Portugal Orienteering Meet

[Street]

in fact they had to fudge the system to avoid a record score at the North Americans.

Can you explain this more please?

when IOF have some stupid rule that means the winner doesn't even get to be on TV.

Why doesn't the winner get to be on TV?

[graeme]

Under the new ranking/WOC quali system, winners of the regional championships (eg NAOC) get a free spot at WOC and at least 1200 points. NAOC is an open WRE, and regional champions (i.e. Canadians) got blitzed by some visiting Swede. If they gave the regional champion his 1200 points, the event winners would have got over 1500 points (more than its possible to get at WOC).

2014 WOC champion Svetlana Mironova finished just as the TV coverage started. We never saw her run because she wasn't ranked high enough to be in the red group, even though she was the top finisher in EOC. EOC wasn't on TV, but again the winner (Signe Soes) wasn't in the red group carrying GPS because they relied on WR. Since she won the qualifier, it wasn't rocket science to see she was a potential winner.

Under the pre-2014 ranking system none of these things would have caused a problem. This ridiculous system has every prospect of messing up the spectacle we're trying to create at WOC2015.

[blairtrewin]

It wasn't a fudging of the system - it was always the case that the minimum guaranteed winning score went to the winner, whether they were eligible for the regional championship or not. The problem was that the organisers originally submitted (by mistake) a set of results which only included the North Americans, but this was quickly fixed.

[graeme]

It wasn't a fudging of the system

While I appreciate you're trying to sort out a mess not of your own creation, this is quite a stretch.
The IOF Council decided that the winner of the Regional Champs got a personal place at WOC. They also decided the winner of the Regional Champs got at least 1100 points.
This latter was done

"to better match ranking point outcomes to the status of the IOF major events such as ... Regional Championships "

Only once the NAOC produced its self-evidently stupid scores was it "clarified" that the "winner of the Regional Champs" was a different person from, er, the "winner of the Regional Champs".
I don't especially care if the IOF wants to publish some daft numbers on a website, but I do care about our WOC. It will be embarrassing if the winner isn't in the TV slot, or top athletes' WOC chances disappear beneath neck-deep bracken just because they had a baby or injury, or concentrated on sprints last summer, or whatever.

[mharky]

A good solution, I guess, would to be have qualification races prior to the finals. Each nation gets to decided which of their runners start in the early, middle, and late blocks. The final is then based on the results of the qualification races, where anyone can earn themselves a late start spot for the final. What a great system that would be!

[Kitch]

Oh Mharky !
only an athlete could come up with something like that !
Ridiculous

[Big Jon]

A good solution, I guess, would to be have qualification races prior to the finals. Each nation gets to decided which of their runners start in the early, middle, and late blocks. The final is then based on the results of the qualification races, where anyone can earn themselves a late start spot for the final. What a great system that would be!

but, but, but, but, but the TV wouldn't be interested....
not that they show any interest now!

[graeme]

Meanwhile, back on topic, here's a nice interview:

http://portugueseorienteeringblog.blogs ... -year.html

Spongey came back from POM, planned BUCS, hung the flags on Saturday, then ran in the National XC on Sunday, finishing 4th. He missed out on an individual medal by 1 sec. We've had many great Scottish orienteers running down the years, but nobody ever did that well*. Not even Spongey's mum .

*I'm not counting juniors or hillrunners, even those who won the British or JK relay

[andypat]

Yeah we're checking our archives and think it might also be the best ever national cc result by a CLYDE member

[afterthought]

Very nice to read Alasdair's interview from the Portuguese blog.

World ranking point scores from the WRE are now available, and Alasdair's 999 would be 34th place in the M21SE. But it does give him 4 scores. Scott and Ralph also climbed. And Cat got a few more points.

Regarding possible start positions for Brits in the World Champs, it seems:
* Some have already done enough to get a reasonable position (but would no doubt like to be even later, and the TV and crowd would benefit from Brits starting late)
* Some could really use some scores from World Cup Round 2.
Possibly helpfully the British men and women have both got into the list of federations with 8 places rather than 6 for world cup races.

Regarding whether top placed runners, or even potential winners, will be starting outside the late block. It does not seem so bad, certainly in the men's. In the women's I guess it might be good if Minna Kauppi and Goeril Roenning Sund were higher. You might though suggest organisers are helped by aspects of self-fulfilling prophecy in forests that are significantly quicker for later starters. How will the forests be in Scotland?

[buzz]

World ranking point scores from the WRE are now available, and Alasdair's 999 would be 34th place in the M21SE. But it does give him 4 scores. Scott and Ralph also climbed. And Cat got a few more points.

Ali's courses were gaffled versions of M21SE and if he'd been running SE then his time at the WRE would have put him in 12th place with 1134 points - that was despite a disappointing run by his current standards and training through the race.

Credit should also go to Scott for an excellent 9th place off an early start and Hector for 14th despite a heavy week's training beforehand. Ralph was disappointed with his WRE run but was showing very good speed on days 1 and 4 at POM.

On the women's side Cat had slightly better speed than Kauppi but for one control. Hollie and Claire were recovering from injury and illness but Claire managed a brief cameo running the first part of Day 4 at the leaders pace.

Bring on WOC!

[graeme]

Regarding possible start positions for Brits in the World Champs, it seems:

In Italy, the women with the lowest ranking got to start last in long. So a VERY brave athlete might deliberately trash her WR to get a late start...

[mharky]

That's the strategy I'm going for

[afterthought]

In the women's I guess it might be good if Minna Kauppi ... higher.

The latest rules affect this. As Minna has been in the top 3 during the last 3 years in both WOC middle and WOC long she would automatically be in the last starting block - regardless of world ranking points.

That's the strategy I'm going for

Bad luck, I read that Senior Event Adviser for WOC Jørn Sundby says for WOC 2015 in Scotland the decision has been made that there will be no changes to the ordering of start groups.