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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