Ten club members travel to the world’s biggest O event, the Swedish O’Ringen
Attended by:
- John and Ann-Marie D
- Sally Calland (author of this post)
- Helen C
- Phil C
- Stuart S
- Val and Graham J
- Tom H
- And the resident hanger-on, Andy L!!
Day 0 – indoor aerodrome. Epic, running through relic aircraft! Most of us got to the start late after not reading the bulletin properly. We managed to get going and had a great 30 mins running in and around the underground museum. Helen completed her run, whilst the rest of us were not quite so competent!
Day 1 & 2 – entailed a monster 36km round trip on bikes, with a very steep last 2km to get to the arena. This trip was not repeated on Day 2!
Terrain very rough and nothing was mapped!! The arena was definitely overwhelming!
Rest day indoor O – Deadly, difficult and deceiving! 80 mins for 900m with one control taking 19mins. How would you get to number 3?
Phil Cooper did not realise map had different floor levels and got extremely frustrated and quit. When Helen told Phil about the different levels, suddenly it all made sense!
Also Graham gave up after being outfoxed by 5–6 on the Medium course. Whilst we are talking about Graham, I must mention that last year his camping location had been ‘far’ from ideal. After a message to the organisers, his tent was ‘far’ from everything this year!
On the afternoon of the rest day, some of us watched the elite sprint through central Gothenburg, which was closed to all traffic; this would never happen in a UK city!
Day 3 – more akin to UK style O, a circular park with a zoo in the centre. With an additional 1700 EODs the area was packed out. You needed to maintain contact and avoid distractions.
As DVO’s favourite non-member (still waiting for a contract with positive T&Cs!), Andy L decided to revisit control 4 on his course, after forgetting whether he had already been there, he had!!
Tom H, after queuing for over an hour to collect his bib, joined us on day 3.
Day 4 & 5 – a slither of an area 4km long by 500m wide. We switched between N and S of the area on each day.
Day 4 – Tom’s first experience of typical Swedish forests took some time! After becoming somewhat challenged he stumbled across Phil C who knew exactly where they were. Despite this, it took Tom another 40 mins to find his control! 
We must mention Stuart had hired a bike for the week. A very nice bike until one of his pedals sheared off!
With no other way to get the bike back to the bike shop (located about 5km away from our Airbnb), he set off early on day 4 to return said bike to the shop. Whilst Stuart had a great weekend in the forest, his nav was certainly challenged on the way to the bike shop and he spent 4 hours walking 5km – Google maps glitched!! Luckily, he just about made his start, despite being exhausted. Well done Stuart for a great week in the forest.
The DVO team took over the food hall before the final race to compare experiences.
Day 5 – Andy decided to mis-punch at control 4. What do you think about that control site? Unclear, congested, could have put arrows to the drinks stations?
The endurance champion of the week goes to Phil C, who spent over twelve hours in the forest! Even after cycling to all but one of the events. Well done Phil, who was also full of cold.
In sum, O’Ringen delivered in spades. Very technical, challenging orienteering in typical Swedish terrain. With over 20,000 orienteers in the forest, it was congested at times (the only downside). The maps were sparse with detail (unlike UK terrain), which certainly made us use contours throughout the week.
With some great results for the week, the team departed on planes, trains, automobiles, ferries and bikes to return to the UK and redeploy to the Lakes 5 Days next weekend (watch this space)!
