The French 5-Day Event
Brian Johnson and Sue Hands went to the French 5-day event in the Larzac area of the Midi-Pyrenees which was attended by about 140 Brits.
The area provided highly technical orienteering in an area of limestone pavement, crags, boulders and complex rock features. What made the event particularly difficult was the low visibility with thick bush and small tree cover and the propensity of the planners to ‘hide’ controls in fight in complex areas. Many of the control sites chosen would have not been allowed by British controllers and very good orienteers were making big mistakes. (The difficulty was exemplified in the last round by Charlie Daniels taking 2hr 24min for 3.8km in the final stage on the M60/65 course).
Despite getting frustrated by her mistakes Sue was in 2nd place in W65, 5 minutes behind the leader and 10 minutes ahead of third, when we came to the chasing start. Typically for the event, the Finnish leader took about 90min for the 2.5km course and Sue was leading into the last control only to be overtaken on the run-in to lose by two seconds!
I managed to tweak a hamstring in the prologue and then damage a knee on the first stage and hobbled through the event. This probably didn’t do my chances any harm at all as accuracy was much more important then speed. I was delighted to finish 7th in a very competitive M65 field, beating all the Brits. I’d have actually come 8th if I’d run in M60!
Brian Johnson
Part of Brian's Day 5 map