I found an interesting note on the Swedish O' Federation (SOFT) home page:

Nyckeln till framgeng dr att inte gvra negra bommar i skogen. Bjvrnar Valstad, vdrldsmdstaren fren Norge, har slutat gvra misstag. - I er har jag pe trdning och tdvling orienterat mig till cirka 2 600 kontroller. Av dessa har jag missat tio stycken med mer dn en minut, sdger Valstad.

What it says is:

The key to success is not making any mistakes. Bjornar Valstad, the Norwegian World champion, has stopped making mistakes. "In training and competitions this year I have orienteered to about 2,600 controls. Of these, I have had ten mistakes of more than a minute."

-- Spike (meglin@juno.com), November 18, 1999

Answers

Inspired by Bjoernar, I have been counting the number of controls I have found in training and competitions this year. To date (Feb 1), I have found 137. I have not kept track of mistakes -- but it is probably around 10-12. My "batting average" isn't quite as good as Bjoernar's...unless I don't make any mistakes during my next 2500 controls.

-- Spike (meglin@juno.com), February 01, 2000.

I got a bit more detail about Valstad's training.

Valdtad was doing five technique trainings per week. Most weeks he did two "classic" courses (courses of about 90 minutes).

-- Spike (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), February 02, 2000.