TRAILO.IT - http://portugueseorienteeringblog.blogspot.it: KRESO KERESTES
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
