Bears forced Canadian Championships to take a new bearing
Posted on | August 11, 2016 | Category: News, Newsletter
Bears are not an unusual sight in Canada, but they are generally not aggressive to humans. Photo: Adrian Zissos
At the Canadian Championships, not only the competitors were met with challenges. Due to an unusually large amount of bears in the area for the Long and Sprint venues, the organizers had to plan new courses in new areas only three days before the events went off.
Get permission to new areas, planning new courses, printing a stack of new maps and putting out controls was the scenario for the organizers few days before the Canadian Championships in Long, Middle, Sprint, and Sprint Relay took place in the last weekend of July.
While there are bears in Canada, organizers take precautions to make sure that orienteering is safe. Therefore, when bears attracted to a berry crop were seen in the area for the Sprint, Sprint-Relay and Long distance, the organizers decided to move the events, which were meant to take place around the city Canmore in the western part of Canada.
Instead of cancelling the events, the Long was held in the same area as the Middle distance and the Sprint distances were moved to the University of Calgary.
From left: The winner in W17-20 at Long Distance Darya Sepandj and bronze medalist Nicole Whitmore. Photo: Ben Smith
Technical chief at the event Adrian Zissos describes the last day with Sprint and Sprint relay:
“In the morning we all moved 100km to the University of Calgary from the Long distance area. We set out the Sprint controls and at 10am, we printed the maps for the Sprint Relay; for a 12:30pm start. This is the latest that I have ever printed maps for a major competition – by a long shot!”
World champion vs bear
It is not unusual that a course planner might see a bear in the terrain but it is very rare that a Canadian event has to be cancelled because of the big animal.
Canada is not the only place where events is in risk to be moved because of Nature. In Australia, it is common to have a spare area for big events in case of bush fire, but as in Canada, it is very rare that it becomes necessary.
In recent years, bear activity has increased in Canada, which has put safety more in focus. This year for instance, adult competitors were required to carry bear spray, and the juniors started later in the start window so that any bears would be flushed out of the competition area before they started.
Last autumn on a training in Canada, the Danish world champion Søren Bobach met a bear as well. Wearing a go-pro camera, he got the episode on tape. You can see Søren Bobach handling the meeting with a bear in the bottom.
All the new courses and results from the Canadian Championships can be found here
“Søren Bobach and the bear in Canada”
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