EddieH wrote:Mytchet 1998 was a very enjoyable BOC, but not a BEOC. Who remembers the latter event that year? No doubt a small low key event without atmosphere.
Rootling around my file system, I found something I wrote about this nearer the time (after the BOC in Hereford/BEOC on Loch Vaa). Can't recall which BOF committee I wrote it for, it obviously didn't do any good, except resolving the 5* problem by abolishing it.
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Four years ago, elite orienteers took it onto themselves to divorce from
the British Orienteering Championships and stage their own `elite' champs.
In consequence, they missed a rather good BOC at Mychett, before returning
to the fold for a year at Greythwaite. Events in Hereford this weekend throw
the separation back into focus.
For their twelve pounds, most BOC competitors got to compete in 1
sq.km. of relatively featureless terrain, on an amateur map `based on
the 1927 Ordnance Survey'. As we've seen, few competitors left the
relays satisfied: whether one blames those who broke the rules or
those who pointed it out, a void course satisfies nobody. People
complain at the `unfairness' that for 8:50 the elite instead get
to race in 10sq.km. of highly detailed terrain on a World Championship
class map. They are probably right, certainly the weekend did nothing
to suggest the elite's decision was wrong.
The commentry shows how BOC is left at a loss: should they concentrate
on the best orienteers, even if they were the only ones *not* in the
national championships. Or some other of the myriad age classes?
But it would be unfair to blame the organisers for the paucity of terrain -
the lack of distinct features which lures planners into using similar
ones nearby. Even the relays, blighted as they were by poor mapping,
poor control sites and confusing codes, featured some excellent relay
legs - requiring route choices, changes of speed, a late sprint across
the field to get the adrenaline going, then a tricky diagonal downhill
leg to catch the unwary.
The fault, as identified years ago by the elite, lies in the insistence
that BOC be staged in regions of England where terrain of sufficient
quality is unavailable. The BOC courses are supposed to be technical
difficulty 5* - but did anyone have such a leg on any course at Fownhope?
And yet we happily force WMOA to put on the event in their area.
Surely its now time to make decent terrain a prerequisite for the British
Champs, and when it falls to an area without such terrain, to set aside
regional parochialism and offer them a proper area on which to stage it.
