WOC Long Qualifier

[Spookster]

Yep, that's what I was thinking, though I'd have used the track further then dropped down the valley that contains the control.

[andypat]

You'd lose a lot of height going N wouldnt you?

[graeme]

Looks like Tero didn't agree with you!

Maybe he's better at finding the flags than I am? Even he's running round the paths though.

[EddieH]

Maybe

[Spookster]

The winner's route from each heat is published now. Of the six, two went south, four went north. If I was going to go north I'd do what Gonon did, and try to minimise heigh loss out of control 4. But I still prefer south...

[Roger]

Looks like Tero didn't agree with you!

Maybe he's better at finding the flags than I am? Even he's running round the paths though.

And when he tried the same trick at 6 he missed. Clearly he was just lucky to find 5.

[andypat]

BOF website describes the courses as being overplanned.

Any experienced planners able to expand on this in practical terms - ie give an example of where it might have been better planned? Purely as a learning opportunity for us relative novices.

[graeme]

"Overplanned" is normally a euphemism for "too long". The mens' qualifier winning time is meant to be 60 mins, the womens' 45 min. In fact the times were 63 and 46. So I have no idea what they're on about!

The comment about "Terrain living up to expectations" is also at variance with the team's attackpoint logs, where they're finding it easier* to avoid mistakes than expected and therefore having to run faster than they'd expected. It will be interesting to see whether the finals are harder.

[edit] According to WorldofO, the planners are claiming that "The qualification courses must be made in a way that ensures that all the runners on a lower level also get through." So we might expect the finals to be harder.


* where "easier" here means its really really hard and so you want to stay on paths as much as you can, as opposed to almost impossible to run and navigate like the training areas.

[AndyC]

"Overplanned" is normally a euphemism for "too long". The mens' qualifier winning time is meant to be 60 mins, the womens' 45 min. In fact the times were 63 and 46. So I have no idea what they're on about!

Could they be meaning "having too many controls" ?-not that 21 in 9k feels too many to me.

[Spookster]

BOF website describes the courses as being overplanned.

Any experienced planners able to expand on this in practical terms - ie give an example of where it might have been better planned? Purely as a learning opportunity for us relative novices.

The Men's was supposed to be won in 60, but the heats were actually won in 63*/68/69, so it was about 10%-15% too long.

(*63 was Thierry, and the 2nd in that heat was 69. But Thierry still counts as the winner, so in theory this one was only 5% too long)

I don't think it could have been "better" planned, other than it being 10% shorter. On men's heat A, for example, you could remove 10, 12, 18 and 19, which would shorten it by 5-6 mins.

[Scott]

It is a difficult one, though. Presumably for WOC you should aim to plan your qualifier courses so that the winning time is right for best athlete in the world. If the best athlete on that day happens to be substantially quicker than all the others (or, similarly, if the top three athletes in the world all happen to be drawn in the same heat), it necessarily follows that if the winning time for his/her qualifier is going to be about right then the other two qualifiers will appear overplanned.

In this case, it is true that Thierry did have (at least on paper) the shortest heat. But, on the other hand, he also had a six-minute winning margin.