Major races

[yted]

I thought both days last weekend were excellent... shame I wasn't!

[Kitch]

Planning is everything
I've run great courses on very unpromising areas and very poor courses on excellent areas.
Planners and controllers have to work to make good courses.
My reflections on the JK
Junior 12 sprint was as technically difficult as the elite races....
Forest planning did well for the area and I enjoyed the Middle course(though obviously there were issues with controls). I didn't enter the Long and was glad I didn't - much repetition of the previous day and that some classes had the same first leg is something that I find unfathomable. It would have taken almost no effort to swap the start and finish between days 2 and 3 to give a little more variety to the start and end of the courses and set things up for some different circuits of the forest.
Relay was a good wee area and courses.
British - A difficult area to work with but my course failed to make the most of it, other courses were better. It felt like there were some legs and some groups of legs that got planned and then strung together to make courses and my course did not get the best of the bunch.

[graeme]

[quote="Kitch"]
Junior 12 sprint was as technically difficult as the elite races....
{/quote]
This is how it is supposed to be (i.e. Elites are meant to be running orange standard courses) The real issue is did you think they were too hard. Im not sure the rules have ever been revisited in light of the experience of actual W12s.

[yted]

The 12s I talked to liked their sprint course but of course it's not a sprint for them - they probably run it as they would any other course. If we want them to sprint it, it probably has to be white but I suspect it's better for their development left as it is. I did the same course as an M70 and thought it was an excellent course. There were interesting route choices throughout (except for the last few to the arena). My only criticism would be that the kites were too visible from the approaches.... I'd prefer to see the feature first and then find the kite just behind it.