Otakar Hirs, the member of our training-team was interviewed by his clubmate Arttu Syrjäläinen after the Costa Calida long distance race.
You won your race yesterday, how was it? Where did you succeed?
It went pretty good. I was a little bit in a hurry before the start, but I managed to start in time. I knew I might not be able to compete with the others in terms of speed, as I had some health issues lately, so I focused hard on building a precise navigation plan for every control and to avoid any mistakes and that ended up being a good thing to do after all.
You have been running some night trainings at the camp. How have they been? Have you done much night trainings before?
I had some problems at first as this terrain with sand dunes in here is pretty unusual. So it took me a while until I found a way to navigate here and during the first night training I did a little bit more sightseeing than I would like to. Now, after some days it is significantly better and I am getting more confident again.
We do night trainings every two weeks with my homeclub and I do quite well at one night race we have in Czech Republic every year, so it is nothing special to me.
How has your camp been this far? Have you had fun with the Finnish guys?
We are doing quite well. It is allways nice to switch from freezing winter into sunny weather. We are enjoying the sun and sand dunes so far.
You might be surprised (in Finland), but we have a lot of conversations going on, well, most of them are telepathic ones.. so we do have a lot of fun, from time to time. 😀
Will you have any races in Finland this year?
I will surely come for Jukola, the rest is not decided yet.
Otakar Hirs, Czech Republic, Clubs; SK Zabovresky Brno, Helsingin Suunnistajat
Photos: Lauri Syrjäläinen
Interview: Arttu Syrjäläinen