The Nordic Match 2019 – a weekend in another country

by Dick Keighley

In the TrailO world, the biggest grudge match is the annual Nordic Match, held annually and moving between Sweden, Norway, Finland & Denmark. For the last 10 years or so Great Britain has been invited along as guests, and for the last few years, since the last Swedish round was also a pre-World Champs event, other orienteers from Europe and elsewhere have also competed. It’s always the toughest event of the year for most of us, because instead of competing against teams of 3 or 6 people from the Scandi nations, we get to compete against lots of them, most Nordic nations entering two or three teams of five, and some clubs also enter teams. The competition is fierce.

This year the event was hosted by the Landvetter club, in forests surrounding Landvetter airport, the airport for Gothenburg in SW Sweden. Fifteen Brits made the journey, although one of them, Clive Allen, was competing for Denmark where he now lives, so we borrowed an unattached Swedish competitor to make up our third team. Other than this one ringer, we were from one nation, unlike competitors from central Europe, who confected mixed teams called ‘Central Europe’, ‘CzechoSlovenia’ or (last year) ‘The AustroHungarian Empire’!

Some of the fitter members of our group ran in a night Sprint footO event on the Friday evening, but for most of us, competition began in earnest on Saturday morning with a PreO course of 27 controls divided into two separate parts on separate maps with the timed controls in the middle on typical rocky Swedish terrain. It was well planned but tough, the difficulty being enhanced by the fact that the mapping was a bit inconsistent, so in some areas with lots of detail, quite large features (2m high crags, 1.5m boulders) failed to appear on the maps, where in other less well featured areas, smaller rock features did appear. The weather was sunny, but very cold, starting below zero but warming up to 5C during the morning.

Later in the day we re-assembled at the same spot in the freezing cold for a Night PreO event, 23 controls plus timed control, using special reflectors on the stakes rather than conventional O flags. With so many high powered headlamps in evidence, illuminating the complex forest, I was quite enjoying myself until my torch battery gave out after about an hour with 6 controls to go, meaning I had to rely on my backup hand torch: good in normal circumstances but puny in a big dark forest, leading to a lot of (largely unsuccessful) guesswork before I finished. Ian Ditchfield kindly loaned me his head torch for the timed controls, which I did get mostly right. But, battling with my dim light, I had gone just over the time allowance for the course and lost a precious point as a time penalty. Fortunately, only the team’s best three competitor’s score counted for the night event. Sadly, despite my problems, I was still my team’s highest scorer!

(At the WIM evening in September at Avon Heath, I loaned someone my new head torch to help collect in the controls after the event. I can’t remember who borrowed it, but I haven’t seen it since – please may I have it back?)

The final instalment was a PreO course on Sunday morning on another day of glorious sunny, but freezing weather, within earshot of the airport. The course of 27 controls, was divided into three short sections, the first in a forest and then two on an open hillside, with separate maps for each. The middle section, viewed from a field next to the car park, comprised four single A flag controls situated 500m away on a hillside which had been clear felled, using giant flags to make for better visibility. The last section of the course was set on the same hillside, but viewed from below and much closer, using conventional flags which had been largely invisible from the distant viewing point.

Click for large view

Overall, everyone found it tough: unusually no competitor had a perfect round in any of the three competitions. Tom Dobra (BOK) was our best performer finishing 21st  and the GBR1 team was 11th. I was 89th out of 125 and our GB Allstars team was last but one, beating only the Italian Para team. There is no separate Para class in the Nordic match.

Finland won the actual Nordic Match, followed by Norway 1, and then three Swedish teams.
The Swedish teams for the match are selected strictly according to their national rankings and, as has become traditional, the Swedish first team was beaten by their second string.

My return trip was a little fraught. The plane back to Gatwick was an hour late (because it was delayed earlier by big thunderstorms in the S. of England) which mean that I missed my train from Gatwick. Fortunately, Charles Bromley Gardner was on the same flight and he was able to give me a lift to Andover where until we reached Salisbury I was the only passenger on the last train towards Exeter.

Next year’s match returns to Norway and the forest which hosted the very first European FootO Champs back in 1962. I can’t wait.