British Sprint and Middle Champs

[DJM]

The controller and I vetoed several candidate control sites because of the 60-metre rule, and we also made adjustments because of the 30-metre rule. But neither of us thought it appropriate to object to this pair of features. Perhaps we need to be more cautious in future.

Note that BOF Planning Appendix B advises "Be pessimistic when interpreting 'features which appear similar in the terrain'" and also states (#6.2.6)

Other combinations to avoid include ... depression/pit/shallow re-entrant

So, even a shallow re-entrant and a pit are to be avoided if they are <60m apart! ISOM pits might have steep walls in theory but I'm sure we have all seen smooth sided and shallow hollows mapped as pits in practice ...

The guiding principle should be that if there is the slightest chance that feature A might appear similar to feature B in the terrain, then they have to be at least 60m apart.

[Gnitworp]

Agreed DJM, but you have stolen the thunder of my anti-establishment last post a bit

[jac]

There will be a higher density of controls than for an equivalent Long distance race.
[BOF Appendix B - #9.2.2]

That will be because the same document specifies that for Long Distance

The control is the end-point of a long leg with demanding route choice...

I assert that Long planning is not typically done to this required specification. Middle Distance planning suffers from this - because people now expect Middle courses to have higher density than the inappropriately-dense Long courses, using DJM's argument. I note also that DJM said in last year's Middle Championships control-picking complaint thread that

Some planners think that Middle races should just be short versions of Long races and have not appreciated what the differences between them are.

In contrast, I assert that the main characteristic of a Middle race is not its difference from Long, but its emphasis on detailed navigation. From DJM's favourite [BOF Appendix B - #9.2.2]

The emphasis is on continuous map reading in the terrain ... competitors need to adjust their speed for the complexity of the terrain.

The 'difference' clause quoted by DJM then comes later in the description.

My colleague Gnitworp said it better here in 2006:

I see danger in over-emphasizing the contrasting characteristics of the Middle and Long 'styles' to the detriment of producing truly challenging courses where the planner is unhampered by 'style' dogma in using imagination and flair to maximum effect.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14371&p=162820&hilit=gnitworp+middle#p162820

[Patrick]

There will be a higher density of controls than for an equivalent Long distance race.
[BOF Appendix B - #9.2.2]

I had a look at the BOF Guidelines linked by Seamus and compared them with the IOF Rules relating to course types. In the section on Middle courses, the BOF document is an almost word for word copy of the IOF one (Appendix 6; section 2.1), except for the addition of the sentence quoted above. The IOF Rules say nothing about control density. It seems BOF decided unilaterally to alter the definition of one of the disciplines of orienteering, with the apparent result being promotion of a course planning style that doesn't reflect international standards and that appears to lack appeal for many competitors. Does anyone know why this was done?

Patrick

[NeilC]

I don't believe that that phrase changes the IOF definition. There cannot be many IOF events where the middle doesn't have a significantly larger number of controls per km than the long. What it may do is give the mistaken impression of "the more the better".

[Arnold]

Regarding the control pick aspect of the courses, my course (3) seemed to be in 3 parts:
- the bit before the road, 12 controls in 14 minutes. Here I think you could have done with fewer controls. The area was sufficiently vague and complex that even slightly longer legs would have been technical.
- the "link" bit after the road, 5 controls in 5 minutes. Not very pleasant but either that or a longish path run, so not much choice
- the valleys bit, 11 controls in 22 minutes - thought this was bang on with a couple of longer legs.

But overall I thought the planning was good. Certainly not an "easy" course even though that could maybe have been achieved with fewer controls

The bigger issue I had was with the map - it wasn't exacty wrong but with the control pick planning style it needs to be absolutely perfect. This was really difficult to achieve given all the vagueish vegetation changes. So on balance not an ideal area to use as practically impossible to map at the required level of accuracy for this event.


Having said that, a few people did seem to cope with it really well (Jess Tullie, Geoff Ellis) so perhaps it was just a question of adjusting one's style? I certainly didn't do that enough.

[greywolf]

At British Championship Events, whose job is it (or more precisely, whose job should it have been) to ensure that maps meet ISSOM / ISOM ?
Or if they don't meet the spec, to get appropriate permissions from BOF (would be nice if they'd let competitors know too )
Is that sort of thing covered in the franchise agreement (or whatever it's called)?

[distracted]

My efforts to discover who thought that this area was suitable for a British Middle Distance Championships have not succeeded.

I'll admit to suggesting the area as a possibility, as one of the areas in the Chilterns that I've found trickier in the past, with variety in the nature of the various 'parts' of the area that can force change of pace and technique. I'm certainly no Grade A controller though, so someone else signed off on it. From your statement, my past assumption that this was the controller allocated to the race is clearly mistaken...

On the control-pick planning style - this was even present in technical terrain such as Haverthwaite in 2010, so has it become entrenched as a mindset? I also can't see how the rule saying "as consistently technically difficult as possible" gets translated as "control pick" as this is one technique amongst many in orienteering. It's a shame more don't follow the example of the 2005 Leith Hill World Cup middle distance courses - variety of leg lengths, vague to hilly to technical terrain and back again - change of pace, direction and technique needed. Map here.

I'm aware jac also planned JK2013 at Hambleden and that is an area that lends itself more to small/medium route choice legs, which the JK courses did contain, but an area that could also be thought of by some as not greatly technical and hence not suitable for middle-style courses. I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on the relative merits of the two areas from the perspective of the format, and see this weekend's courses as originally planned.

[MIE]

Is my abacus playing up, or are the Ranking points for the Sprints a "bit" distorted by the addition of one and two hours for those in the B and C finals ?

The addition of the hours seems to give the correct UKOL points

[NeilC]

It's a shame more don't follow the example of the 2005 Leith Hill World Cup middle distance courses.

Something for the planners of next year's British Middle Champs (at Leith Hill) to live up to?

[jac]

At British Championship Events, whose job is it (or more precisely, whose job should it have been) to ensure that maps meet ISSOM / ISOM ?
Or if they don't meet the spec, to get appropriate permissions from BOF (would be nice if they'd let competitors know too

The intention is that Map Advisory Group does this, but it seems not to be functioning, and I did a lot of asking round to try to find out if there was anybody in place for the Middle Championships. Barry Elkington volunteered to sort it out, and recruited Bruce Bryant who was exceedingly helpful and did a lot of work for us. Chris James as Chair of E&CC is aware of shortcomings and is seeking ways to improve matters. So if you have any constructive comments, or are willing to help, then please let Chris know.

[NeilC]

Barry Elkington volunteered to sort it out, and recruited Bruce Bryant who was exceedingly helpful and did a lot of work for us.

Bruce was also the map advisor for the only map that I've produced for a Level A event. He, and others doing the same job, must spend a lot of time improving the quality of our major event maps for little or no recognition. Like jac I found his input extremely helpful.

[Scott]

At British Championship Events, whose job is it (or more precisely, whose job should it have been) to ensure that maps meet ISSOM / ISOM ?
Or if they don't meet the spec, to get appropriate permissions from BOF (would be nice if they'd let competitors know too )

I'm not a fan of the (non-standard) use of a thin black line around the edges of the black-green impassable vegetation and olive green forbidden access areas on the Sprint Champs map. All the extra black lines added to the feeling of a fairly cluttered, but perfectly accurate, map.

For the same reason I would also have been tempted to omit all the spiral fire-escape staircases and the tiny stretches of crossable fence alongside short flights of steps as not being "essential for the purpose of the map" (ISSOM 2.1).

That said, I enjoyed both days.

[greywolf]

The sprint maps were further from spec, IMHO; the only thing i noticed re the Middle map was that some of the features were below the minimum size for mapping - not unusual - but the flags were visible and the mapping was in no way responsible for my incompetence

[buzz]

It's a shame more don't follow the example of the 2005 Leith Hill World Cup middle distance courses - variety of leg lengths, vague to hilly to technical terrain and back again - change of pace, direction and technique needed. Map here.

Too many controls