Some thoughts on PreO

The Paralympic Team relaxing on TempO day

Christ Rasmussen is a Paralympic Team member competing at his second WTOC. He greatly improved his performance between the two PreO days. His thoughts going into the second model event:

Going into Model #2, is a training day to maximize learning experience of not only the map maker, but more importantly where I am making the mistakes from lack of experience. Going back on the course and discuss where I made the mistakes is crucial and beneficial to compete at a higher standard. 

Building confidence with quick decisive problem solving techniques with precise positioning and zero expectations to compete on higher level. I will become better for myself and team USA.

From Mika:
Based on last year's European Cup event in similar location I knew to expect a challenging set of problems for the preO day 1. The process of solving them was to read everything on the map and determine where each flag was. Not easy but fair. That is why so many people got so many answers right. My problem was second guessing myself. On five controls I changed my mind from the correct answer to the wrong one at the last minute. Oh well, I'll try to do better on Day 2.

From Mike:
I was hoping to do better at Pre-O, but that didn't happen. I felt rushed from the beginning, with 28 controls at 5 minutes each. I was 10 minutes behind at halfway, but started making faster decisions, and finished with 2 minutes to spare. I will work on distance estimation into terrain at the second model.

Team USA thoughts on the TempO

Mika Latva-Kokko had the best USA TempO result to date, just missing a spot in the final. Mika is a member of the New England Orienteering Club and is competing at his third WTOC.

Doing the TempO qualification I felt slow so I kept pushing. I knew I had gotten at least two of the problems wrong and suspected I had possibly missed some zero answers. The problems felt easy and I thought I would need to be around 25 s per station averaging 1 mistake per station to qualify.

When I finished and saw my result I thought that I would probably just miss the final. Being the first starter it was tough to follow the scores coming in. At times I felt like I might make the final, at times I was convinced I would not. In the end I was 19th missing the final (18th spot) by 1.5s. The person I lost 1.5s in the qualifier to went on to win the world championship. He is a young guy from Finland and I know him quite well. I am happy for him, and had it been me that qualified I could not have done as well in the final.

I did all the stations at the upper limit of my skill level. If I go any faster (which I need to do) I'm going to miss a lot more. I'm happy and upset of my result at the same time. In hindsight the 1.5s could have been gained in multiple different ways.

Mike Poulsen of Columbia River Orienteering Club is competing in his sixth WTOC after a number of years hiatus. His best past result was 9th place in Ukraine in 2007. To prepare for WTOC TempO, he has been designing TempO courses and participating in photo-O and sprint events.


I am getting better at TempO, but clearly not at a high enough level. It was good to see Mika do so well. He carried the flag at the opening ceremony, which was actually much nicer than the WOC ceremony in Riga.