Are our Elite spoiled brats or prima donnas?

[Freefall]

Once again I find myself planning courses (Northern Championships) where the emphasis in the rules and courses is on the "Elite". On this occasion I require an extra 4 controls to get courses of the approved winning time for M/W21E and there have been many man hours spent planning and adjusting these courses in OCAD and on the ground. Entry figures so far (past the first "cheap" closing date) are one M21E (thank you Duncan) and 2 W21E (thank you Karen P and Pippa). What is your problem? This is a major event on great terrain that has been in the fixtures for a long time. With the added bonus of a city sprint (and the FCC) why are you not there? What sort of example are you setting to the Elite of the future?

[greywolf]

obviously you would prefer it if they were cattle who could be herded from one supposedly really really important event to another...

[Freefall]

Possibly yes! There is some sort of expectation from volunteers who do these things that in exchange for giving up their time that they are "rewarded" by those who they plan, control and organise for by actually turning up. Of course in my day job I am more than happy to assist in the bid for WOC2015 and the Elite for whom it is a matter of some importance.

[mharky]

Firstly, I'd like to say f**k off, but I'm sure some punter will report my post as an "personal attack" or something similar. But then you've just called me a spoiled brat or prima donna, so I feel I have the right to respond.

On a more analytical side of things, I shall now offer you the elite athletes perspective of things...

An elite orienteer will sit down in early winter and plan their next season. First this will start off with their main aim; WOC. Then they'll go through the races that they'll need to perfrom at in order to get to WOC; WOC Test, BOC, JK, BEOC. That's 10 domestic races already, if you include the relays. Any real athlete knows that there are only so many races you can do in a season an expect to perform on your top level, and I'd say that was about it.

The majority of punters in the country don't do that. They go to events week in, week out and try and race. They fitness at the JK may only be marginally higher than in November or January.

Anyway. Now you've got your selection races sorted out, you aren't going to be wanting to expend massive amounts of energy or money on something that isn't going to really benefit you.

Add into that BUCS, as a lot of our elites are students, plus the UK races on top of that too, and already your event, despite how fantastic you think it is, is already a long way down on an elite's list of priorities. There are only so many weekends away and so much money people are willing are willing to commit to orienteering. And unless you are at the top of that list, don't expect lots of entries. See British Night champs for another example, being a championships doesn't guarantee entries.

Most other events we run at this time of year are done so as training, i.e. Twin Peaks. EUOC, INT and ShUOC had a lot of top guys there. The majority of whom also went training on Saturday afternoon/night. They didn't care about the overall races, they were there for the training.

When people hear an event is in the lakes, they think they will get some good technical training. When you see an event is in the north-east, you think it's gonna be a standard NE affair. That is to say, average to poor.

So on top of the fact we have busy calendars, you're also fighting your own bad reputation for poor orienteering. We have all run a BOC and JK in the NE in recent years, we have an impression in our minds of what it's like.

So, the only elites I can see going are people who live in that area... Duncan, Pippa and Karen.

[mharky]

And I am very worried that someone who is meant to be involved with our WOC 2015 bid has such bad attitude towards elite and such little understanding of how their seasons operate..

[greywolf]

there are too many supposedly important events crammed into a spring season </echo>

There isn't a huge customer base for elite races anyway - a smattering of domestically based genuinely "elite" standard competitors, and a small cadre of punter elites who like 2+hr competitions (or 4+hrs in Madmike's case ) - and while it might be possible to run flat out sprint races week after week, no serious elite competitor is going to want to run full-on 90+ minute races (assuming you have managed to get courses to the proper length ) every other week...

[edit: what Mharky said... ]

[Arnold]

Not wanting to sound rude, but do you really need 4 extra controls just for Elite? I agree it's annoying if your longest course has few takers, but surely with a bit of faffing around you can use those controls for other courses? Have back to back maps for Elite if you need.

I've found that if you put your mind to it, after you've finished planning you can reduce your control count by 20-40% by getting rid of the less used ones and combining with others. For a badge event you can often get away with 40ish controls, even for JK we only had 60 or 70 I think. You can load controls up to 4 people per minute so that shouldn't be a problem for your event.

Side note - there have been some badge events recently where no Black course was offered only Brown and while it's annoying I can't blame the planners really, given the low expected attendance. (I know this isn't an option for your event).

[Mrs H]

This thread has cheered me up no end on such a dull and decidedly wintry afternoon.

So surely the question should have been not: why aren't the elites coming to the event, but: why is there a requirement to put on courses for them at events they are unlikely to attend?

[mharky]

So surely the question should have been not: why aren't the elites coming to the event, but: why is there a requirement to put on courses for them at events they are unlikely to attend?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRPyddRW0o4

[Freefall]

This thread has cheered me up no end on such a dull and decidedly wintry afternoon.

So surely the question should have been not: why aren't the elites coming to the event, but: why is there a requirement to put on courses for them at events they are unlikely to attend?

Pretty much what I was actually trying to say and yes it is good to stir things up at times. The extra controls were necessary (I thought of other options) and I think you are being a bit unfair on the quality of NE areas and events (me moving to Scotland is purely coincidental)

[PMG]

The situation was that an Elite Course was not required for a National Event if it was not a UK Cup race. Looking at this list the Northern Champs is not a UK Cup race. Perhaps now they are Area Champs it is different. Not sure as i'm no longer involved.
This was to make the events more feasible on some areas as the longest required course was M21L and avoid the sort of frustration Colin has.

Peter G ex fixtures

[Freefall]

The event is a UK Masters Cup of course. Another problem apart from planning for the Elite, was that we had to plan 28 courses instead of 20 due to an administrative error in the event guidelines. Fortunately I love orienteering so didn't mind spending the extra few days doing all these other courses. This thread does raise serious issues about who we should be planning for so maybe come 2012 there will be a strict quota on Elite races to keep Mharky and his agitated pals happy.

[J.Tullster]

I think Mharky summed that up rather well. I doubt he was ever getting agitated about the situation on elite at the Nothern Champs...

[Spookster]

The 2010 Northern Champs had 730 runners, with 20 runners on M21E. However, the vast majority of them are (or were) athletes based in (or near) Sheffield, so didn't travel far. I only see Duncan from the North East.

http://www.southyorkshireorienteers.org ... r/m21e.htm

I guess you'll get around 500 people, but probably not many more on M21E.

[madmike]

(or 4+hrs in Madmike's case )

In fairness it was only a minute or 2 over 4 hrs and I did stop for a chat with Ben Livesey at the last water point