It is not that simple to find time for an appointment with Lukas "Schuky" Jenzer for a portrait. The media director of the world championships is often in meetings or away from his desk. This is why we met for a run - there is always time for jogging!

We meet at the railway station of Langenthal. Nearby, Lukas Jenzer has found an internationally operating company called "Ammann Unternehmungen", where he works in a new field of activity as a head of communications and training since February 2002. There is no scent of "Dul-X" or some other massage ointment in the locker room of Ammann; it smells of metal and grease.

"I totally enjoy movement, but I lost out on my individual practice recently. You can easily see that by checking the annual SOLV scorelist", says the media director of the OL WM, drawing a quick conclusion about the past season. The new professional challenge has heavily strained the former teacher and teacher's instructor, not least because he also went to school in parallel to his job at that time. Moreover, the orienteering world championships 2003 get closer and closer. Inexorably.

We jog along the suburbs of Langenthal to get to the nearby forest named "Sängeli". Past the innumerable traffic circles that were built here in family-size style. Even in the third traffic circle we safely find the exit. Lukas Jenzer is not a person turning circles.

"Whenever I start something I want to do it one hundred percent and consistently work towards a goal." From his assistants and colleagues in the media team he demands a lot, but he also knows how important it is to honor a good performance. He never feels as an exposed or the only-responsible boss, although all the strings eventually lead to him. Lukas Jenzer is an active orienteering journalist who sees the performances and persons in the spotlight on whom he reports instead of on himself and his work. "The athletes have deserved to stand in the bright light in front of the public: not only now with the world championships in the own country. But because of it naturally even more."

Finally we spot the forest whose trees mean the world for Lukas Jenzer. Here he feels more at home than anywhere else. He even put back his passion for the round leather in place of orienteering. This evening, the "F-C-B" plays in the champion's League, and there, old passions are woken again. He is talking about his journeys to Basel in the "Joggeli" stadium, where he used to cheer for his idol Karli Odermatt in blue and red as a youngster. Today Odermatt himself remains on the stand and Schuky sits in front of the TV set. Both of them are going to be in fever of excitement, each of them in his special way...

"Football is certainly quite interesting, but I am fighting for orienteering to get a place in the media as well." This was the case 25 years ago with the newspaper "Berner Volkszeitung" in Herzogenbuchsee as well as later as head of media for the Swiss Orienteering Federation SOLV (1993-1997), but also today while negotiating as the media director of the OL WM 2003 with the TV broadcasters. Since 1987, Lukas Jenzer took part in any place where orienteering history has been written - he wrote orienteering stories about those events for many different newspapers.

Beautiful, this landscape in the fall. We run past the "Sängeli" pond. "Here I caught my first fish as a boy." These were small. He saved the big ones for orienteering.

He was the only Swiss orienteering journalist present when Vroni König won her two unofficial Junior World Championships (1987 and 1988), and also one year later when Alain Berger achieved the same feat. Moreover, he witnessed all relay gold medals (1991-1995) and Marie-Luce Romanens' short-distance WOC gold on the spot (1995). He was on stage too to see the WOC medals for Switzerland in Norway (1997) and Finland (2001). Already legendary was his show-up in the USA (1993), where he extended Tom Bührer's finish after the WOC relay gold medal right into a live broadcast of the Swiss radio sports journal at 17:55 p.m. Swiss time. Or at the WOC in 1995, where the story goes that he rented a nearby hotel room without further ado when he realized that there was no suited media center, for he "smelt" the WOC gold medal on the short distance of Marie-Luce in the morning after the qualification run. As a result he was the only journalist present being able to work efficiently.

The trail leads uphill. "You climb better than I do. You did not participate in the Team Orienteering Championships" - "Correct, but I was in Venice" - "Then it must be your age!" - "I'm 44!" - "Yes, I am seven years older than you. That's what I notice." That must be it. The Team Orienteering Champs in 2002: The Jenzer family is going to have a good recollection of that event. Daughter Sarina has become a Swiss champion in Bremgarten for the first time.

Lukas Jenzer thinks that the youth classes are very important. Not only since he has children (Sarina, 11, and Mirja, 9) on his own. " The kids are the future of the Swiss orienteering." He has a crush on the sCOOL project and is looking forward to May 23, 2003. "A brilliant project. Good that it has finally received the necessary thrust thanks to PostFinance and the big commitment of all partners." As an orienteering journalist Lukas Jenzer participated in altogether nine Junior World Championships. Even today he is taking profit out of it: "So I have known many of the current elite runners for a long time, allowing me to build up a relationship of trust with them." In his mind, communicating the top results is of utmost importance: "If one notices the successful juniors and the victories of the elite in the media, a good basis is laid for the acceptance for and the inflow to our sport."

We arrived at the ice stadium "Schoren". "National league B, unfortunately, completely far behind", quarrels Lukas Jenzer. Ammann is a sponsor of the team. "Their best foreign player has broken a leg, since then it goes even worse..."

"In the Swiss national orienteering team I like the spread at the top. We have seen this in the 'Middle' during the European Championships where our top trumps did not take the trick and we, nevertheless, got a medal." The second team of the women's relay left many first teams of other nations behind, and the men "Switzerland 2" (in front of "Switzerland 1") collected points in the finals of the World Cup. The work of the coaches Irène Müller-Bucher and Nik Suter is superb. Lukas Jenzer's too, even if it is on an another level. After the OL WM 2003 he will allow himself a break, "because I will probably have burned out by then."

We're back in the locker room. "Hey, I am hungry. Are we going to have a pizza?"

Roland Eggspühler

This article was first published in "OL", the swiss orienteering magazin. More information available from ol-fachschrift@a2plus.ch

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Posted: 2003-02-12 18:23:13