World Class Start Squad - Uppsala

21st July - 5th August 2006.

Just a quick intro into what we did over the first couple of days...

Sweden.

Uppsala is situated to the north of Stockholm (30km) and is one of the nicest University sites in Europe with a grand castle at its forefront. The orienteering aint that bad either! The area boasts a former world champion in the form of Gunilla Svärd of IF Thor. IF Thor is not the most famous club Uppsala, most peoples minds would turn to OK Linné (if you were to know about Swedish club history - which is probably not what everyone learns for Key Stage 3 SATS). Anyway, we were lodgers in the IF Thor Club hut, something that British Clubs have failed to get a grip on, a base for training situated on an amazing area - this time on Hågadalen-Nåsten (pictured above).

The IF Thor club hut is situated on the map and has a great access to other amazing areas in the vicinity. Names like Lunsen and Kungshavn-Morga send shivers down peoples spines, they are awesome - I can't even start to tell you of the amazing contour detail/runability. Awesome.

DAY 1/2
The tour started off badly for me as I twisted my ankle pretty badly on day 1, yes day 1!! This was by falling off a cliff, pictured here in the red. This was in between the mornings and afternoons exercises - before a major thunderstorm decided to make us all wet. I planned this day, which was actually the second day of the tour (as I joined after my Graduation from the Pure Science Faculty of the University of Sheffield). The next couple of days for me were about rest and R.I.C.E., how I love that carbohydrate packed rhyme! It was a lot better to rest than try to run on it as my recovery was pretty good, being only four days in the end!

DAY 3
Siggefora was the next stop and was a nice area which we had visited last year for the World Class Tour. It was situated north of Uppsala next to the lake 'Siggeforasjö' from which it takes its name. This was a more open area with lots of visibility and open marshes, a trademark of Swedish forests. The courses planned were to test the visualisation and simplification of legs for the athletes to experiment on, which they did to great effect.

DAY 4
Urban Sprints are becoming an up and coming part of elite orienteering from the addition of the sprint at JWOC to the recent Park World Tour Sprint Series. This is why we practiced these on this tour. Centered on Gottsunda, the southern area of Uppsala the sprints gave an emphasis on fast route choice decision and incorporated technical twists an turns in both urban and wooded areas.
These sprints were great to watch and gave the athletes a feel of speed while orienteering, which was different to the skills needed for other wooded areas in the region.

DAY 5
The day of my assessment for Level 2 coaching award. This was the first day of Norra Lunsen, the northern part of the most lovely map in existance in this part of Sweden. It also doesn't disappiont as the orienteering is magical and the control hanging was emmense! Gorgeous! The boulders are the size of houses and the contours represent slabs of rock which stick out of the marshes, made of reeds and heather/bilberry bushes. The idea of the courses were to help with long leg navigation on compass bearings using the large features on the way to guide you into the control, i.e. use them as attack points. The afternoon was a hare and hounds/trains exercise where the athletes were set off at 30s intervals and chased the athlete infront for 3 controls.