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.