European Ski-O Champ in Turkey
When it was announced that European Ski-O Championship will take part in Turkey in 2019, it raised a lot of questions among athletes. What should we expect? What will be race quality like? What kind of terrain is there? And especially, how should we prepare for races in altitude more than 2100metres above sea level?
Well, everybody has got the same information and everybody tried to prepare the best possible way. So full off expectations our team met at the airport on Monday morning.
On Wednesday first race, sprint, was about to kick off. We decided to arrive in Sarikamis, the competition centre, as late as possible in order to stay in the high altitute as little as possible (it was decided we will not put effort for high altitude camps during preparation). It turned out, it was possible to arrive even later!
When waiting at the gate on the airport, we became witnesses of the plane crash. Don’t worry, it was just a little hit to the plane by a big loading machine. No one got seriously injured. But this hit was big enough to destroy the loading door system. Result? „We are sorry to announce that the flight has been cancelled. Please, go to the information desk to check your options.“
There was no other plane connection to get to Sarikamis that day. All we could do was to wait one more day and arrive in Sarikamis late night just before the first race. That meant missing the model event, opening ceremony and possibilities to test our skis. We could spend the night in Prague or Istanbul. Prague won. It was a good choice, the airport hotel we got to stay for free was really wooow. And the food there was like woooow woooow!
With little bit too full stomaches from delicious breakfast, we made a second try to the plane.
This time without any unexpected problems. Flights went well and when the sun came down we lent in Erzurum. Organizers were waiting for us. We jumped in the bus and looked forward to being in Sarikamis in two hours. But the bus was not in its best shape. Warning symbols on driver's desk were changing from orange to red. The driver had to restart the bus a couple of times. The journey took longer than expected but the bus made it! 10:30 pm we arrived at our hotel. 12,5hours to the first European Championship race start! No need to arrive too early… I got no sleep at all as dogs were barking under our hotel windows whole night. When the alarm rang I felt like racing is the last thing I could do. But I persuade myself it will be good! And it actually was. The warm sunshine and spectacular mountain surroundings pumped me up with energy.
And I actually felt best in spring from all races in Turkey. Technically it was also OK, but one bad route choice and two times not taking a short cut cost me TOP15 placing. Anyway, I made my new personal best in European championship sprint distance – 23rd place. But Petra rocked it and finished on an amazing 11th place!!!
The day after was sprint relay with three loops per person, one woman and man running in a team. I mastered the first loop very well, managed to keep up with the best athletes and came to the changeover in the front position.
But probably it was too much for me. I did underestimate the altitude. I’ve got a headache when crossing the finish line and felt totally done. Two loops left. Obviously, I should have taken the high altitude into account and start more gently. I gave it all in the second loop which unfortunately resulted in passing my control without punching it. I did realize it after a couple of metres but the 25seconds loss meant many places. My teammate Radek also did some mistakes so we did not manage to hold the best Czech team position which we had after two legs. I was out of contact with other team runners in the last loop and did not manage to keep same high speed I had in previous loops. This race made me totally exhausted and I haven’t fully recovered from it till the end of the championship.
The day after was middle. I felt I am not recovered from the sprint relay. The tactic was to avoid any mistake.
It worked except one one-minute mistake at the end. The wide track on open area got covered by new snow and was not visible. I missed it and did not turn in time. Disappointed to knock me out of TOP20 because of this. Another 23rd place at the end.
But big applause to Lenka, Petra and Petr who for their incredible 8th, 10th and 11th place!
During the rest day I was having a light headache and also my stomach did not feel well. Very happy not to race that day. And short easy run with Jyri to the city centre made my body feel better. Turkish sightseeing checked.
I felt far better before the long distance than the day before. A tough race was expected and so it was.
I felt good during the first metres hanging with girls from my forking. But on the way to the third control, I ran out of fuel out of sudden. It was jako lusknutí prstů and my arms were not able to do even one more double poling push. That’s not a pleasant feeling during a European Championship race! I really had to stop for a few seconds to catch a second breath (or power). Fortunately, I proceeded the first loop out of three without any orienteering mistake. When climbing a steep scooter track on the way to the first control of the second loop, one girl happened to descend it. When I came to her level and was about to pass her, she, unfortunately, fell down on my pole and broke it. I had to return back to start to change my pole. I gave it a try.
But I felt this incident cost me too much energy. When I consider how bad my shape felt I decided to quit the race and save some power for the last race- relay.
Great job from Lenka who defended her 8th place from last year (after disqualification of one Russian girl).
It was a good decision not to finish the long distance. Every piece of power was really welcome for the last competition day. I felt really shitty meaning toilet was a good friend to me. But I decided this race I am gonna run and finish at any cost.
I was satisfied with my performance and also with my physical effort...
...until I got to see the times. How can be my time so bad compared to others when I feel like I did good?
Later on, I found out that times are not exactly correct as they depended on how fast you went to punch the finish control after you changed over to the next leg runner. I took my time and was lying in a finish for a while. Furthermore, I found out that there were quite big time differences in forkings (my forking was about 2min longer than Petra's). I would prefer to have a shorter forking and good time than as it was but that is something I can not affect. I need to learn to look back to this race as a race with a good performance and not as a race with bad time result. My team mates did some small mistakes and we finished at 5th place. It is OK result but we can do better. World Champ is waiting!
After the last race I finally dared to taste all kinds of meal our hotel has offered. I challenge you to eat more than twenty cakes/desserts in one week!
With full stomachs (and some extra kilos), suntan and a lot of beautiful memories we left Sarikamis. It has been a really amazing ski-o championship which exceeded all our expectations. Ski-o tracks were really high quality, so were courses. Organizers chose a perfect place for the event and did anything to make us feel great. No need to mention that our hotel Kayi Snow Otel was amazing and the staff treated us more than well.
Turkey, thank you for this beautiful ski-orienteering experience!
Hard to evaluate my results as we put effort zero to high altitude preparation. Hard to say how has the altitute affected me. It is nice to make a personal best in sprint but I know I can do better. So let's focus for the preparation towards World Ski-O Championship which will be held in Sweden in one month.
And now? Let's go back to north pole (through Istabul, Prague and Helsinki). University of Applied Sciences has been missing me for six weeks. Time to be a student for a while.
