The last part of the third international Coaches Conference brought additional presentations from Denmark and Great Britain. Furthermore, a wrap-up session was arranged to have a discussion with the participants of the conference. The summaries and reports of all nations can be found here.

Der letzte Teil der Coaches Conference brachte weitere Präsentationen von Dänemark und Großbritannien. Außerdem konnten die Teilnehmer:innen der Coaches Conference über zusätzlich Themen in einer Diskussionsrunde aufbringen. Alle Zusammenfassungen und Berichte hier.

Denmark: 

Compared to other orienteering nations Denmark has a very high budget in elite orienteering. Because of their not so far away past with a lot of medals in World Championships Danish Orienteering receives a lot of money from „Team Denmark“ which is like the Olympic Committee. Consequently, they can afford a sports director and two full time national coaches for the Elite. Furthermore, the athletes are provided with expert-support (like medicine, strength coaches, nutrition, psychology) from Team Denmark. More information here.

Great Britain:

The British Orienteering Team has delivered top results during the last year, with several medals at the Sprint WOC in Denmark, and the World Cup Sprint victory in Czechia. Tom Bray is the coach of the GB Development Squad since last summer and his focus is to keep people in elite orienteering by creating a performance path that supports athletes in their development:
Read more here.

Wrap-up-session / conclusion of the Coaches Conference:

The coaches all described a high workload for all of them und sometimes it is a pity that personal coaching and the contact with athletes is therefore reduced. Kilian Imhof described similarities between all nations, for example that there is a big enthusiasm in the orienteering community in general. Additionally, he appreciates the orienteering environment as being an open culture and nations do not work against each other.

Some coaches consider the high number of travelling days as one of the biggest challenges as a full-time coach in international orienteering. Furthermore, selections are always difficult for the coaches as they are sometimes even personal coaches of the athletes.

There are different opinions when it comes to the discussion about the Olympics. On the one hand, orienteering would get more attention in general and more appearance on TV which is a big chance. On the other hand, much work must be done to ensure fair play when taking part in the Olympics. Some coaches even stated that they refuse the idea to get to the Olympics because they simply would like to maintain the current way of doing orienteering in general.

There was also a discussion about how to support athletes in the age of 18-23 as they drop-out quite often in this age group. Charly Boichut explained that the federation gives them more time to develop in this age and the performance is not that important as it might be from the age of 25. The coaches concluded that there should be opportunities for this age group to compete on a high level as well. That’s why they support competitions like WUOC, Euromeeting (and e.g. U23-WOC in the future), which can be season highlights for B-team athletes.

Finally, the coaches all agreed that cooperation between the nations is valuable for all involved people. Many of the coaches stress out that they would support common activities for national teams (and also for individuals from small orienteering nations) in the future. Full discussion here.

The Austrian Orienteering Federation would like to thank all coaches for their participation and their interest in the Coaches Conference! 😊 All summaries and reports can be found here.