maptalk.co.nz Forum   |   Links    

  Forum

Forum Home   Start New Topic   Edit Profile   Register  

1   2   3   4   5  

Legend Following

Show Profile  HeadHoncho Posted: 31 August 2007, 11:34 AM  
Off the other thread, lets stir some shiz and get the classic following stories down in one place.

There's the Australian at WOC 1997. And the Italian at a World Cup in 1994. There were some in 2005 I do believe. And we won't bring our skeletons out of the closet as the bag of bones I think reads the forum.

I'm a bit out of touch. Any recent ones? I know Greg Flynn doesn't follow because he wouldn't be able to keep up with a snail.

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 31 August 2007, 12:00 PM  
I heard Riki was a legend at following. And Alistair Long. Sound like sour grapes to me.

Show Profile  James Posted: 31 August 2007, 12:32 PM  
i followed jager in the last 1/3 of the course in the long race at Queens birthday. I was doing well to hold on. Too bad he stuffed up so bad at the start, he could have won!

Show Profile  Greg Posted: 31 August 2007, 1:09 PM  
Honcho you couldn't keep up with me even if you were on your unused mt bike.

Dave Stewart and the tow he got at Oz champs 99 goes down as one of the best following efforts I've witnessed

Show Profile  onemanfanclub Posted: 3 September 2007, 5:05 AM  
WOC 2005, women's long race. Gold medallist saw rather a lot of silver medallist (who is now a designated "friend of NZ orienteering", so I won't name her). One of the possibly biassed Swiss journos told me towards the end, gold medallist even purposely took a poor route choice option to try to get silver medallist to peel off. Didn't work. Mind you anyone who can hang on to SNL for 2/3 of a course in Japanese terrain probably deserves a medal of some description!

Show Profile  ACW Posted: 3 September 2007, 5:49 AM  
Old stuff

WOC 99 in Scotland - I think it was the Long Final. A Polish female runner, stopped and waited at the first control for the next runner (a very good one) to appear and then stuck to her for the rest of the race. There was going to be an official protest but it wan't pursued.


An Austrian Martin Brantner won a World Cup Race in Italy in the early 90's, but probably deserved it after catching a top Norwegian at the first control and then staying with him the rest of the way. By all accounts is was a crazy race, either bingo orienteeing or just too technical for the world's best. Caused a fair bit of controversy at the time. Did you run Alistair L?

Show Profile  Jenni Posted: 3 September 2007, 6:05 AM  
Seeing Al's probably in bed right now I can tell you he was there. That series of World Cups were the ones Al got his best WC results outside of the the NZ one (something around 10th in Hungary and 4th I think in Austria). Rob J was there as well and Darren but I think stress fractured so not running. Greg B too I seem to remember. I did the spectator races. I seem to remember that Al went and defended the Austrian dude because he saw him look at his map or something! I mostly remember because we had to wait for Al as we were all about to drive off in our minubus down to Bordeaux to do the French 5 day. We were so late that in the end we slept on the grass lawn of a service station. Actually I don't think we were ever going to make it all the way down to Bordeaux that night. It was a pretty cool trip with about 5 or 6 different multidays in as many countries amounting to more than 20 days of races in a month. Will have to do it again some time...

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 3 September 2007, 6:17 AM  
To summarise Jenni's post. Yes, Al was there.

Show Profile  Jenni Posted: 3 September 2007, 8:31 AM  
It does that say that in the first sentence Neil so I think you summarised the first sentence...

The other point was that Al defended the Austrian at some kind of enquiry so does know something about the following.

And I also wanted to remind or inform those who didn't know, of Al's great World Cup results outside of NZ.

Show Profile  Alistair Posted: 3 September 2007, 12:46 PM  
You're all doing a great job of jogging back my memory.

Yes Martin Brantner caught both Jörgen Mårtensson and Håvard Tveite and then me too. JM & HT were back then 2 of the best orienteers around - especially when it got physically and technically tough - which that race certainly was. The terrain was slow, steep, technical Italian alpine terrain. There was one track on the map, and it was basically one big hillside so the only feasible route-choice was straight. Martin was physically strong and given that HT & JM were technically better he had almost no chance to get in the lead. Our group made a few small mistakes (because it was so technical) too which also meant we stayed together more. I basically told the jury that in the circumstances Martin had no choice - am pretty sure both HT & JM had no problem with it either. It was basically the Swiss IOF controller who was against Martin winning (Swiss-Austrian rivalry maybe). Another small point was that I had followed Martin in the O-Ringen clinic a month earlier and knew he was a technically competent orienteer. Personally I had a disaster that day losing 12 minutes at the first control, ended up in the late 40s, was so tired that I let MB, HT, JM go about 2km from the end. If you want to know more ask Carsten – he was there and I seem to remember he rates this WC as one of the classics.

Yes Jenni, I was 12th in Hungary & 4th in Austria. Greg B was there too. We then went on to Bordeaux where we showed the French how to orienteer in sand dunes crucifying them all in the relay (Rob J. Greg & I) and a 3-day. And there was no way we would’ve made it to Bordeaux that day Jenni.

Show Profile  Neil K Posted: 3 September 2007, 2:50 PM  
Don't think we would be crucifying any French relay teams now. Especially on home terrain.

Show Profile  rob.g Posted: 3 September 2007, 2:53 PM  
Another classic follow was Robbie in 1976 in Scotland where he followed from the first control. In his defence he and the other team members of the time were extremely inexperienced, and had hardly seen a coloured map, but we certainly heard about it many years later, and it was even mentioned in the Compass sport mag in the late 80's.

Show Profile  mick finn Posted: 4 September 2007, 1:04 AM  
Interesting stuff! Anyone keen to put mouse to pad and compile some helpful hints on folllowing? Would be good to consider following technique and issues such as looking nonchalant; respecting personal space; managing a sneak peek at the followees map at the flag; the 15metre rule and variations of in Ukrainian and other low vis terrain; how to follow from in front; how to train for following and so on.

Show Profile  The Clem Posted: 4 September 2007, 3:36 AM  
Rob.G apparently you weren't following the story enough, seems it was from mid race and the other guy didn't neccessarily see it as following; contrary to everything that's been said by people who weren't out there running with them. Our families stay with each other almost on a yearly basis, and the other guy sees there's nothing to defend. It seems strange that for something that is a strong component of modern orienteering that Robbie keeps getting paid out about it at least a couple of time a year, for the last 30 years. The sledgings gotta be more legendary than the following.

Show Profile  rob.g Posted: 4 September 2007, 4:00 AM  
I have hardly heard about it in recent years, and a lot of the younger ones will never have heard of it but in 80's it was mentioned a lot especially amongst the poms. It was Robbie who told me they could hardly orienteer to save themselves. Another guy Greg Whitecliff was a chronic follower, also followed in 1976 and also got a good result. I believe he got put first in the relay and took 3 hours or so

Show Profile  blairtrewin Posted: 4 September 2007, 4:39 AM  
Most interesting one I've been involved in was at the infamous mass-start World Cup race in Switzerland in 1996 (the one where the bridge was washed away in a flash flood). In the last couple of kilometres, in the pack furiously battling for 57th through 68th, I got the distinct impression after a while that I was the only person in the pack who was actually reading their map. As I was fairly confident that I would place 12th out of 12 in a pack sprint, a plan B was required, and this involved deliberately punching a wrong control (one we'd been to earlier in the course which was not too far off the line). Four of the pack punched it, went on and were disqualified, and another four were sufficiently confused that we broke away from them. This then left me to come 4th out of 4 in a pack sprint instead :-)


1   2   3   4   5  


Ruffneck Productions © Ruffneck Productions maptalk.co.nz