The Swedish WOC Team has been picked following selection races this past weekend. The Classic race was grueling, and a large portion of the men didn't even finish, as an indicator of how hard it was (it was quite warm for the race).

For 2 WOCs in a row now, Matthias "Vagnis" Karlsson came through with some strong runs, including a 3rd in the murderous classic race, and yet was skipped over again by the team leaders. 2 of the men named to the team were among those who didn't finish the classic race. Of course, selections are probably tougher than ever to make now that there are 3 distinct distances to consider.

Vagnis had a 17th as his worst result, on the short race the day after the classic race. What if he had bagged the classic race like so many others did, and tried to come to the short race as fresh as possible? Is it possible he might have gotten a better result and "succeeded" in making the team by "failing" on the longest, toughest of the trials races? The man who utterly crushed everyone else in the classic race, Mats Troeng, couldn't do better than 25th the next day. Impressively, Tobias Andersson, 2nd on classic, followed up with another 2nd the next day. But Tobias has been more or less the man to beat all this Spring in Sweden, and his results in the selection races were just more of the same.

I'm biased. But it looks to me Vagnis has gotten screwed again. I bet he won't be one of the ones sorry to see Swedish Mens Team Leader Goran Persson step down after this WOC is over.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), July 09, 2001

Answers

Johan Nasman wasn't treated very well in the selection process either. Among the women, there are a lot of folks who think Karolina Arewang should have been selected.

The Swedish selection process seems to suffer from the same issues as the US selection process. People aren't critical of the process until after the selections are made, and then they complain when they don't like the decisions (even if the process was followed). My understanding of the Swedish process is that they have WOC "test" races, but the actual selection is entirely up to the respective team leaders.

If Swedish orienteers don't like the process -- they ought to come up with a process they do like.

Personally, I think the normal US process (top three at the trials are automatic picks and a small committee picks two discretionary slots) is the best process.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), July 09, 2001.

What Spike said is true: the selectors in Sweden can choose whoever they want, using any criteria or lack of criteria they want.

I don't know what was said in advance this year about how selections would be made, or if anythig was said at all.

2 years ago, however, the Swedish Mens Team Leader, Goran Persson, spoke directly to the issue for the public record that the Team Trials races would be the decisive criteria for his choices. Objectively, Vagnis had the second best results last time around, but wasn't chosen.

Spike is right. Crying after the milk has been spilt does no good.

I don't think there is any unhappiness in Sweden with their selection system itself (leaving it 100% up to the leaders/coaches), but I do have the sense there has been growing unhappiness with Goran Persson. I may be very wrong about that though, so don't take that to the bank.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), July 09, 2001.

There is also some controversy in Norway. Havard Tviete won the short test race, but was not selected. Havard has been a top runner for a long time (I think he is close to my age...so he's been around a long time!).

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), July 10, 2001.

According to a report I listened to over the internet from the Swedish radio station KCMO, Karin Hellman of IKHP also seems to have been overlooked in the selection process.

But the real anguish has been over Karolina Arewang, as Spike mentioned.

Controversial selections make for raised stakes, especially on the Mens side, where the results from the past few WOCs have been meager, and where the results from the recent NOM were disastrous. Does anyone know when the Swedish men last won a gold in the relay? I do! (Hint: it's been a while. A very, very long while.)

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), July 12, 2001.