19th WORLD UNIVERSITY
ORIENTEERING CHAMPIONSHIP
12. - 16. 8. 2014
WUOC 2014 was held in the Czech Republic with
the centre in the city of Olomouc. There were people
from 32 countries taking part in the Championships
and the names in the startlists promised tough competition.
As well as the terrains chosen promised challenging races.
I was selected for running long, middle and relay.
Long was held in Nectava valley, really hilly terrain with deep valleys and steep slopes.
Course setter prepared physically tough but nice course with lots of interesting routechoices. Basically you had to choose between long road running or shorter uphill. And I found myself
running quite much around (which was not always the best - referring to K2 +1'). Anyway,
I felt quite strong and knew that if I wouldn't do any mistake I could take a nice result.
And that's how it came! I took BRONZE! My first medal from a senior event. It felt great,
although it took me some time to get the whole thing that I was 3rd. I was so happy I finally
made it! Recently I had always screwed my races with mistakes and my uncontrolled mindset,
it's nice to actually see the work paying off.
And it was amazing to stand on the podium next to Gøril and Bettina with the medal on my neck and looking at and at the same time trying to avoid an eye-contact with my mother-coach,
'cause I was afraid she would break into tears.
So it was time to leave emotions behind and focus on the middle distance race.
The terrain for middle, near the village of Protivanov, was totally different from the one
we knew from the long distance. It was flat so it promised some fast running but there were
also many green parts that were rather tricky. Good compass work and good change of speed
were the keys to the success, I guess. Unfortunately, I did few smaller mistakes (like 10" to K6; 20" K13; 25" K15; 35" K19). But I could pick almost no control without being far right, few meters to the left, ahead, etc. So no smooth orienteering for me that day and I felt a bit frustrated about it. But then I came to the finish on the 7th place, which was good and even
better was that I shared it with my teammate and friend Venda.
Last day came another highlight of this amazing week. We got SILVER medal in relay!
Venda H. did a really good job on the first leg and came in the first group. I did okay race on the second one and Iveta Š. ran great and really strong last leg! She came to the finish second,
just 15 seconds after Sweden.
And we were happy for boys too as they also took the SILVER!
Maps, results and more can be found either in my czech post or on the official event webpage.
