World Cup Final
Switzerland
The Swiss Secret
Agenda 1. Person
2. The Swiss secret 3. Chronology
4. Team
5. Develoment of arena design / Demands on arena design (Sprint) 6. Pictures, stories and arena designs 2007 – 2014
7. Special experiances
Person
Brigitte Grüniger Huber
born 1974 in an orienteering family
Living close to Aarau (World Cup Final 2016)
Responsible for sponsoring & events in Swiss Orienteering (50%) Swiss O team member from 1991 to 2006
Junior World Champion 1993 in relay and Student World Champion 2000 in relay. No 7 in Overall World Cup 2005.
Participated in 32 countries.
The Swiss Secret
The Swiss Secret
Watches / punctuality
Sönke Bandixen WM-idea 2003 Sprint introduction in the cities and not in forest. («we for them» instead of «we for us»)
The Swiss Secret
Cows and mountains / nature
Very different terrains within a range of 3 hours driving. Old ciities in Switzerland are perfect for Sprint races. 2015 World Cup Finals in the mountains (Arosa).
The Swiss Secret
Chocolate
The athletes are our main focus! Everybody likes to get rewarded.
The best orienteers earn more attention than they normally get in orienteering events during the season.
In Switzerland at the World cup Final they all can get «the chocolate»: price money since 2004
Presents for all athletes and coaches from our sponsor and partners by arrival
We attract as many spectators as possible: orienteering people with the national events in the morning, non-orienteers with intensiv
marketing and promotion for the event, media partners
All athletes feel like stars, when they are treated like very important persons
The Swiss Secret
Cheese:
We are organized like the most popular Swiss Cheese «Emmentaler».
Local organizers task
World Cup Team (12 persons)
The Swiss Secret
Swiss banks
Contract with Credit Suisse 1989 - 2003. PostFinance as main sponsor:
2002 – 2012 sCOOL projekt (orienteering lessons in school) 2004 – 2012 PostFinance Sprint
2004 - 2013 national team
2012 main sponsor at WOC in Lausanne
PostFinance not only supported the federation, but also invested a lot of money in advertising campagnes that included orienteering.
Chronology
2003: WOC in Switzerland, Event director Sönke Bandixen Summer 2004: Idea for international event in Switzerland from WOC
crew Offer to PostFinance and they say yes September 2004: 1st PostFinance Sprint in Rüti
Saturday: Qualification race, middle distance
Sunday: Final with best 20 from Saturday and price money, Sprint distance in urban terrain
Total 36 men, 24 women
Winner: Niclas Jonasson and Simone Niggli Invitation to World Champions
Chronology
2005: 2. PostFinance Sprint in Bellinzona
In conjunction with JWOC, Juniors had possibility to run the sprint in a separate competition. Invitation of World Champions 2004 Saturday: Qualification race, middle distance (selection race
Swiss WOC-team)
Sunday: Final with best 20, sprint distance in Bellinzona, live TV-coverage
January 2006: Application for World Cup Final series 2007 - 2009 2006: 3. Postfinance Sprint in Bern
Capital of Switzerland, headoffice of PostFinance Same concept as 2005, 18 foreign runners.
Chronology
2007: 4. PostFinance Sprint and World Cup Final in Stein am Rhein Saturday: middle distance
Sunday: sprint distance with 40 best in WC overall Special invitation to World Champions
«School-kids meets World Champion» on Friday Last edition with Sönke Bandixen as event director
2008: 5. Postfinance Sprint and World Cup Final in Zürich (Irchelpark) Same concept as 2007
Same team as 2004-2007 except event director
2009: 6. PostFinance Sprint and World Cup Final in Zürich (City) Same concept as 2007 & 2008
In conjunction with a big city event «Multimobil» (around 30’000 people in the streets), more than 5’000 spectators in arena.
Chronology
2010: 7. PostFinance Sprint and World Cup Final in Geneva
Swiss Orienteering wanted to bring the orienteering sport to the western part of Switzerland (WOC 2012 in Lausanne)
Difficult to organize for the World Cup crew, because of language
(French), distances and a very small local club (only 30 active runners) Suberb terrain for Sprint.
2011: 8. PostFinance Sprint and World Cup Final in La Chaux-de-Fonds 2nd edition in western part of Switzerland.
2012: 9. PostFinance Sprint and World Cup Weekend in St.Gallen
Because of home WOC, we decided to have the WC weekend 3 weeks before WOC, so teams can use it for training purpose and better for media and marketing attention.
Chronology
2013: World Cup Final in Baden No main sponsor anymore.
Last international competition of Simone Niggli: live TV-coverage (Sprint)
First time with Sprint relay on Friday (training competition) 2014: World Cup Final in Liestal
Unofficial Sprint Relay World Cup Final on Friday 2015: World Cup Final in Arosa
New program because of terrains: Friday: long distance
Saturday: middle distance, Final, no qualification (all can start) Sunday: Sprint relay
2016: World Cup Final in Aarau, same programm as 2014 2017: World Cup Final ??, region of Bern
Team
Organizing committee with very much experiance:
- Hansueli Steinmann: technical director WOC 2003, in the team since 2004
- Daniel Leibundgut: Results, IT services WOC 2003 and 2012, in the team since 2004
- Nicolas Russi: TV- and Arena production WOC 2003, 2011 and 2012, in the team 2004 - 2014
- Peter Oehy and Urs Bischof: Infrastructure WOC 2003, in the team 2004 – 2013
- Brigitte Grüniger Huber: Event director since 2008 - Mirjam Gründler: Administration since 2008
- Doris Grüniger: Grafic, design since 2008 - Andrea Grüniger: VIP events since 2010 - Martin Oppliger: Start, since 2010
- Markus Hitz: Infrastructure, since 2014
- And many, many volunteers coming annually (about 50 for Middle, about 130 for Sprint)
Developement of arena design
Important for us
- Best possible courses, but choice of arena position is influenced also by touristic and logistical aspects
- Spectators can follow the competition from the arena (live as many times as possible with start/run-through/finish plus from big screen and with speaker commentaries)
- Spectators are really close to the athletes in the run-in / run-through / run-out
- Good angles for TV-cameras and photographers - Athletes are the stars
Developement of arena design
Sprint:
Start and finish at the same place with a run-through
Start/finish-podium (about 1m high), so athletes can be seen Middle:
Finish at assembly area for the national event, big screen with GPS tracking, standings and sometimes live pictures from forest.
Demands on arena design
During competition Behind the scene
Start / run through / Finish Position of screen Position of spectators Position of cameras Crossing for spectators Speakertower
Postition of VIP tent Production
Position of stands Time keeping analysing No crossing for runners in/out Press after finish
Last control (visible from finish) Coaching zone (after finish) Spectator control (visible from
finish)
Pre start separated from runners in finish
Map change Toilets
Time keeping Doping control Press (TV+photograf) Refreshment Coaching zone Info tent
Visibility for sponsors Space for all kind of material
Demands on arena design
• All involved parties must be part of the planning process from the beginning (course setter, event production, time keeper, sponsors, media, city /
tourism, emergency,…)
• No-go-aspects have to be analysed early and properly
• Think about who is allowed to go where and how you can control this (guards, system with badges or different clothes?)
• Think about needs for media (what kind of pictures they wanna get where do they need to go to get it offer good places to media)
Sprint in Cities
• A lot of work to get a correct and fair map and course
• Permissions, permissions, permissions
• As bigger the city, as longer it takes to get the permissions
• Timetable for building up an arena may be shortened because of traffic or opening hours of shops
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2007
Stein am Rhein
World Cup Final 2008
Zürich (Irchel Park)
World Cup Final 2008
Zürich (Irchel Park)
World Cup Final 2008
Zürich (Irchel Park)
World Cup Final 2008
Zürich (Irchel Park)
World Cup Final 2008
Zürich (Irchel Park)
World Cup Final 2008
Zürich (Irchel Park)
Our goals / important
- Athletes are the most important
- Athletes only feel good, if they are treaded good
- We need spectators. Without spectators, athletes don’t feel good and we don’t have money (at least the following year nobody will be
interested anymore, if there were no spectators and media).
- We try to offer a special surprise to the runners as often as possible. - Marketing for the event is really important.
Special experiances
- Every year we get emails from «orienteering federations» for example from Ghana with the wish to help them getting a visa - Up to 75 % of teams don’t send entries in time
- Up to 50% of teams don’t pay entries in time
- On competition days: be always prepared for every thing you are not prepared for… (no keys for important doors, new construction areas, other events)
Future of World Cup?
Personal opinion:
World Cup Events are important for the orienteering sport to have more than only one highlight per year (for example in media)!
We can (we could) test new format first in World Cup…
Organizing a World Cup is a good way for future WOC organizers to get knowledge.
Without World Cup organizers every federation maybe organizes a high level event every 5-10 years. Knowledge-transfer?
Future of World Cup?
Personal opinion:
We can no longer organize high level orienteering events such as WOC, EOC and World Cups on a totaly voluntary basis.
Organizing a high level event is much more complex than to organize a national championship in most of the countries (media needs, arena-and maybe TV-production, secrency of courses arena-and other details, finances, teamleader meetings, …).
Systems with SEA on voluntary basis doesn’t fulfill all needs of a high level event organisation.
