croeso 2024

[DJM]

CROESO 2024 ENTRIES OPEN UNTIL 15:00 ON SUNDAY 14TH JULY

There is a small window if anyone wishes to pre-enter for either an age class or colour course. Entries may be made via Fabian4.

Entries will still be available at the event, but these are subject to map availability.

Best wishes from the Croeso team. We are looking forward to welcoming you all to a great week of orienteering in South Wales.

[Snail]

Probably already spotted, but the provisional final details have identical course length and climb (on every course!) for Days 3 & 4.

For Day 5 it would be helpful to know the max distance / climb from Assembly to Red Start.

[forest grump]

Probably already spotted, but the provisional final details have identical course length and climb (on every course!) for Days 3 & 4.

For Day 5 it would be helpful to know the max distance / climb from Assembly to Red Start.

I noticed this too. Did you email the organisers?

[ribbo]

Hi Snail and Forest Grump
Clarification on the distance from assembly to the Red start.
400m downhill back to the main road
700m flat passed the parking to the turn off
350m with 55m climb to the red start.
If you are coming instead from the overflow parking instead your walk along the road could be up to 1.8k in a worst case scenario.
Hope this helps
Pete
Co-organiser day 5

[DJM]

A rather distant prizegiving in the Day 6 arena at Merthyr Common

Over 1500 competitors from 19 different countries enjoyed a great week at this year's Croeso in South Wales. Full results and much more are here.

[maprun]

Only attended 3 days, and was impressed by all aspects of the event organisation. Good areas, planning and maps, and even the busing worked like clockwork, allowing us to run on otherwise remote areas. Many thanks to all concerned.

[Snail]

Was there for all 6 terrain days, and agree 100%. Relaxed atmosphere. Bussing worked better than expected. Good courses, good maps, and AFAIK all controls in the right place. So credit to planners, controllers and all the organising teams.

A few minor things:

For the moorland sink-hole / depression days it would have been helpful to know rough mapping criteria, e.g. pits & depressions below [10]m diameter are not mapped, but boulders over 1m are.

Arena on day 5 appeared to be set up in a different location to that described in the final details? So the walk to the Blue start was significantly further than expected (and to Red start correspondingly shorter), but no indication given on the day.

Not sure why some classes swapped courses between Long and Middle days? There were still 16 courses on the latter, compared to 17 on the former, so not much of a saving in planning. It created some confusion with people picking up the wrong map. And some classes 'jumped' by 2 courses (eg 7 to 5, 6 to 4), so that their climb-adjusted course lengths on the Middle days were similar to those on the Long days.

Routegadget is currently refusing to load the map file for me on days 2,3 & 4 (although clearly it has worked for some).

[DJM]

Not sure why some classes swapped courses between Long and Middle days?

If all the Long class courses had the same winning times as one another, e.g. M21L and W75L had winning times of (say) 45 minutes, then each class would have run the same course number each day, irrespective of whether the day was Middle or Long.

Compare this with the Middle class courses which (apart from some juniors) all had target winning times of the standard 30 to 35 minutes.

The reality is that the Long class courses had target winning times which differed from class to class meaning that it was not possible to keep each class to the same course number each day.

Something similar happens to the class allocation to courses at the British Long and Middle Championships.

[King Penguin]

Not sure I understand. Aren't the class length ratios the same for Long and Middle ?

[maprun]

Not sure I understand. Aren't the class length ratios the same for Long and Middle ?

Middle race target winning times of adult courses are all the same, whilst the long course target winning times shorten as you get older.

[Snail]

That may have been the intention, but it didn't work out very well for some classes. Take M60L for example. Similar elite (for age) runners on all days.

The 4 Long Distance winning times were: 45:06, 43:00, 48:18 & 39:24 (target unclear?)
The 2 Middle Distance winning times were: 37:34 & 41:41 (target 30-35?)
There isn't a lot of difference between them! Looks more like 6 similar courses, with perhaps slight differences in planning style.

[HarryO]

We were taken by surprise at the appearance of a sixth day. Didnt have accommodation for the full week - so couldnt do the full 6 days.
We are in agreement with the new-ish S6D format moving away from 6 days to 5. The advent of Friday to Friday lettings, the need to travel home, get flights etc, stretching volunteers, permissions, etc.
We really enjoyed the days we did. The bussing wasnt too onerous, but did mean we added lots of contingency. A couple of challenging walks to the starts, especially for older competitors. Turned out we could proabaly have got a late start if we missed our slot, due to flexible start teams