Performance Squads 2012

[Mrs H]

Perhaps it is you who should not be called an orienteer!

Woohoo! nothing I enjoy more than a good slanging match but yted is a VHI man too!

While I heartily agree with Awk's sentiment about the downgrading of the FCC - it seems to be BOF policy now to marginalise the M/W 18/20s as I'v been banging on about for years - I must disagree about EBOR forests - I love them - but then EBOR always put on such a good show when you go there

[FATBB]

The FCC is irrelevant and always will be while it is not in the selection criteria for JWOC.

[LostAgain]

where the leaders qualified automatically for JWOC.

Is this true?
and if it is, when and why did it change?

[Becks]

It was still that way when I was a W18. But I just realised that was 10 years ago

My final year of selection races was foot and mouth and things were weird that year - not sure if that contributed to the decline.

[King Penguin]

where the leaders qualified automatically for JWOC.

Is this true?
and if it is, when and why did it change?

Change is sometime since 2007 - last 2 years I think.

[Mrs H]

Yes i reckon no more than 2 years.

It used to be so exciting - first of all qualify for the final and then just play a blinder and bobs your uncle - it was a golden ticket for anyone to get to JWOC - top 3 went. (they dropped it down to top 2 just before pulling the plug) of course it was always the usual suspects who made it but there was always the chance of an outsider getting in.

I know for a fact that the open handedness of this competition kept quite a few youngsters in the sport at a time when so many drift away following leaving home for non-O unis etc.

A very great loss in my opinion (along with junior tours, M/W 20s from the Yvette Baker, Uni development officer, the loss of the Lakeside weekend etc etc etc)

Could BOF really have done any more to alienate that age group and have they done a single thing to redress it?

[Taybank]

Could the squads all change when a new performance director takes over?
We could well find someone with different ideas taking charge.

[harry]

Could the squads all change when a new performance director takes over?

Seems to me like the new PD is working closely with the current one already so probably not.

Re: previous comments I made, seems like the levels thing is a bit more quantifiable than I thought, based on average % behind the winner in certain races. Still a bit unclear to me how it was arrived at and which races counted but I was informed:
"your average was 103.17% = current form 12.5"
Current form of 12-15 = performance group.

So despite some brilliant standout races it's possible some of the athletes mentioned above might have had a bit more unstable scores which, rightly or wrongly, put them still in development group overall. Which makes sense in a way as it's a step by step process.. also I noticed the expected age range for development group was 18-26.

So it's possible that if your current form score comes out lower than 12 and you're over 26 then there is no invite (but I think the age thing is guideline and there are exceptions eg. Claire Ward "development" for Nordic Tour). Still also highly likely some folk turned down opportunity of being in a squad.

Seems like they have well defined, fair policies so probably if you wanted further explanation you could just ask the "performance department" for clarification.

[Mrs H]

who is the new PD?

[harry]

ah.. thought that was known??

not sure what info is secret & what is open. often not sure what it real and what is rumour either just hear things from various directions... check with performance dept!

[Tatty]

Thanks Harry for all your explanations. It's only through these that the average punter has any chance of understanding what might be going on

[harry]

I take the irony.
Don't worry this ex-pat punter doesn't know much either as you can probably tell... even if I pretend I am in the loop! But I imagine all will become clear soon by the power of skype meeting.

Either way British Women's O team future looks very healthy with plenty of women to fight out places in GB teams next year - WOC & World Students spots especially will be hard to grab. Plenty of potential World stud medals and WOC top 10-20s for GB! So I have a lot of work to do but in the meantime enjoying the end of season break

and spending it with a little roadrunning... please check out:
http://helvino.blogspot.com/2011/10/hel ... -cool.html
and especially...
http://marathon.simplyexcited.co.uk/

[Scott]

who is the new PD?

not sure what info is secret & what is open.

No great secret - as it says in the last Board minutes, BOF are not looking to appoint a direct replacement for Gareth in the immediate future. His work will be reallocated (as far as possible) amongst the other staff on the Performance Programme.

Obviously this is not ideal, but there are a couple of reasons for it. One is the funding issue: UK Sport have decided to cut the amount of funding they are giving BOF for next year by 50% from what was originally expected, which leaves BOF struggling to fund the Performance Programme even without appointing a replacement.

Another is the timescale: because the current funding cycle is only through until March 2013, and it still isn't clear what funding might be available beyond then, BOF would basically be appointing a new Performance Director on a 15-month contract, and it would be difficult to find a high-quality candidate to do the job for such a short period of time.

[housewife]

If average performances over the season are being looked at, time to start dnf-ing when things go wrong. Then again, what do i do orienteering for? some sort of objective meeting exercise or the challenge of finding the controls.

To add to the ebor chat, the forest was a bit of a minger, but a good technical challenge none the less. It increases my respect for ebor for continuing to enjoy/promote the sport when the standard of local forests are so Limited.

[harry]

Careful.. with attitude like that you may get your "winning attitude" scores marked down...
(yes that was a joke I don't know if such a thing exists but probably..)

but seriously DNS is what you're looking for if you want to play the system not DNF. Or better still DNE (did not enter). Just only enter for a few races and be ready to perform there. Next year I'll try to do that also for the international season instead of running 6 World Cup races in bad form (starting 5 in bad form) and wasting BOF some entry fees. I'm very sorry for that!

But also seriously I'm really glad for the objective system - it's not perfect but it's very motivating to have this clarity and know if you perform in XYZ race then you'll make the team. We saw this year 2 very strong athletes with good track record not make the teams they wanted because of not performing in the right races. This has to be very motivating for anyone wanting to break into the team. Clean slate 2012.