was still a very nice competition in Ravels. The weather was nice, the map was excellent, the runability was tough, the coursesetting was challenging, butterflies were created to make the competition more fair and all the controls were at the right place. Nothing to complain about.

The butterfly in the H21E-race

Again Ken Peeters:
In H21E class, Ken Peeters was the runner in good shape the previous weeks. He performed strong at the physical testrun with the national team and finished 8th at the half marathon in Leuven a few days ago.
Also today he ran a strong race, without any big mistakes he won the race 4 minutes ahead of a surprising Tomy Janssens. Tom Marien won the bronze medal ahead of his clubmates Wannes Hendrickx and Jo Linten. Winston Franssen was also fighting for the medals, but he ran the butterfly in the opposite direction, so he's disqualified. Also his brother didn't finish the race because of a knee injury.

Kol-women victorious:
Saartje Sallaerts is the new champion in D21E. She won by a big margin ahead of Kim Steegen and Els Put.

Results
Splits
Map part1 - part2

Yves Briers:
An other Flemish toprunner, Yves Briers, is living in Suisse at this moment. Today the first national event in his new country took place. The elite athletes ran a middle distance race (with winner Daniel Hubmann), but Yves prefered to run H21A (long distance). You can check his results and website below.

Results 1st National Suisse event
Website Yves Briers

HOCup 2009

If you've been following Fabien Pasquasy's training log the last few weeks, you know he's been working hard to organise HOCup in his hometown of Nismes. Last year's event was very well received and most runners were really looking forward to see what the promised unused terrain looked like.

Control 40

Unlike last year, when a sprint and a middle distance event were run, this time, the courses would be of the long distance type: the 9,8km and 500m climbing was certainly physically challenging and with 43 controls, it was also an orienteering festival. The new terrain was covered by course sections 4-11 and 14-25, legs 14-16 also giving a new meaning to the "slippery slope" expression.

The men's course was won by Thomas van der Kleij, by a large margin: with 1h20 he was 10 minutes faster than follow-up runner Joost Talloen, close together with Michel Bastin, Nicolas Sillien and your correspondent. Was the key to vdK's succes his shiny new car, last night's Bart Delobel style training, frustration caused by his second place in yesterday's MTB-O or was it just a clear sign of his top shape, in preparation for Spring Cup next week?

Winner Thomas van der Kleij near control 30.

In the women's class, Greet Oeyen was the best runner, also some 10 minutes ahead of a few other runners such as Kim Geypen, Miek Fabré and Els Talloen. Oeyen won last year's overall ranking at HOCup.

Both winners of the course in this terrain, with similarities to the WOC terrains in Hungary, still have to prove their track speed in the physical testrun next month in order to have a chance to be selected. Other runners, considerably slower today, did pass that test already. It will be interesting to follow that development.

To end on a lighter note:

Route from control 36 to 37

• Results
• Splits
• RouteGadget
• Map
• Photos

Uitslag MTB-O Kesselberg

De uitslag en de splits van de Slok MTB-O op en rond de kesselberg zijn nu beschikbaar, net zoals heel wat foto's.

Het verslag, door reporter van dienst Bruno De Lat:

Een prachtige lentezon gaf het startschot van de MTB-oriëntatietocht in het hartje van het Hageland. Aan de abdij van Vlierbeek, waar sinds 1838 geen monniken meer actief zijn, verzamelden 43 sportievelingen met hun stalen ros. Deze genoten allen zichtbaar van een uitdagende baanlegging op de hertekende kaart Kesselberg met bossen, woongebied en akkers.

In omloop 1 (23 km) zette thuisfietser Frederik Loeckx zich al vanaf de eerste post op kop en zou die positie nooit meer afstaan. De zichtbaar gelukkige H35 was tevreden dat hij de jonge generatie wist voor te blijven. Na de wedstrijd relativeerde hij zijn prestatie gezien hij mee de kaart getekend heeft en geen enkel padje nieuw voor hem was. De tweede plaats ging verdienstelijk naar Thomas Van der Kleij die verklaarde dat hij volgende jaar terugkomt om te winnen. Sam Deferm moest zich tevreden stellen met een bronzen plak.
Pechvogel in deze reeks was ongetwijfeld Stefaan Schutjes (9e). Na post acht raakte zijn ketting geblokkeerd en helaas voor hem was Lucien Wellens nergens te bespeuren. “Na een half uur werd ik volledig wild en was ik ambetant” verklaarde hij na afloop van de wedstrijd. De wildebras scheurde na zijn oponthoud en noteerde meteen 3 sterke tussentijden. Helaas voor hem was het kwaad al geschied en waren het enkel kruimels die overbleven. Bij de dames mocht Ewa Fiuk met de bloemen naar huis.

Omloop 2 (16 km) was een duel in seconden waarbij Peter Vande Loock aan het langste eind trok ten nadele van Herman Janssen. Meerdere renners vielen in deze omloop gedeeltelijk samen en konden via waaiervorming elkaar tactisch uit de wind zetten. Eerste dame in deze reeks was de ongenaakbare Kristel Mertens.

In omloop 3 (10 km) gaf Dunja Van De Riet haar vrouwelijke en mannelijke concurrenten het nakijken. Ze bleef 6 minuten voor Dries van der Kleij die de omloop al lopend aflegde.
Ongetwijfeld zorgden het lentezonnetje en de talrijke trappistenglazen op het terrasje voor een uitgelaten sfeer. Vic Vanderstraeten concludeerde alvast dat Kesselberg een kaart voor een BK was. Is SLOK in staat om dergelijke uitdaging aan te gaan?

Students race Leuven

A yearly tradition in Leuven, the students race attracted quite a few Slok runners for 21, 10 or 5 kms around Leuven. There were strong performances by Ken Peeters and Miek Fabré on the all asphalt tracks.

Ken Peeters

Peeters has already shown he is in a good shape currently, by being the fastest Flemish runner during the physical testrace a few weeks ago. In the half marathon, he finished in 8th in a time of 1:17:21. Your reporter also ran that loop, at a slower pace, 18th in 1:21:43. We originally planned to stay together, but I quickly realised Peeters was just too strong for me today. Note that Jan Gilot ran the same course in 1:11 a few years ago. Jimmy Baert, who participated for Slok in the Belgian University championship finished 13th in a time of 1:19:11.

Miek Fabré won the 10 km race last year, but she did not start with the intention of defending her title. Instead she chose to be pacemaker for Els Talloen. Talloen wanted to know if she had sufficient speed for the second physical testrun, due next month. Guided by Fabré, she finished in 7th position, in 44:37, which indicates she had the potential to pass the test. Fabré only started running fast the last 2,5 km and secured the second position she was running in at that time in a time of 42:53, some 3 minutes slower than het performance last year.

In the man's 10 km race, we had quite a few Slok runners. The first one there was Luk Peeters, 45:17. The Vanderzande brothers finished 69th (Tom) and 72nd (Raf) in approximately 46 minutes. Finally, there was Bram Boeckx, performing well by finishing 119th in 49:23.

Bram Boeckx

Whoopy Franssen finished 12th in the 5 km race, but she commented after the race that she was not satisfied with her result.

All results and the track can be found at the official site.

Fabulous Fabien Pasquasy

In Belgium 2 important competitions took place last weekend. On saturday evening (14/03) the runners participated at the Belgian night champs and on sunday (15/03) they were present at a national middle distance event.

Belgian night-o champs:
In class H21E Fabien Pasquasy performed very strong. He made only 2 small mistakes in a technical area and took the victory 2 minutes ahead of Thomas van der Kleij. Jan Oeyen took the bronze medal. Read the article about the Belgian night champs.

H21E: (7800m)

1. PASQUASY Fabien 0:44:11
2. VAN DER KLEIJ Thomas 0:46:05
3. OEYEN Jan 0:50:19

In class D21E Saartje Sallaert was in a close fight with Greet Oeyen whole the race. At the end Sallaerts made a big mistake (5min), so Oeyen won the gold medal. Sallaerts became 2nd and Ellen Omblets 3rd.

D21E: (6100m)
1. OEYEN Greet 0:54:24
2. SALLAERTS Saartje 0:59:00
3. OMBLETS Ellen 1:17:44

Results

Splits

Map (H40 - Vladimir Geldof)

Frank Buytaert, Thomas van der Kleij and Desmond Franssen at a middle distance training by coursesetter Peter Bleyens. Despite this specific training they didn't succeed to beat fabulous Fabi.

National middle distance event:
Today the 2nd Belgian national event took place. Everyone could expect a fast race in the north of Flanders. Both the terrain and the coursesetting (H21E) were very nice.

Fabulous Fabi showed again his great shape and won this race very easily. He ran an average 4'48min/km! His strongest opponent was again Thomas van der Kleij, but he lost more than 2 minutes at control 21 (H21E). A lot of runners lost time at this control, because it wasn't placed at the right place. Also at control 13 (H21E) the map wasn't totally correct (very fast average min/km towards control 14, because the distance wasn't correct).

At the end Jeroen Hoekx finished in 2nd position, only 1 second ahead of junior runner Wouter Leeuws.

H21E: (7100m)
1. PASQUASY Fabien 0:34:09
2. HOEKX Jeroen 0:38:08
3. LEEUWS Wouter 0:38:09

In women's class it was obvious that Kim Geypen is in good shape at this moment (see results physical testrun). Also today she won the race 4 minutes ahead of Belgian night champion Greet Oeyen. Catherine Hoofd took a good start this season and finished in 3rd position.

D21E: (5500m)
1. GEYPEN Kim 0:37:27
2. OEYEN Greet 0:41:43
3. HOOFD Catherine 0:42:31

Results

Splits

Map (H21E - Desmond Franssen)

Belgian Night Championships: No Surprises

Fabien Pasquasy and Greet Oeyen both got another Belgian title behind their names. Saturday night, the night championship took place on the very nice Orest-map 'Hechtelse Duinen'. After a mistake early in the race, Pasquasy did a decent performance with only some minor errors in the tricky open part. On the 7,8 km course, he was two minutes in front of Thomas van der Kleij. Night king Jan Oeyen was in third spot, 6 minutes down to Pasquasy.


In a rather small womens class, Saartje Sallaerts was leading until the last kilometer. But after a big mistake, only a silver medail was left for Sallaerts. In the end Greet Oeyen won with a 4 minutes margin. Ellen Omblets became third after catching up with 'coming star' An Fredrickx early in the race.

.: Results
.: Splits

Picture: http://www.worldofo.com/

Mountainbike-O Kesselberg

Op zaterdag 21 maart is er opnieuw een MTB-O op en rond de Kesselse bergen. De parcoursen zullen opnieuw zowel op oriëntatie- als MTB-vlak uitdagend zijn met stevige kuitenbijters, spectaculaire afdalingen en verscheurende wegkeuzes. De Slokkers leggen momenteel de laatste hand aan de herverkenning van de kaart en hopen jullie dan ook massaal te begroeten op de MTB-O seizoensopener.

Samenkomst: Café de Rozenkrans (pijlen abdij Vlierbeek volgen, lat: 50.892067, lon: 4.734807)

Start tussen 10u en 12u, EMIT wordt gebruikt

Afstanden: 20, 15 en 10km (vogelvlucht)

Er zijn geen douches, wel een (beperkte) afspuitstand

Als je van plan bent te komen, maak het ons makkelijker en stuur een e-mail met welke omloop je doet naar jef.boeckx@gmail.com

Belgian national team: physical testrun results

It's still early in the season, but yesterday the 1st important activity of the Belgian national team took place. The physical testrun is very important for the athletes to qualify for the WOC selection races in first place and to qualify for WOC2009 in second place. If they don't run faster than 45 minutes (12km for men and 10 km for women), the runners aren't allowed to participate at the WOC selection races for real (during the weekend 1-2-3/05 in Alsace).

Discussion:
At the beginning of the season several national team members started discussions about this selectionrule. Fast running on paths is just one single aspect of orienteering. This physical test could exclude strong mapreaders or powerfull (off-road) runners from the selectionraces, because they don't have enough speed on the road. Running on terrain is a whole different ballgame from running on pavement. It's even possible that training in the forrest makes you slower on the road, but which aspect is the most relevant for orienteering?
Specifity does matter, specially during an important selectionrace...

An interesting quote from Holger Hott in 2005:
"One difference between orienteering and running is that we run in the terrain and up a lot of hills. It demands a different kind of strength. Runners have a different "rhythm" and run with the same stride all the time. Orienteers have a lower cadence, each step is different, the push off* and surface vary the whole time and balance/coordination is entirely different. Speed is also much slower for an orienteer. Do you really need to be able to run faster than 35 minutes/10 km to be nordic champ in Notodenn? [Notodden hosted the Nordic Open Champs in 2005]"

Click on the photo to enlarge and see the detailed results

Results:
The male athletes had to run six rounds of around two kilometers (each round 30m uphill) and the female orienteers five rounds.

Men: 12km (180m climb):

1. Fabien Pasquasy        39'40
2. Michel Bastin          42'55
3. Ken Peeters            44'04
4. Quentin de Neyer       44'20
5. Jeroen Hoekx           44'28
6. Joost Talloen          44'31
7. Pieter Hendrickx       44'37
8. Guido Lenges           44'51
9. Thomas van der Kleij   45'10
10. Wannes Hendrickx      47'22
11. Robert Theiss         47'28
12. Hans Talloen          48'07
13. Jeroen van der Kleij    NCL
14. Dries van der Kleij     NCL

Women: 10km (150m climb):

1. Kim Geypen             40'29
2. Miek Fabre             43'29
3. Saartje Sallaert       46'17
4. Kim Steegen            47'20
5. Greet Oeyen            47'51
6. Vinciane Mulpas          NCL

At this moment 8 male runners and 2 female runners succeeded to pass the physical testrun. They can participate at the selection races for sure. The others still have a second opportunity at the end of March.
Hopefully strong runners, like Thomas van der Kleij (Belgian champion long distance - 2nd at the Belgian ranking) and Greet Oeyen (also 2nd at the Belgian ranking) will succeed next month, otherwise some of the best Belgian orienteers will be missing at the selection races.

Detailed results physical testrun 2009

Belgian season kicks off: Pasquasy and Tulleneers victorious

Today the first national event in Belgium took place. The place to be was 'Waterschei', well known for its slag heaps (terrils), in Flanders. Two years ago, the season also kicked off at the same place on the same map (article 2007).

Adriaan Pelckmans (new elite runner) and Yannick Michiels (1st in H18): ready for topresults.

In class H21elite, it looks like the results of 2007 are copied. Again Fabien Pasquasy took the victory with a big margin ahead of Thomas van der Kleij. Fabien took an excellent start and didn't make any big mistakes. Afterwards he told us that it was even possible to run 3'30 faster (without mistakes). Ken Peeters (who became 7th at the German night champs yesterday evening) became 3rd today.
Michel Bastin showed that he's in good shape and ran the 2nd best time, but he punched a wrong control during his race.

Results H21E 12500m:
1. PASQUASY Fabien 1:12:34
2. VAN DER KLEIJ Thomas 1:19:11
3. PEETERS Ken 1:22:21
4. TALLOEN Joost 1:24:15
5. VAN DER KLEIJ Jeroen 1:28:02
6. HOEKX Jeroen 1:28:26

Thomas van der Kleij (2nd in H21E) and Winston Fransen (3rd in H21A) discussing about their tactics

In D21elite only 4 runners took part. Kim Geypen participated at the Belgian cross country champs and Miek Fabre ran a short distance because of her injury.
The results in women class were very close. In the end Veerle Tulleneers took the victory, Greet Oeyen became 2nd and Saartje Sallaert 3rd.

Results D21E 7600m:
1. TULLENEERS Veerle 1:08:10
2. OEYEN Greet 1:08:32
3. SALLAERTS Saartje 1:19:42
4. ROGGEMAN Greet 1:43:05

Results
Splits
Map H21E (Fabien Pasquasy - 1st)
Map H21E (Jeroen Hoekx - 6th)
Map H21E (Vladimir Geldof - 23st)
Map H21E (Michel Bastin - DSQ)
Map H21A (Desmond Franssen - 2nd)
Map H18 (Yannick Michiels - 1st)
Photos (Jacques Grauls @ olomega.be)