Discussion: Canada's next generation shine at COCs

Robbie Anderson was second in the middle and destroyed the field in
the sprint. Carol Ross won all three races. The junior men dominated the M Elites on the same sprint course. I'd type more but it is on
my iPhone but even without Louise Oram, Emily Kemp and Patrick Goeres racing this was a COC where Canada's next generation of runners made a break through. Congrats to them.

This will be an awesome thread...Robbie's first medal(s) in elite racing at nationals.

I met several of the young generation at O-ringen where they also showed some really good results.

The future is looking good!

I suspect there won't be much traffic on this thread because we're discussing athletic performance which isn't traditionally a strength on Attackpoint.

All the young dudes ran really well. (Cue Mott the Hopple). Canada could feature some serious sprint battles in the next few years. Strange that many of the dudes are in the East and Sprint Town is Vancouver on the other side of the country.

I think Savy Veteran Magnus Johansson deserves credit for some great runs, especially in the Long.

But....

Should there be discussion on Canadian F21?

Yes... for a start, you need more F21s.

Older junior men and young M21s are great.

Also, a shout out to Wil who seems to always bring it in the COC long race.

I'm so excited for Robbie. I made some comment to him about him coming to France next year and he got all confused and said he wasn't moving to France with Emily and I! It'll be good to get more young people on the team.

And, sigh, yes, we do need more F21's :(

Don't forget about the very strong competition in F20 and how about all those medals the Yukon junior athletes won.

If (and of course that is a big if) WOC was divided into sprint WOC and middle/long WOC then it is very likely Canada would have two very different men's teams. In the COC sprint 12 guys went under 16 minutes. 9 of them were juniors or under 25 elites. Damian and Serghei were gold and silver in M-20 but that would have been good enough for silver and bronze in M21. Add then you add in Igor who will hopefully be a Canuck soon and there is some depth there. Of course that would be even stronger if Patrick Goeres wasn't MIA/out of commission. But Patrick would have had to have run pretty darn well to beat Robbie in the sprint.

It is great to see that Toronto (ie. Igor) is not starting to host sprint training weekends as well. Lots of potential for sprint orienteering in Tdot.

Is Tdot like the eastern equivalent of Vdot, which I guess could mean Vancouver, too?

Of course, the F21s you do have are great, but Carol needs some pressure to keep getting even better, especially when Emily is injured and practicing for ESPN!

With all respect to Robbie, but I'm pretty sure Patrick would have gone under 14 minutes on that course.

Yes, very exciting time right now for the Canadian HPP! There is a wave of young talent coming forward and they are getting better every year. A huge step forward for Robbie A and Carol R! Louise O has truly matured into a top orienteer, and she has the training volume to back it up. Emily K 13th at JWOC! A number of junior athletes with outstanding training volume in other sports, who have all improved their navigational skills tremendously and are now ready to medal in the M21E Sprint, and start to threaten in the Middle and Long. The women's side is indeed weaker, but the F20 field at the COCs was fairly competitive, so there is hope.

What was also great to see was that the younger categories were competitive! There are some obvious outstanding talents already in the 14 to 16 year old group.

pi, with the full respect to you and Patrick, but do not talk about any times that Patrick could run! or anyone else!

He did not run it, so COC Sprint Champ is Robbie. Robbie was not only one running there; so if you change any small detail, everything could be different.

We all saw 2d place at NAOC Sprint for Patrick and 21 place in WOC qualification this year! We all know he did better last few years! It looks like this year is not his one. I hope he will be back to Finals next year.

And now back to point, I was coaching Canadian Juniors in NB and this year in Ottawa, and I can say that this year kids are more Orientering- oriented! They are spending time for Orienteering and they showed great results. Good job by Yukon and Ottawa, I hope to see more junior's Orienteering programs in Canada.

Orion4ik, I'm very impressed by Robbie's results this year and I have complete respect for his results at the COCs. I'm very happy for him and for all the other great improvements from our young and upcoming athletes.

Still, it's only a small step in the road to becoming competitive internationally. My point about Patrick was not literally about Patrick himself, and it wasn't directed to Robbie personally. I'm absolutely amazed when I watch the best runners in the world at WOC, and the simple truth is that some of those athletes would run that course in close to 13 minutes, whether you like to hear about it or not. And I'm obviously not intending this to be a negative comment, but rather the opposite, as inspiration for future years of training. At least that's how I feel about it.

Yukon and Ottawa have great Junior programs.
But, I thought that kid from Manitoba did pretty good too!

I admit that I`m a little biased... 8>)

>I hope to see more junior's Orienteering programs in Canada

absolutely. My daughter really enjoyed the two sass peepre camps this summer so a special thanks to those coaches.

Our junior program in Hamilton will be about 80 kids again this autumn. It is designed around participation which the foundation of kids programs should be. But we are introducing a racing group this autumn so I'm hopeful some of them will some day take part in the SP jr. Camp and Ontario and national champs.

Emily Kemp interviewing the young kids at the COC was great. My daughter was pretty excited about that. Not often does one get interviewed but to be interviewed by the great Emily well that was pretty special for Emma.

@vnelson: To which of the Graupner boys are you referring? ;-)

Ah Guy, your funny. I'm thinking about mine of course.

@ Hammer: Emma did great! She's putting in a lot of effort and its paying off.

80 kids? Crikey! How do you get 80 kids?
We get 1.

I thought the Yukon Team was smart.
They sent a group of JR's with chaperones to the NAOC's.
The kids went even if the parents couldn't make it.

@vnelson: I believe Hammer is referring to his Adventure Running Kids program.

On the bus ride to the COC Long start, I was picking his brain about it. Sounds like a great means to introduce kids to O in a very fun-oriented way ("Get Muddy!").

One interesting aspect: While it is basically orienteering -- and does include participation in GHO events -- they avoid the word "orienteering". It is apparently a turn-off for parents who associate it with the Scouting version.

My wife and I are thinking of ways to recruit. We need to find some Juniors before we figure out what to do with them. The elementary school my kids went to has a marathon club in the spring. We were thinking of putting together an event for them as a bit of training fun. She's also going to talk to the Gym teacher's in her school. The province is pushing for lifestyle sports and orienteering fits right in.

The sooner Hammar franchises the ARK program the better. (ARFK?)

As I remember, Hamilton's ARK program took place this spring and they had a great number of kids! GHO avoided the word "Orienteering" and now those kids are avoiding Orienteering events. None of them came to NAOC or COC (Emma not in count). I hope to see them signed up for at least Ontario Champs. I checked confirmed list from GLOF, none is signed yet!

I believe it is because parents are turn-off from Orienteering and not willing to drive their kids to such events.
In my opinion, when you coach kids (and their parents), you have to tell them that they are Orienteers!!! and they do Orienteering!

I am agree with vnelson, it is the best option is to start to cooperate with schools, comunity centers, day camps and even scouts groups through free Orienteering events/trainings.

You would say, if i got any kids into Orienteering. I would say, yes. I did some free coaching this summer and 2 kids (boy10 and girl12) for sure are going to Ontario Champs on Sunday. Another boy(15) he came from scouts, he wants to come too. Unfortunatly, those kids did not come to COC b/c they have been outside of Ontario with their families. Oh,yes, i got few present juniors to do more Orienteering.

I believe, we have to work only with kids, who wants to do real Orienteering, not adventure running/racing/muddying.

As to ARK, I wish them all best with a new coach and new season. They are doing a great job with advertising and promoting their camp, but I think a little bit of Orienteering would not do any damage.

Thanks for the nice comment Gord. ARK has been in the planning stages for 10 years now ever since my sister and I volunteered with the Ontario Jr. Team and jr. Training camps. Orienteering is very much part of this program. kids were on maps in week one and navigating to off trail checkpoints by week #3. in addition to that we have developed the program to make kids faster and stronger runners given how important running is to our sport. So yes, kids do real orienteering and real running. But as I stated above ARK is about Participation - not racing. Skills development, getting kids active, having fun and participation. ARK matches the FUNdamentals section of Sport Canada's Long Term Athlete Development. It is not racing. That will take time and we have developed curriculum for that too that matches the Learning to Train section of the LTAD. We have named that ARK Attack! We like that name for two reasons. First it is similar to the Track Attack from cross country Canada's LTAD but also the links to the Attack Point term in orienteering. ARK Attack! meets two times a
week and we have a few kids signed up for that program. The next step in the ladder matches the Training to train LTAD. The name of that section hasn't been finalized but the curriculum is under development. In that final level kids will be filling in annual plans, training logs (on AP) and racing out-of-province (like the successful program Brent has developed in Yukon). We are also making plans to lower the age limit of the program by popular demand. Kids and parents love the program and younger brothers and sisters want to get out and trail run, orienteer and terrain run and Get Muddy!

ARK is also about making partnerships and raising the profile of our sport. last spring Patrick Goeres gave several motivational speeches to schools in Hamilton.
One parent contacted us to tell us how excited his kid was because the 'Wayne Gretzky of Orienteering" came to his school. Another school in the days following Patrick's visit started their own Adventure running club and then entered 6 kids in our 1000+ kids school orienteering race. This year we have plans to make an orienteering map of every Hamilton school!! All good news for our sport.

In his first day on the job this week Patrick Saile, our new coordinator in ARK,
made a presentation on orienteering to kids at the local library complete with indoor map.

We are pretty confident we are on track to growing the sport and more importantly giving kids the skills they need and getting or keeping them active. A sell out of 80 kids with a waiting list of over 25 from the spring in the program's debut suggests we have really developed a program that is attractive to both parents and kids. something our club has tried for 40+ years and this time with some important tweaks and 10 years of curriculum development and marketing strategies finally worked.

hammer said: "our 1000+ kids school orienteering race."

Do you have any links or info I could take a look at?

Thanks

http://dontgetlost.ca/index.php?option=com_content...

There isn't much more info online than that. For more info contact Ray Kitowski (schools@dontgetlost.ca). 2010 was the 35th anniversary.

Results from 2010: http://dontgetlost.ca/index.php?option=com_content...

>>>I thought the Yukon Team was smart.
They sent a group of JR's with chaperones to the NAOC's.
The kids went even if the parents couldn't make it.

@vnelson: that has been the next step in the progression or our program. Hockey parents aren't expected to travel across the country with their kids. We are never going to get good numbers at COC if we rely solely on families travelling to COC. The club has to spend money supporting the coaches/team leaders. In actual fact it is a bargain for the parents because they don't have to come and spend all that extra money on flights and time off work etc. Secondly, it is a nice little perk for the coaches. We need more little perks in order to attract coaches to our sport.

Obviously Igor is a big fan of the Homer Simpson quote:
"You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try."

It is in the first year; I think you need to cut them a mega amount of slack. Not only that, but I would think that the money raised from ARK would probably go directly into ORIENTERING initiatives.

Status-quo wasn't cutting it in Hamilton; time to try something different and other clubs are free to do something else entirely. I don't think there's too many clubs who can rest on their laurels in Canada for anything right now.

@The Shadow: What was the minimum age you took without parents?

What was the ratio and how did it work out?

only members of the Yukon Orienteering Team who are 13+

As I think Hammer mentioned above, we don't want to emphasize racing with younger kids

for NAOC, Afan was the team leader for 3 kids who didn't have parents going. There were another 5 kids who were travelling with parents or family friends.

It worked really well which is why you saw the same size team at COC. We had 8 at NAOC and 9 at COC. Obviously we will have many more participants next year on home turf but my goal is for future COC and NAOC we will be able to get 15-20 kids travelling.

Nev-Monster, I did not get your point!
But obviously, you like my name more than nickname! ;)

PS: Yukon- is a leader and the rest of the clubs should start moving too :)
THX Yukon for the motivation!

Yukon (Whitehorse) is blessed with a few things that help make it easier:
Dedicated coaches.
We have been doing formal junior programs for many years (since early '90s maybe), so it is a known entity.
"Real" forest terrain right in the city. (many terrain types; about the only thing we don't have is gully/spur)
Media, funding agencies and a general population that know what orienteering is and that orienteering is indeed a real, competitive sport.
We now have every school in the city (14) covered by an "O" map of one form or another.
We started a few years ago basing our weekly junior training sessions out of a single location - Mt.McIntyre Recreation Centre (specifically the ski club waxing room) which is on a good map. This makes it easier for parents by offering consistency. They don't have to be driving all over town dropping their kids off at different locations each week. With some ingenuity, and built in warm up runs course setting is never a problem. It is not a true "orienteering clubhouse" atmosphere, but close (tables, washrooms etc) and contributes to the idea of orienteering being a real sport. For the older juniors we also do two other sessions a week, often on other areas.

It sounds like the Yukon club has been doing many things right, and I applaud Hamilton's intitiatives as well as a step in the right direction. In Edmonton we have done lots of junior programs with schools but it has been hard recruiting kids to go to city events and forest events because you need to find a way to get parents involved as well. This is where the whole dedicated coach idea goes a long way in my opinion. One of the better things the Edmonton club has done in the last few years is having one of the cross-country running races for junior high school as an orienteering event, which I think has raised the profile of orienteering as a real sport. Any new ideas to try to get kids interested in orienteering is worth doing in my opinion, as there are many kids who are potentially interested but just need a push in the right direction.

1) Dedicated and preferably paid coaches to permit sustainability

2) dedicated area to offer consistency to athletes and parents

Two of the cornerstones of the highly successful Jackrabbit cross country skiing program for kids.