BEOC?

[greywolf]

What with all the serious folk making headline news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/7691020.stm
I guess there's no-one around to comment on the following posted on the BOF website today...

"Since the decision forced on the organisers of the British Championships (BOC) to move the event to February 28 consultations have been taking place about staging the
British Elite Long Distance Championship (BEOC) in association with BOC. It has been concluded that February 28 is too early in the season to attract sufficient elite orienteers, many of whom will still be involved in out-of season training at that time. A decision has been made to move BEOC to a date later in the season.....Consultation is at an advanced stage on the new location and date of BEOC but has not yet been concluded due to a variety of organisational and environmental issues. The date and location will be announced as soon as it has been agreed but is likely to be in association with an existing planned event.....You will be informed as soon as possible regarding the location and date of BEOC."

...which is blatant invitation to speculation
Good to see that they plan to tag it on to an existing event ... as far as I can tell from the fixtures list the following events will have / should have / might have Classic races:
21 March MOR Culbin
12 April JK Day 2 Northumbria
19 April LOC National Ulverston
3 May BOK National Forest of Dean
23 May BASOC Scottish Champs
although I suppose it could get stuck onto any existing event... any guesses, preferences??

[Scott]

Great minds, eh?

[greywolf]

Great minds, eh?

either that or "the devil makes work for idle hands...."

[Axel]

A kick in the teeth for the organisers of BOC, I presume they will still run 18, 20 and 21 catergories but not at championship level. Hopefully the UK based elite will still use this event to test their fitness or pipe opener for the BOC relays next day. Just a thought, hopefully I have not awaken the Great and the Good from BO to fact that the relays are then next day and they now decide to take Mens and Ladies Open relays away as well.

[Scott]

I'd have thought that was unlikely - it's relatively easy to tag the Elite courses onto a different, already-existing National event, but it'd take a lot of effort to organise a separate, championship-level relay.

I do wonder whether this fuss would have happened happened if BOC had remained on its original date of two weeks later, or would that still have been too early? (That's a genuine question, by the way - hopefully someone more au fait with elite training regimes can enlighten me). And in that case, should BEOC have ever been given to that event in the first place? I can't be pleasant for the organisers (who have undoubtedly put a lot of work into the event) to have that bit of extra prestige taken away from them.

And personally, tying into the other thread about the lack of Proper Classics, I really hope that the New Forest event still offers a full M21E length course.

[EddieH]

[quote]And personally, tying into the other thread about the lack of Proper Classics, I really hope that the New Forest event still offers a full M21E length course.[/quote]

Hear hear, even though I won't be running it.

However I am expecting to read that as it is February all courses are shorter than normal in case the weather is not perfect

I'll be delighted to be proved wrong

[andy]

A kick in the teeth for the organisers of BOC

they had it coming changing it to February...

I don't think it's appropriate to combine the JK and BEOC, other than that all seem like reasonable events to hold it at. 6 Days is probably too late in the season otherwise it would be a good choice.

[Scott]

I'm not convinced by the possibility of using the Forest of Dean National for BEOC if they're including the M/W18 and M/W20 championships - surely those should remain separate from the FCC Final to give the juniors more experience of "Big Event" racing?

[Jon X]

A kick in the teeth for the organisers of BOC, I presume they will still run 18, 20 and 21 catergories but not at championship level. Hopefully the UK based elite will still use this event to test their fitness or pipe opener for the BOC relays next day. Just a thought, hopefully I have not awaken the Great and the Good from BO to fact that the relays are then next day and they now decide to take Mens and Ladies Open relays away as well.

There will be FCC and UK Cup races the day before - Greywolf just didn't quote that bit (maybe learned something about selective reporting from the BBC OMM coverage!)

[streaker]

arh for nope sake!!!! another nope up with british oreinteering!!!

who says we need it in the spring summer anyway? why not just go the same way as the rest of europe and have it in september????

[greywolf]

There will be FCC and UK Cup races the day before - Greywolf just didn't quote that bit (maybe learned something about selective reporting from the BBC OMM coverage!)

Well that might have been because the paragraph about FCC and UK Cup races wasn't in the item as originally posted, and has been added in today!
(If you look on the BOF homepage it says "Updated information regarding the location and date of BEOC - Sunday 26 Oct")

[Scott]

I'll second that - there was no information about M/W21 courses there yesterday. I have to admit I'm a little disappointed that we won't be getting a full-length M21E (or even a full M21L - "60min winning time" sounds suspiciously like "you're welcome to come and run M40L if you want"), though I could understand if the organisers don't feel that it's worth the effort now.

[Axel]

Just as I thought BO put out the information initially before thinking it through. If we are going too have an FCC and UK Cup races then I'm sure most of the M/W 18/20's and are going to run at this event. Also I believe a large proportion of the elite will run that weekend because of the relays. So why take the 18, 20 and 21 championships away from this event. Will bringing the championships forward by 2 weeks make that much difference.

[Scott]

I think the question is not whether the elite will be there, but whether they will be sufficiently prepared to run their national championships right at the start of the season. Remember that proportionally very, very few of the top runners will be operating on a Southern England schedule - by the BOC date, those based in Scotland will have had access to a grand total of four district events so far that year, while those in Scandinavia (if they bother to come across) probably won't even have run in terrain yet. BEOC should be one of the peak races of the year for the elite, not the season opener.

BOC is a different matter, as orienteers outside the top end of M/W21 aren't generally looking to peak in July/August for WOC/JWOC.

[EddieH]

What about WMOC (even though next year it happens to be in the autumn).