European TrailO Cup 2017 Final Round

Bratislava, Slovakia, Oct 28-29

It seemed a good idea at the time … a quick trip over to Bratislava for the weekend. A bit of sightseeing, a couple of TrailO events, bask in the late autumnal sunshine. What could be better?

The reality was rather different, although still very enjoyable, as the weather refused to co-operate. Stair-rod rain on Friday and heavy rain in a howling gale on Sunday all added to the mix.

Fourteen British trail orienteers had decided to compete in the final round of this year’s European TrailO Cup (ECTO), held near Bratislava in Slovakia, which is the scene of next year’s European TrailO Championships. The area and maps were known to be good, the planners are also next year’s planners, so this was a useful experience, both for the 120 competitors including most of the top TrailO athletes, and also for the volunteer officials from the organising club, Farmaceut Bratislava, rehearsing their roles for the main event next April.

For our carload, Anne Braggins and David Coton of WAOC plus your correspondent, Friday’s intended sight-seeing was a clearly going to be a washout as the rain fell heavily from leaden skies as we flew into Bratislava airport. So we opted for Plan B: check in to our hotel early, and find a local restaurant for a leisurely late lunch.  The bill for a beer, lunch and coffee afterwards came to less than £20 for the three of us. Later on in the day, the bill for an excellent dinner in a traditional Slovak restaurant including wine came to about £25.

It was still raining on Saturday morning when we arrived for the PreO competition in the forests around Red Stone Castle in the foothills of the Small Carpathian mountains 40 minutes drive north east of Bratislava, a vast chateau & estate (according to my guidebook  originally designed in the 16thC by the artist Albrecht Dürer for the wealthy Fugger family and now owned by the Slovak equivalent of the National Trust.)

The course was divided into three short sections, with the timed controls coming before Part 1, on one map, with a timed out walk to the area of Parts 2 & 3, which were on a second map, with a short timed out walk between them. With a big entry (for TrailO) of around 120, in order to get the competition over by lunchtime half of the field were directed to begin on Parts 2 & 3, before returning to do Part 1. Our carload were placed in this second group, which took place on a compact, gently sloping piece of gorgeous ‘white’ beech forest covering a boulder field. 

Click to view full map and control descriptions

The rain had stopped by the time the competition began. The competitors in front of me started, walked a couple of metres down the track from the start, looked at their maps and froze in horror.

Virtually every significantly sized boulder, whether greater than 1m high or not, was mapped. (“In Finland” said one of the competitors looking at the little black dots on his map, and the smallish boulders around him, “we call this gravel!”)  Some of the boulders had flags on them. Ascertaining which boulder was which, and whether it was in centre of the circle was a nightmare. One of the hardest PreO courses I have ever encountered, it took me 30 minutes to solve the four controls in Part 2. There was an enlarged map on the back of the main map, which was some help, but they forgot to point this out at the start and some competitors never spotted it!

Boulder spotting near the start

By the time I had finished Part 3, which was equally difficult, I had only about 15 minutes left of the permitted time allowance to cope with the 12 controls of Part 1. I was clearly going to be over time and lose points.

I walked back past the castle to the start, bungled the timed controls, and did my best with the much easier part 1, but I had to rush, making silly mistakes, and even then I was 11 minutes overtime and so lost three points from my score. No one of my better days, I was well down the results, even in the Para class, although I wasn’t even the last Brit.

However up at the top of the leader board, Tom Dobra (UBOC), with just one mistake, was 5th and John Kewley (MDOC) 6th , ahead of all the Swedes, one of the best British performances in recent times.

In the afternoon, although it wasn’t part of the ECTO competition, there was an informal  TrailO relay, with three legs, each with 9 controls, which allowed the organisers to test their systems for next year.  Our carload, containing two non-WIM runners, competed as the WIMpersonators, and came, I’m sorry to report, stone last, although I had at least the small satisfaction of outperforming my team mates. This time the Swedes got their act together and won, with the best GBR team finishing 13th.

The forecast for the TempO competition on Sunday was pretty desperate, with the Slovak Met Office warning of rain, gales with sudden whirlwinds, and issuing a Red weather warning. The organisers posted on their Facebook page that there was a strong likelihood of the competition being cancelled.

We left our hotel in dry but very windy conditions and tacked our way along the motorway towards the Czech border before turning off through undulating pine forest planted on the remains of ancient sand dunes to our base in the village hall in the little village of Studienke. The organisers had abandoned the advertised start times and encouraged all those present to walk the kilometre to the TempO Start and queue, in an effort to get people through before the weather worsened.

When I got to the back of a shortish queue, it was just beginning to spit with rain, and the wind was increasing towards gale force. The small red gazebos sheltering competitors and officials at the control stations stood firm.

Just as I stood on the start line, we heard what sounded like a whirlwind whistling through the forest towards us. The rain, which had been gentle, became a torrent: it was like standing in front of a hosepipe turned full on. The trees began to bend in the storm. Officials and competitors hung onto gazebo legs until it passed through. It was a frightening moment, but as the wind slowed down to a mere gale, the event continued. I was asked if I wanted some time to clean my glasses, but as it was still bucketing down, it would have been a pointless exercise.

As time went on, the rain passed through and the sun came out: later starters had much the better of conditions, and this showed in the results. Getting back to the village hall, we discovered that the village had lost its electricity supply, and mobile phone reception was also down for a while. But by 12.00 there was a bowl of goulash for all, and we discovered that although Vienna airport, 50 miles away, was closed, Bratislava was still open and our plane was forecast to be on time.

The weekend finished with a FootO Sprint relay in the early afternoon, round the village and the woods we used for the TempO, apparently the last in a series of races organised by the local clubs in East Slovakia and in which some of the fitter TrailO competitors ran as invited guests. The Open class was won by a team from the Italian TrailO squad (one of their runners is also in the Italian FootO team as well), closely followed by a GB team of Ian Ditchfield, John Kewley and Pete Huzan in second place.

We swept a breathless Ian Ditchfield into our car, once he had run his leg, as he was on the same flight as us, and dashed back to the airport. On the motorway, the car still being blown about by the wind, we passed a lorry on its side, blown over by the gale, and an area where trees, felled onto the carriage way by the wind, had been dragged to the roadside and sawn up.

By the time we had got the hire car back on time, and passed through security and passport control, as we sat in the airport café over coffee and cake, the TempO result appeared, the organiser having apparently driven to the nearest village which still had power, to download all the results and then post them. Our Ryanair plane took off on time but we were 25 minutes late back into Stanstead, having flown into a 150mph headwind all across Europe.

The organising club, Farmaceaut Bratislava had done a brilliant job over the weekend.  After the disasters at the World Champs in Lithuania, it would appear next year’s European Champs are in in safe hands.

Dick Keighley

Controls 1-3

Control 6