News Archives
Athlete of the Month – October 2011
 |
Name: Lauri Kontkanen Country: Finland Discipline: Trail orienteering Career highlights: World Trail Orienteering Championships individual gold (2011) and silver (2009 and 2010), and World Trail Orienteering Championships Team gold (2011) |
Our Athlete of October, 26-year-old Lauri Kontkanen, is known in trail orienteering circles not only because of his success – two individual World Championships silver medals and one individual gold since 2009 – but also for his mental strength, which often gives him an advantage in tough situations. This year it brought him his first ever World Champion title. Now Lauri is aiming to be the first trail orienteer in open class to win at two World Championships.
Lauri’s career in trail orienteering started in 2004 when he was asked to be the course setter for the World Trail Orienteering Championships (WTOC) 2006 in Joensuu, Finland. As he accepted the job, he quickly needed to start to learn about the sport. His history in foot, MTB and ski orienteering helped him a great deal, as did his mapping work which he has had as his summer job for the last 10 years. It was still a big challenge to actually plan the trail orienteering courses, even with a lot of help from the national controller, but it set Lauri on the path he still is on today. “After the WTOC I wanted to take part in trail orienteering competitions and because of good success I also started to like it a lot.”
Map making key to success
When asked why he has been so successful in trail orienteering, Lauri explains: “Map reading skill is the most important in trail orienteering. Other particular skills needed in TrailO are evaluating distances and taking exact bearings. For the last ten years my job during summer time has been map making and I have always been an exact orienteer. These are probably the biggest reasons for my success.”
Many elite foot orienteers practise trail orienteering for training or as a second discipline. Foot orienteers in Sweden are encouraged to take part at least in one TrailO competition per year, and for example Thierry Gueorgiou has participated in several events, in some of them with very good results. According to Lauri, however, good skills in foot orienteering won’t automatically make you a good trail orienteer: “A good foot orienteer can succeed in some TrailO events but for more perpetual success one has to practice the particular skills needed in the discipline.” For Lauri, his work is the best training: “Making maps is the best way to train trail orienteering. I also do FootO but less SkiO and MTBO, even though I do have both map holders.”
Tough start at the World Championships
Lauri won a silver medal in the World Trail Orienteering Championships in Hungary in 2009. Last year he was second as well, so it was clear that his goal for this year was to be the best.
After the first competition day in France, however, he was on a 10th place, and although he only had made one mistake, all the hope for gold seemed gone. All nine competitors ahead of him had had a flawless first day. It seemed impossible for Lauri to be able to reach his goal – or even to get a medal.
For a moment it looked like he’d give up, but then, instead, he decided to fight even harder. “In the evening of the first day I just tried to forget everything about TrailO. In the next morning I was again smiling and relaxed.” He decided it was going to be his day after all. His competitors had a lot of pressure to do well on the second day, and Lauri did his best to add on the pressure by talking tactics with each of them before the competition. At the end his relaxed mood helped him to make an easy-going performance without unnecessary pressure. The decisive control was control nr 5, where Lauri consciously searched for a “different” answer; an answer that would make it or break it. His Zero answer turned out to be correct, and he was one of the 20 out of 64 who got this one right. He had no mistakes on the second day – the athletes on positions 1–9 after the first day made all at least one mistake on the second day – and as he was the fastest on timed controls, he won gold ahead of his team-mate Antti Rusanen. According to Lauri this was his best performance along with the second competition day of WTOC in 2010 in Trondheim, Norway: “These performances were nearly perfect”.
Together with Antti Rusanen and Pekka Seppä Lauri also secured the Team Competition victory for Finland – also this, for the first time ever.
Future plans
Besides trail orienteering and map making Lauri’s time goes to studies of physical education. He plans to be a teacher some day: “Next week I have a practice session where I will be teaching orienteering to elementary school pupils. I have also studied sport coaching and testing here in the University of Jyväskylä.” Lauri is interested in both developing his own trail orienteering skills and trail orienteering in general. He is a member of the IOF TrailO Athletes’ Commission. “We discuss a lot of topics which are related to trail orienteering and its development. I like to develop this sport. Especially the format TempO (which only includes timed controls) is worth developing.”
In the future Lauri’s aim is to make history by being the first trail orienteer in open class to achieve two individual world championship titles. “I’m also really interested in winning the world championships in TempO.” TempO will be an official TrailO format in the World Trail Orienteering Championships 2013.
Athlete of September, mountain bike orienteer Erik Skovgaard Knudsen asked Lauri:
-What types of maps (eg. scale and contour intervals) do you use in trail orienteering? Are they different from the maps used in other orienteering disciplines e.g. in terms of precision? I understand that you are also very dedicated to map drawing. Can you describe your fascination for maps and how you interpret them – do you use different methods for different maps/terrains?
“In trail orienteering we use mostly sprint orienteering maps (scale 1:5000 or 1:4000, interval 2m or 2,5m). Another possibility is to enlarge normal orienteering maps to 1:5000 scale. Usually course planners make some corrections to the maps, but that is not compulsory. I usually make corrections if e.g. a stone is 10 metres in a wrong place. Whenever I see a map somewhere, I stop to read it. I like to read all kinds of maps and depending of the discipline I also try to find the best route choices. E.g. today I met my MTBO friend, who had a MTBO map on a map stand, in the city centre of Jyväskylä. I solved approximately 5 route choices in a minute while talking to the friend. I gave her some route choice advice ;)”
Next month we’ll meet long distance World Orienteering Champion Annika Billstam. Lauri has some questions for Annika:
Because I’m running in FootO in Kalevan Rasti, I’d like to know how you found each other with Thierry? Have your orienteering skills improved during the last two years? What kind of mental training methods do you use?
We’ll hear what Annika replies when Athlete of November is published on 1 November.
Lauri Kontkanen preparing for start at the Nordic Championships 2011.
Text: Anna Zeelig, Photos: Pirjo Valjanen and Pertti Hartman
Previous Athletes’ of the Month
February 2011 Olga Novikova (KAZ)
March 2011 Olli-Markus Taivainen (FIN)
April 2011 Emily Benham (GBR)
May 2011 Søren Saxtorph (DEN)
June 2011 Tove Alexandersson (SWE)
July 2011 Olav Lundanes (NOR)
August 2011 Thierry Gueorgiou (FRA)
September 2011 Erik Skovgaard Knudsen (DEN)
Find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/IOFarena.
