Krešo Keresteš is today's guest
of Portuguese Orienteering Blog. He is a Cartographer, will be 42
this year and lives in Trzin, near Ljubljana (Slovenia). There you
are the impressions of one of the biggest names in trail orienteering
panorama, with five participations in WTOC and a gold medal in the
Open Class at WTOC 2007, in Ukraine.
For how many years have you been
doing trail orienteering?
Krešo Keresteš (K. K. )
– My first competition was the O-ringen in 1999, although I had
already tried the O-ringen in 1992 in Sweden. I was very much
involved in footO at that time, but the real impulse was my friend
Niko Čižek, who is disabled and wanted to know what orienteering
is. He was willing to try trail orienteering at a big event and we
did some training before the O-ringen. So, we were very well
prepared. He won in B Class. I was on 8th
place in the Elite Class, so it was a good start. It took five years
to organize the first trailO event in Slovenia and from then on I
have been involved in the organization of trailO events every year.
And why did you start doing trail
orienteering?
K. K. – Actually it
was an opportunity to be more competitive, more than any other
aspect. I also do foot orienteering, but I have better results in
trail orienteering.
What do you find in trail
orienteering that can help those who do foot orienteering to improve
their skills?
K. K. – I can see
that many youngsters and also some more experienced orienteers are
not so good, because they don't know a lot of things. Why? Because we
have to solve the problems at distance, trail orienteering is from
this view technically more demanding that foot orienteering.
Therefore, in trail orienteering we have to study many things that,
in general, foot orienteers solve with their speed and because of
that their coaches don’t know exactly if they did a mistake or not.
I believe that also top foot orienteers do many things to improve
their skills. Some of them also do trail orienteering when it is
possible. Trail orienteering can provide them skills to recognize the
terrain on the map and vice versa, to know something more about maps,
control descriptions and gain some experience with the compass and
other measuring methods, so of course trail orienteering can help
foot orienteers to improve their skills. Also tempO is a discipline
where speed of decision making is crucial as in high speed foot
orienteering. So, trail orienteering and tempO could be very good
training for foot orienteers.
How is trail orienteering in
Slovenia?
K. K. – Some people
don't recognize trail orienteering as a sport, but it is officially a
sport supported by the Slovenian Orienteering Federation, as any
other orienteering discipline. Actually this year we are the only
national team to compete at Championships, we don't have a foot
orienteering nor a ski orienteering not even a mountain bike
orienteering team, except for a junior footO team.
How many competitors do you have
in front of you?
K. K. – In trail
orienteering it becomes different year after year, but I could say
around fifteen at the moment. Usually we compete alongside with
Croatian and Italian athletes in our common CRO-ITA-SLO TrailO Cup.
According to our work and results we have also some foreign
competitors in our club competing in footO and also trailO.
In these particular World
Championships, what was the best and the worst for you?
K. K. – The
competition was interesting. I cannot say that my map reading was not
perfect, but I did two mistakes on the second day. I can still hope
to be between the best. I'm a little bit disappointed with those
mistakes, because I worked hard before the Championships to get good
results. It's normal
that everyone here wants to be a World Champion, but I guess it will
be hard to be between the Top 5. Some of the control points were very
clear, but some others were very detailed. We could see that some
features were not in the right position in the map and that would
prejudice our answers. The best part was that I got more
international experience, which was very important. As you know, I
already won the Championship once, so I'll try harder next year.
TempO
or TrailO?
K.
K. – Both
disciplines are important for trail orienteering to develop this
sport. My motto is that only a second could be a difference between
the winner and others and therefore I have to do anything to be the
best. In the past I put many efforts to improve my results at timed
controls and I think that this is also my strength. Therefore I can
expect good results in tempO. My result at World TempO Trophy this
year was very bad, but I have good reasons for that.
Portugal
will organize ETOC in 2014. Do you intend to be on the competition?
K.
K. – As a
competitor, I have Finland in my mind at the moment, where WTOC 2013
will take place. It is true that I didn't compete at an ETOC yet, but
Portugal could be a good start. I think that the organizers in
Portugal already know that, for a good organization of trailO events,
you need three things: willing people, good terrains and perfect
maps. I am sure that the first two you already have, so now it is
time to do the maps together with the course planners. This is the
most important for trailO events.
For
how many years more are we going to see you doing trail orienteering?
K. K. – That depends
on how our Federation will support us, but I hope I'll be able to
compete in the next years' Championships. I don’t do trailO just to
compete at the Championships. I am organizing and course setting nine
trailO events in Slovenia this year. Anyway, I will do my best to
stay in the Slovenian national team as long as it will be possible.
Joaquim Margarido