Discussion: Peter Andersen

I just got news tonight of the passing of Peter Andersen of New Hampshire, at age 59, from liver cancer. Peter was pretty hot stuff back in the early 1990s, among the best in the USA. We didn't see him as often in recent years after he started a family, but he would sometimes show up at the UNO Camping Weekend. He will be missed.

More sad news, but thanks for letting us know.

Peter certainly was an interesting person, and when on the US Team, he trained hard. He was a building contractor with his own business. I remember him telling me that he trained after work most days, hard enough after a day of pounding nails, but in the winter he was out in the dark running with a headlamp. I was impressed at his motivation.

Oh man this is sad news. Peter was a very good orienteer; we were on two WOC teams together and I enjoyed his happy demeanor. He also was helpful: he was the head of the starts at the '97 Veteran's World Cup and I worked as part of his crew.
I hadn't seen him in years--last I knew him, he had just the two sons. My condolences to Martha and his kids.

I think it was Peter who built the results board for 1993 WOC. In those ancient times it was all manual. Very similar to the scoreboard at Fenway that is changed by people moving around behind it with numbers on solid boards. Linda and I worked with Peter at the WOC moving the entire board from venue to venue. As I recall we had a large farm wagon that he pulled behind his truck. The board was pretty large and tippy. It made for some interesting trips. As I recall he also had a large dog that rode with him in the truck. One of my fondest O memories. RIP

I think you're probably right about the results board. I know he built the one for the World Cup Final at Pawtuckaway the year before -- and then found out just before he was supposed to go set it up that he wasn't allowed to go there, because he was participating in the event and the entire area was embargoed. So he had to explain to me and another orienteer how to erect scaffolding and mount the results board (about 24 feet by 8 feet, I think) onto it. He had designed it well enough that we were able to go ahead with his hasty instructions and get it set up, the evening before the event. There was one moment of panic on his part when he finished the race and looked up at the board and realized that he had forgotten to tell us about one important step, to tie the whole thing with a sturdy rope to a tree. He quickly got that done, preventing the entire results scaffold from tipping forward and crashing to the ground.

So sad...he was so young. I was on the WOC 97 team with Peter, and like Peggy said, he was always in such a happy mood. I can picture him now, sitting in his truck with that big, furry dog. Such a nice guy.