Thierry Gueorgiou, a multiple medalist who started eight months ago as the head coach of the Finnish national orienteering team, is receiving praise from the athletes.
Dedicated. Perfectionist. With these words, the Finnish national team navigators describe the new head coach Thierry Gueorgiouta. The Frenchman, who won 14 World Cup gold in his career, started as Finland’s head coach at the beginning of October 2021, and the honeymoon phase with the athletes seems to continue. Gueorgiou gets a lot of smoke from athletes.
Gueorgiou was known as an athlete for his hard work and commitment. He will now continue along the same line as head coach. The highlight of the year, the World Cup, will be sprint trips to Denmark at the end of June. With that in mind, athletes have already been offered many foreign camps.
– The level of doing in the camps has risen. When the head coach works 24 hours a day, it also takes the athletes with him. It is important for him that athletes are able to do everything as well as possible, says a strong participant in sprint camps since the beginning of the year. Marika Teini.
Guergiou himself admits that the first eight months as head coach have been very full-fledged.
– These have been the most intense in my life for eight months. I want to do everything 100%. Not much has come to sleep, Gueorgiou admits the smile on his lips.
Gueorgiou has increased the attractiveness of national team camps
During the spring, the national team athletes have been able to prepare for sprint competitions at camps in Italy and Denmark, among others. And when the European Championships for cross-country trips are held in Estonia in the autumn in a type of terrain familiar to Finns, it has enabled the tops to focus on two value competitions.
This challenge has been answered by, among others, Tampereen Pyrinto Venla Harju and Kaleva Rastia are represented by Teini and Miika Kirmula. Of these three, the 2013 World Championship bronze woman Harju has been a more familiar sight in sprint battles. On the other hand, five years have passed since the teens’ and Kirmula’s value representations in sprints.
– The head coach himself chose to choose this season’s bets and promised to support the athlete’s own decision, the teenager reveals.
However, the World Championship medals and success are interesting, so Teini and Kirmula have also been a familiar sight at the spring camps. Kirmula praises the head coach for finding his own sprint spark.
– He has brought precision to even the smallest things. In the spring at the sprint camp in Italy, it felt like I was about to give up when nothing came of it. I probably would have let myself be easier if he (Thierry) hadn’t been in that push, Kirmula admits.
Since then, Kirmula has been in at least the top three in camp or inspection competitions. He was the last to win the Finnish sprint championship in Jyväskylä. The top name in the field trips of recent years is now strongly pushed into the World Sprint team.
One of the best in the spring season has been Helsinki Orienteering Tuomas Heikkilä. Last year, Heikkilä was 25th in the Czech World Championship sprint, this year he seems to have taken valuable steps forward.
– Last season, the physics was already in good shape, but it seems that there have been leaps in performance management this year. Skillful preparation was not good enough before, but now that Thierry has joined, that too has progressed, Heikkilä reflects.
Gueorgiou’s idea is to make national team camps so attractive that they invite everyone.
– The philosophy is that the level of the camps would be very high and that they would be of interest to athletes. I am not forcing anyone to take part in them, but I want to show that they will lead to the very highest, Gueorgiou says.
The 360 camera is a great help in development
Gueorgiou does a lot of exercises, practice maps, even Bulletins already for camps. After the camp race, the athlete will have online results, which he will be able to analyze immediately with the coaches.
– He puts all the camps on top of the last one and has thought about everything in advance from the point of view of the athlete, how we feel there, says Harju.
Gueorgiou has also used a lot of 360 cameras in the camps, with which he has run with athletes in rehearsals and recorded performances.
– The camera is not lying, it shows what has been true. After crossing the finish line, only the athlete’s version of the performance is always available in conversations, which may differ from reality for a number of different reasons. When I run with athletes, I see live how they work, Gueorgiou justifies using the camera as a coaching aid.
You can watch the use of the 360 camera in the video in the main picture of this story.
In sprint, time differences are usually a few seconds, so even small changes or corrections can play a big role in the finish.
– If you have a clearer section on the track, for example, then you should focus especially on running technique to get all the extra time out. Another effective target is ticking. If there are 20 ticks in the race and you get a second off, that’s a lot, the Teenager concretizes what can be analyzed from the videos.
And Gueorgiou’s dedication is not limited to conducting orienteering exercises.
– He’s trying to do everything in front of the athlete. We had bikes rented at one camp, so he fixed the saddle at the right height for the athlete. What maybe I could do myself, the teenager laughs.
The World Orienteering Championships will be held in Denmark in the last week of June. The latest sprint medals in Finland are from the Vuokatti 2013 home competitions, when Mårten Boström won gold and Venla Harju (then called Niemi) won bronze.