Dariusz Pachnik, coach of UKS „Orientpark.pl” Iwiny:
May is a major accumulation of events this year for orienteering runners. In practice, the training process is focused more on recovery, because we have important and exhausting competitions practically every weekend. A week ago, we wrote about the Polish Orienteering Championships in the middle and night distances, held near Kielce. This week, we moved to Włocławek and its surrounding area to take part in the first round of the Polish Club Championships (there are two rounds in one season; the second will be held in autumn near Szczecin).
Friday – day one
Coach:
The “orienteers’” competition opened with a sprint through the centre of Włocławek. The race had an urban-park character, and the pace was very fast. On the first day alone, several valuable results were achieved, including three medals, in all three colours. Stanisław Pachnik won the gold medal in the M18 category Stanisław Pachnik. This result is particularly valuable because the race was one of the qualifiers for the Polish national team for the Junior World Championships, scheduled for early July in Turkey. Jędrzej Pachnik won silver Jędrzej Pachnik in the M16 category, while Dariusz Pachnik won bronze in the veteran “fifties.”
Oliwia Hetnar came very close to the podium Oliwia Hetnar; she missed it by a few seconds and unfortunately finished fourth, while her clubmate Martyna Nikołajuk finished sixth Martyna Nikołajuk.
Dariusz Pachnik: – The girls are making increasing progress in sport, and their results are steadily improving. Other top-ten finishes included Małgorzata Pachnik in the women’s elite category, in ninth place, as well as Wojciech Pachnik in the men’s elite category, also in ninth place. The youngest of the Pachnik family – Antoni – finished in the top ten in M12.Małgorzata Pachnik Wojciech Pachnik Antoni
Saturday – day two
Coach of the Iwiny “orienteers”:
Saturday meant a journey deep into the forest, several kilometres south of Włocławek, for the classic-distance race. This time we performed a little less well; there were probably two reasons. First, the nature of the terrain once again favoured athletes from clubs in central Poland, who train daily on flat or gently rolling terrain. Second, in the junior and senior categories, competitors ran with maps at a scale of 1:15,000, something that – apart from the Polish Championships – happens extremely rarely. Of course, it was no disaster. There was only one medal this time, silver for Stasiu Pachnik, but Oliwia again achieved a very high finish – fifth; Martyna was ninth, Antek sixth, and Jędrek fifth. Maja Nikołajuk also ran very well, finishing tenth in the highly competitive K14 category Maja Nikołajuk. Małgosia improved her Saturday result by one place, finishing eighth. The rest, as they say, performed in line with their abilities.
Sunday – day three
The coach continues:
The relay race. We entered three relay teams and, as one of the organisers put it, they were very creatively assembled, but in accordance with the rules. Why creatively assembled? We are a fairly small club, with a dozen or so athletes competing regularly, and it is difficult for us to find exactly three athletes of the same age and gender. However, the rules allow women to supplement men’s relay teams, provided that at least one competitor is a “man.” That is exactly what we had, for example, in the M12 category, whose team consisted of Martyna Nikołajuk, Oliwia Hetnar and Antek Pachnik. The second “men’s” relay in the M16 category consisted of Maja Nikołajuk, Wiktoria Kulka Wiktoria Kulka and Jędrzej Pachnik. The third team, in the men’s elite category, comprised Marek Wojnowicz, Małgorzata Pachnik and Wojciech Pachnik Marek Wojnowicz.
We had given our youngest representatives the best chances, because this team had already competed at last year’s Polish Club Championships and won a bronze medal. This time, they joined the fight for gold from the very first leg. Martyna, who started for our team, finished in first place, more than two minutes ahead of the team from Kwidzyn. Oliwia began the battle on the second leg; she completed the course in a similar time to Martyna, which gave us second place. Antek, running the third leg, matched his teammates’ result and also finished in around 34 minutes, securing second place and the silver medal. The older competitors did not repeat the success of their younger teammates. The “sixteens” finished eighth despite Jędrek recording the fastest time of all, while the “elite” team failed to complete the race because of an injury to Marek Wojnowicz. Stasiu Pachnik, who represents UKS „Orientuś” Łódź, won gold with his teammates, making it his third medal in three races at this competition.
Dariusz Pachnik sums up: – As a club, we won three medals at this competition, and Stasiu won another three, so for a 12-person team we performed quite well, although a certain sense of disappointment remains. We scored 108 points as a team, which puts us in sixteenth place among clubs in Poland.
He adds: – The events are now moving to “our own turf.” Next weekend brings the Ślęża Cup near Sobótka, meaning mountains and rocks, and two weeks later there will be the physically and technically extremely demanding terrain of the Rudawy Janowickie, where we will once again compete for medals at the Polish Championships in the classic distance. This type of terrain suits us much better, so it should be even better.