Patrick Hofmeister

The WUOC ended last weekend with the relay that took place in the same area as the middle. I tried to draw my conclusions from the mistakes I had made the day before which implied having trust in the compass and avoiding the greens.

My teammates Torben and Franz did quite solid runs on the first two longer legs so that I had a good starting position, not in the leading group but still with contact to the top10. During the race my legs still felt fresh although it was the 4th competition within four days. And suddenly I knew how to orienteer in that kind of terrain. My race was more like a single competition but I managed to run without any bigger mistake so that I could pass the Finns and the Moldovians in the middle of the course. At the end I was just 2:30 behind the best time on my leg and finished on 10th spot. Unfortunately, my brother didn’t have his best day and lost the two places I gained. So we finished on 12th place and missed our goal of a Top10 place!

But on the banquet we were back again: First we could celebrate a clear victory in a football match against the French team (sadly we didn’t get the chance to take revenge for the European Champs final against the Spaniards), then we finished in 2nd spot in holding a 1l beer glass with outstretched arm (thanks to Sören) and of course we were the last that went home in Club Atlantis after the lights went on on the dancefloor!

When I came home on Monday morning I was totally exhausted from a 14h trip by bus, plane and car. But one exam on Wednesday was still left and in Estonia I didn’t do anything concerning international accounting. So I had to work hard for the last two days but now I am almost exam-free, a nice feeling I have to admit. And I am really looking forward to the next months that I will spend in Barcelona from September untill January. Of course I will provide you with all the news during that time on my homepage. So keep on reading…

All the single competitions are over here in Estonia, my results were a 26th spot in sprint and 32th in both the long and the Middle today.

Yesterday’s long distance was more like a fight through the jungle in most of the parts, especially after the spectator control. If you missed the direction not using the compass, the risk of getting totally lost was huge. I had a solid start until the 8th control, at the same time media control, where I came too much to the left, then searching the control about 3min. Further bigger mistakes occured on the way to the 10th and 12th control where I lost direction in the marshes, as well as to the 14th. At first I took the wrong routechoice, then I didn’t manage to keep direction in the green running like crazy two times through the thicket and finally lost control as I entered the green directly before the 14th. Another 3 minutes were gone. The next controls were quite good but at the last few legs I felt really tired, almost having a hunger knock but anyway I came into the run-in with the last power in my body finishing almost 24min behind Smola.

Today’s Middle distance was supposed to be pretty much faster. And they were quite right, at least at the beginning of my race. I started as the last runner which was a new experience for me. Looking at the splits, it seemed as if this gave me a lot of motivation. I was leading at the 2nd control and still 6th on control 5. Then I lost some time on the long leg, perhaps I was a little bit too fast at the beginning. The biggest mistake was at the 6th control where I didn’t run far enough to reach the control because I mixed up the two flat depressions. Another mistake on the 9th control and a solid last part so that I finished 32th like yesterday.

Tomorrow there it’s gonna be relay time. I am running the 3rd leg, a short one with only 6km.

German team:
1. Torben Wendler
2. Franz Doetsch
3. Patrick Hofmeister
4. Christoph Hofmeister

You can have a look at my Middle and Long track on Routegadget.