”It’s all about the adventure in the end, the way it shapes your lifestyle and the memorable moments along the way. While achieving sporting success can be exhilarating, the true value lies in how it enriches your everyday life and gives you something to look forward to, preventing it from becoming monotonous.” – Nathan Fa’avae, 2023

My fourth World Orienteering Championships project, WOC 2023 Flims-Laax Switzerland, has now concluded.  My previous WOCs were in 2014, 2015 and 2018.  Was this the last?

I wanted the WOC 2023 journey to be enduring, memorable and ultimately fun.  To achieve this, I asked The King of Adventure, Nathan Fa’avae, to offer his mentorship.  He kindly accepted and offered advice necessary to solve the WOC performance-puzzle.  It is because of Nathan I can walk away from WOC 2023 satisfied.

Ok, I had higher hopes for the Middle Final and I had the level to be in the top 20.  It was extremely demanding terrain, both technically and physically, I hadn’t trained enough in hot conditions, and I wasn’t quite expecting the terrain to be as tough as it was.  I would not have changed the preparations in any way – they were optimised through the course of meticulous planning, so I accept my performances for what they were.

I said to myself on many occasions that the race itself did not really matter, that should it go not as I hoped, I would not dwell on it.  WOC 2023 and the journey towards it was an enriching experience.  I had the privilege of sharing it with many and had plenty of opportunities to Move Through Nature, both in NZ and Europe.  MTN (also the company established for the project) is a concept that has really resonated with me the last year and will be how I remember WOC 2023.

The Team

In recent times I have realised how simple the ingredients are to happiness – to have a purpose (even something as arbitrary as a race such as WOC), to be in good health (hence why I completely stopped all drinking last year), and to share experiences with people (to be part of a team).  The WOC 2023 project generated countless happy memories in large part because of the people.  I have named a few below but there are so many more who have been with me and contributed to where I am today.  I can quite easily say that WOC 2023 was the best WOC I have been to.

• Nathan Fa’avae – such an inspirational person and I have learnt so much from his guidance the last 6 months.  We are lucky to have him in Nelson/Tasman and it is so cool to now see his son, Zefa, performing at a very high level in the junior ranks.
• NZ WOC team – we had a great team this year, a very fun mix of personalities and experience.  Specifically, I want to thank the NZ officials – Florian Schneider [Flo] (with team mascot, Neve) and Malcolm.  Flo came to us last year, challenging the NZ HP group to a higher level of professionalism.  He is an incredible coach (as he is an athlete) and went over and above to make sure we had everything we needed.  If NZ is to reach even greater heights in the World of O, then people like Flo will be absolutely critical.
• Toby – we worked closely in the weeks before WOC to ensure we were both in the best shape possible.  It was awesome fun to get some positive feedback a week out with a 1^st and 2^nd in the Italy 5 Days.  To see him crush the Long distance at WOC was awesome. 
• O Clubs – NOC, NWOC and OK Linné, just amazing clubs to belong to, so many incredible and inspiring people.  It was special to have many of them at the races.
• Sponsors – La Sportiva NZ and Str8, premium products that made all the difference.
• and of course, my family, especially mum, dad and Helayna!

The Preparations

For WOC 2023 I was as prepared as I could have hoped for.  June went very well – I quickly recovered from travelling and the resulting jetlag, largely thanks to Kate and Razz offering a room in their lovely apartment.  I then enjoyed “pro” life for the weeks prior to WOC with some great training camps in Switzerland and Italy.  I took all the learnings from previous WOC campaigns and made sure no mistakes were repeated.  Even before the European part began, I felt prepared, having spent countless hours studying old maps and drawing theoretical legs and courses. 

Upon reflection, I learnt that even with near perfect preparations there is another level to WOC racing compared to less significant races.  The emotions and expectations, the hype, the fact that it is the World Champs requires a certain composure one can only obtain through repeated racing at the very highest level (World Champs, World Cups etc.).  As I learnt 2018, you cannot have great preparations and then expect even an “average” performance, simply because of the emotional demands – this always reduces your level.  The best are the best, because they have learnt to manage this successfully through repeated experience.

WOC Middle

The Middle distance has always been my favourite O discipline.  Perhaps due to the greater success I have had at this modality, especially as a junior.  The combination of high technical demands and speed through terrain, I think is extremely fun and rewarding when you get it right.  The goal race at WOC 2023 for me was therefore the Middle.

The Middle at WOC comes in two parts – first you must qualify for the final and then you must perform in the final. 

The Middle Qualification went good enough, but a little closer to missing out than I expected finishing 13^th in my heat.  After a few mistakes, I began to truly appreciate the challenge of orienteering at speed in this Flims terrain.  But of course, the first goal of any qualification is to qualify, which I did and so was very relieved.  It was nice to see Tim and Lizzie qualify, and for Jo, Kaia and Amelia to be so close!  Jo’s performance I particularly admired as he was up the night before vomiting, suffering the consequences of what we suspect was heat stroke.

The Middle Final was very hard, the most brutal middle distance I have ever run.  I knew it was going to be technical, but I was shocked by how rough the terrain was.  There were numerous thinning’s and fallen trees which made just running through the terrain very challenging.  I felt good before the start and proceeded with my strategy to attack aggressively out of the blocks, like I would any championship race.  I had control and was going well, but I was too much on the edge.  I kept falling over and not investing the appropriate time towards reading the map.  The heat didn’t help.  I don’t know what happened as I got to the control circle; it was my plan to see the big depression with the 2 u-depressions in it.  But for some reason the correction left never took place, and I had to relocate out on the track losing 2 minutes.

One part of the mistake I now attribute to the mental delay for interpreting complex maps.  The topography in Flims is insanely random, a cluster fuck of contours and rocks, the hummocks of an ancient landslide.  The mapping of this is special as significant generalisation needs to take place.  I compare it to Rowdy Flat in Victoria, Australia.  The implication for an orienteer, is that relating the map to terrain takes longer as what you see in the terrain is not necessarily what you expect to see from the map.  The map-to-terrain “fuzziness” is increased.   I had clearly not mastered the technical challenges at race speed – a more conservative start would have been prudent, but that’s not how I like to orienteer.

After the mistake, I was “a bit sad” especially as Lauri Sild came through me.  I made a stupid route choice to the 4^th, then it was kind of ok after that, but the middle-distance flame had been extinguished.  The ending was sadistic and played into the hands of the true beasts of the day. 

There were plenty of emotions at the arena, clubmates Jannis Bonek taking a historic bronze for Austria, Albin just missing out on a medal.  The theatre of sport is awesome.

A detailed analysis of the best in the Middle Final is available at World of O.  The graphic below clearly shows my mistakes with the first two humps (controls 1 and 18) and then performing consistently at a lower level for the remainder of the course.  If I hadn’t missed the first control, I would like to think the story could have been much different.

WOC Relay

The relay was a nice way to end WOC 2023.  With the team selected; Toby 1^st, Me 2^nd and Tim 3^rd we had a very strong team.  In the end we finished 15th and were the first commonwealth team. I had a solid race apart from the 14th control where I didn’t have any map to read as I had damaged it earlier in the race. I improvised to find the control but unfortunately the gamble didn’t pay off and I lost 2 minutes.  Without this, a slightly better starting position (Toby started right at the back as we missed WOC 2021 due to COVID), and removing a couple of Tim’s minor mistakes a top 1O was possible!

And now…

I have a few more races (Oringen, World Cup 2 – opportunity for redemption) and then Kate and Razz’s wedding before heading home.  I am looking forward to planning the next adventure and getting back into the NZ MTNs!  Hope you enjoyed following the World Champs and reading this report.