"First of all I want to say that technical part of organization makes athletes angry. Very low professional level! There are a lot of flubs at EOC-2014.
I have had an image of terrain from model events and previous training camps in Portugal. I knew that it will be searching of small passages through the green areas and a lot of running around by the roads and paths.
1st and 2nd controls gave first challenge - green situations on the map and on the terrain look different. Moreover paths seem like some kind of harrows.
1st control does not have control description about side of bushes. Also dark green edge was not correctly drawn and I made a loop. I was in random searching of this control point.
At the second control I also made mistake. The last track has extra-bend (not on the map, but similar to the bend near control). I left road in wrong place but then realized the correct situation.
It was impossible to see minor paths near control #4. I just kept direction before I recognized road junction. When I analyzed this leg I thought that there is a passage through the green by re-entrant. But I did not read map carefully. In fact there is no passage in the re-entrant and I realized that I have to run through the terrible prickly bushes of blackberry. That led to +1.54 time lost.
Before control #8 I climbed by the passage through vertical green stripes. But this passage was not on the map. I realized that my control point is further away.
On the way to 17th control I had to make deviation to refreshment station. I can count it like another flub of organizers. It should be more friendly locations of refreshment stations.
On the way to #21 I was waiting a road through the depression but I noticed it too late and decided to run around from the right side. As a result I climb very steep sand slope (by the way on the map it is twice smaller then in reality).
Last control. I was lazy: I forgot about precise map-contact. As a result I climb to wrong knoll and lost +16 sec.
Summary: course consists of variations: pushing really hard/zigzag wading through thorns.
During the race my feeling was much better then at Middle Q; acclimatization is almost over".
P.S. Three athletes from Russian National team work with me like personal coach - Valentin Novikov, Julia Novikova, Galina Vinogradova. And some information about their races at EOC-2014 will be published here.
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