Junior World Orienteering Championships: Olli-Markus did it again
Posted on | July 10, 2009 | Category: News
Olli-Markus Taivainen has had a tremendous year. Earlier this year he got four gold medals at the Junior World Ski Orienteering Championships, and after that, on the middle distance, a gold at the World Ski Orienteering Championships. Today he got his sixth gold of the year, on the Junior World Orienteering Championships middle distance in San Martino in Primiero valley.
-Long distance was what I had focused on, but this was my last chance to win a junior gold in orienteering. At the end of the course when it was tricky and I was tired, I worked hard to stay concentrated, Olli-Markus says.
He says that his strength is more the running than orienteering, but the terrific middle distance run on a very demanding track showed that he for sure is also extremely talented technically. In fact, at the moment, the very best.
The golden boy Olli-Markus Taivainen thinks this is the biggest gold of the year.
-It’s tougher to win in orienteering than in ski orienteering. So I think this last gold is almost bigger for me than the ski orienteering golds. In Pello where I am from it is also much easier to train ski orienteering than orienteering, says the Finn. In Pello in Northern Finland there is a lot of snow during winter.
Good at being good at the right moment
Olli-Markus did a perfect race on the challenging middle distance. He was leading at all radio controls and at the end he was 39 seconds faster than Philipp Sauter from Switzerland, who finished second. The Norwegian Ulf Forseth Indgaard got bronze. Olli-Markus is 20 years old, but has a lot of experience from both orienteering and ski orienteering. He is especially good at being good at the right moment, like he showed this winter – and today.
Olli-Markus doesn’t have a trainer. Instead, he thinks he wants to learn from other athletes and their experiences. On his homepage, www.freewebs.com/omataivainen, has he written that his coach is “life”. And life surely seems to be a good coach for him.
Earlier this year Olli-Markus didn’t impress at the Open Nordic championships on home ground in Finland. That wasn’t so strange.
-My focus has all the time been on JWOC, he says.
And we know how it is: he is specialised in being good at the very right moment. This year it was the Junior World Championships.
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