VWC-95, St.Petersburg, May 29 - June 2, 1995 Final Report

General The event was a positive experience to all involved. It was well organized, weather was fine. There were no problems with terrains, courses or maps. The athmosphere was friendly. Language problems were smaller than anticipated as quite many of organizers spoke fluent English and as IOF Controller's assistant spoke Russian. The amount of participants was quite modest. The date of the competition was not perhaps the best possible. Specially amount of Scandinavian participants could for several reasons have been double with a later date ( July - August, or at least later on in June ) for the event. Event organization The responsible organizer lead by Mr. Georgy Ilmenkov was St.Petersburg Orienteering Federation together with firm Neva Tour. The organizing committee had also a qualified representation from the local administration and Russian Orienteering Federation. Organization was quite wide in relation to the amount of competitors. It was anyway functioning well with no proper delays or problems. Venue The event center was situated in Lembolovo in a holiday center for schoolchildren and enterprises 60 km north from St.Petersburg. The center had a limited amount of hotel standart accomodation, restaurants etc. Most Scandinavian participants lived in hotels in St.Petersburg which caused some communication problems. Big part of local participants as well as organizers lived in tents nearby the event center during the competitions. Field circumstances were not a problem for organizers as the weather was warm and fine under competitions. Terrain The terrain was excellent for the purpose. The terrains for days one and two had been used for orienteering quite recently which generated some critical remarks. Forests were for the most coniferous ( pine and spruce ) with a lot of eskers, ridges and depressions. A lot of old fortification ruins ( trenches, tank barriers, dugouts and barbed wire obstacles ) from the Second World War could still be seen on the map and in the terrain. The ground was soft and easy to run with no stones. Class H35 runners used in final 5.40 - 5.50 minutes per kilometer as anticipated. Maps ( appendix 1 ) Field work of all maps was made by local mapmakers ( Yury and Vitaly Chegarovsky, Viktor Dobretsov, Vladimir Kuznetsov and Vasily Kurochkin ). The standart of maps was high especially keepeng in mind that no photogrammetric base map had been available. The maps were drawn and printed by Finnish Pro-Orienteerng and Kauhavan Kirjapaino. Courses ( appendix 2 ) Courses were well planned. The only critics arouse from relatively easy and short courses for classes H60-75. ( This is my fault. I gave wrong instruction. ) Start, finish, timekeeping etc. All technical matters were well planned and realized in an exemplary manner with Mr. Alexander Vasilevsky as technical director of the competition. Information, equipment etc. Generally there were no problems. As details can be mentioned that programme in English did not have exactly the same information as the Russian version with some confusion as result ( two start areas on the second qualification day, 2 minute start interval in the finals ). Map bag was too soft and difficult to use. In a rainy weather it would have caused problems. Economy Low number of participants caused economical problems for organizers. Two level participation fee caused some critical remarks. Media Arrangements and facilities were well organized. Health No severe injuries or cases were reported. Appeals, protests No appeals or protests have been left. Evaluation ( appendix 3 ) In general the competitors were quite satisfied. The few details discussed during the event were : - more demanding and difficult courses for H60-75 were waited ; - the number of participants in finals should be 60 with 3 minute start interval ; - scale of all maps should be 1:10000. Now the maps in scale 1:15000 and 1:10000 had exactly the same area. No special problems with a big map were reported. Tuomo Peltola, IOF Controller Toivo Saue, Controller's assistant
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VWC-95 Program

Программа VWC-95