Orienteering Rage at the BOC 2010

[adventurer]

I love orienteering. I still consider myself a novice to orienteering, but with each competition I enter I experience and learn something new.

One thing I don't want and don't expect to experience when out on a course is aggression from fellow competitors. I find orienteering difficult enough without having to deal with people like you.

I was at a control having just punched. I was not standing right next to the control but I was close. I was tired and trying to remain focused on my navigation. So I stopped for a few seconds to study my map.

Then next moment a female competitor came up to the control and shouted aggressively at me 'don't stand next to the control lighting it up like a beacon'. I may or may have not done the best thing by standing too close to the control. However there are ways to approach situations without shouting and getting aggressive.

What you did it to make me loose all my concentration and probably lost me a few minutes in time. The reason I did not loose more, is that I remained calm and completely ignored you. If you continue to behave like this you may find that you do this in the future to the wrong person who might just retaliate.

As BOF is trying to bring more people to orienteering, we could loose beginners from the sport because of people like you.

Thank you for making my day an enjoyable one.

[frog]

Sympathy, I've lost time in the past by not properly looking at my map and setting bearing at a control but racing away and looking a bit further off in case people moan at me. I also reckon I spend enough time slow or stationary looking at my map away from controls that me standing looking at my map isn't a sign there is a control in the vicinity and is usually the opposite.

[Red Adder]

Things like this are fortunately very rare - in 400+ events I was barged out of the way at a control by an agressive M21 who just had to punch before me - and it was in a totally inconsequential park event - but thats it.

You do come across idiots like this in all walks of life and they are best ignored - though as you say the impact on a newbie orchild could be far more negative.

The lesson to take is that the behaviour of other orienteers can be a guide to finding your control or position of the map, or of you inadvertantly fellow competitors.

[Gross]

I was not very surprised at BOC on Saturday with the reaction of people in the forest to the wildlife exclusion zone that we had to introduce at the very last minute. I stood guard for around 2 hours and no-one even seemed to look like they were going to enter the area...

We did DQ one person for going through the area but that was not malicious.. more the fact that the 'race head' was on and the information hadn't been absorbed... but then again that's all part of race preperation... knowing you have taken in all the relevant info

There were rumours of one more person who went through the area... but nothing provable...

So overall... orienteers are well behaved

[Mrs H]

Perhaps it was the same woman who slipped heavily down a bank in front of me and when I asked if she was alright replied with a petulant "No!" which would have done a teenage chav proud before lumbering off. I shouted after her that I thought the correct response was "no thank you" then laughed when I realised that wouldn't have made much sense - my run improved no end after that.

By far and away the worse and most spectacular bit of orienteering rage i have ever witnessed occurred in the Midlands Night Champs about 7 years ago (also on Cannock Chase when they got the map scale wrong and we all had to run half as far again).

I became aware of someone shouting screaming cursing and thrashing about and certain they must be seriously injured abandoned my line to help them. When I got there some bloke was literally throwing his map on the ground and jumping on it - pure Basil Fawlty. I asked if he was alright and he screamed "I just can't do it!" . I was bloody livid I know he ruined quite a few runs with his selfishness. I think I was the only one who made it round in my class that night - I felt I'd earned that title in more ways than one

[Stodgetta]

I heard of some more disappointing BOC rage on the relay day from a very upset junior.

Being a bit misplaced & with a tendency to panic a bit, she was talking under her breath to herself to calm down: "Which way's north, rotate the map, what can I see, where have I...", when an older female orienteer yelled at her something along the lines of, "Will you shut up, I'm trying to concentrate!"

I hope that orienteer is happy she left a 12 year old in almost tears in her wake.

[AndyC]

I hope that this is the same person and that it can be explained to her what she is doing wrong

[buzz]

Whoever they were perhaps they should go on a coaching course - my advice to anyone would be never leave a control until you have a good plan for the next leg - this is particularly true when tired as adventurer said they were - so well done adventurer!

Mystery woman on the other hand seems far too easily distracted by other competitors and needs to start focussing on her own race. She also needs to ask herself whether everyone who is standing still looking at their map is necessarily standing next to a control !

[Gross]

I hope that orienteer is happy she left a 12 year old in almost tears in her wake.

For sure wasn't the pair of youngsters on day 1 that were struggeling to work out where they were at a control... I'm certain no one would object to the fact that I asked them to set the map and slow down & work things out properly....

[Roger]

I was not very surprised at BOC on Saturday with the reaction of people in the forest to the wildlife exclusion zone that we had to introduce at the very last minute. I stood guard for around 2 hours and no-one even seemed to look like they were going to enter the area...

We did DQ one person for going through the area but that was not malicious.. more the fact that the 'race head' was on and the information hadn't been absorbed...

I was thrown by this. At the start we were told that the area was just beyond two controls, one of which (193) was on my course. (Well done to the person who decided that we should have the control descriptions before being told about this area.) So I was expecting to encounter the area only if I overshot 193. Imagine my surprise when I hit the tapes on the direct ridge line into 193 from the previous control! I guessed that there would be a way round to the right, but from the path at the bottom I couldn't see the features that I'd been relying on to navigate into 193. As soon as the tapes bent away from the path I followed them back up the hillside and was mighty relieved to see first a likely-looking reentrant, then the flag.

I appear to be within 6s of the quickest legitimate split on this leg so I imagine that others were thrown more badly. If the area was so sensitive then could / should it have been marked on the maps in the start lanes, along with the locations of the nearby controls? 15 minutes with a red pen would surely have accomplished this. Such a map would certainly have grabbed attention, even (especially?) with a 'race head' on. Although I'd completely forgotten the instruction at the start when I was on my way to 193, seeing the tapes brought it back immediately. But the mismatch between the initial mental picture and what I found on the ground sowed much uncertainty.

The other mismatch concerned control descriptions: to me, "will not be printed on the front of the map" implied that they would be on the back, rather than that they would be absent. I was one of the fortunate majority that took a description-holder to the start, but I feel sorry for anyone who didn't realise until informed by the start officials that some course maps had no descriptions. Was this the reason that the we heard a member of the jury being summoned?

[Roger]

Follow-up: I ought to say that I enjoyed the whole weekend (including today's race at MoD Stafford). An injury sustained at Brown Clee meant that I missed out on the JK 2005 race at Abraham's Valley, but having the pleasure of racing on it in such excellent conditions mean that it's moved into my list of favourite areas: fast and with sufficient technical challenge to sustain interest. Thanks to all involved.

[Gross]

I was thrown by this.

Guess you never read the info and diagram on the way to the start then!

The people on the start line had a copy of the info about the exclusion zone... they could / should have only given that info out as they had none other.... it was an exact copy of the sign they were reading from...........

Jury was called to deal with the DQ'd person.

[Fat and Forty]

Roger,

I spoke to one of the helpers from Saturdays start yesterday and I gather that they only recieved the information at about 10.00am. I gather what the start offical was trying to say was that the controls themselves had not been moved, and that the the exclusion zone was adjacent to the controls "just beyond", also if you haven't got an all courses map it might have been difficult to interpret the likely direction of approach. Hence if you came to 193 from the opposite direction from us then, the exclusion zone would be "just beyond"

[Oldman]

The other mismatch concerned control descriptions: to me, "will not be printed on the front of the map" implied that they would be on the back, rather than that they would be absent. I was one of the fortunate majority that took a description-holder to the start, but I feel sorry for anyone who didn't realise until informed by the start officials that some course maps had no descriptions. Was this the reason that we heard a member of the jury being summoned?

I too read that text and actually expected them to be on the back, but took my usual set in the start lanes anyway. I know of at least one runner who didn't (perhaps started in the "late" lane and didn't get them?) and who came back complaining loudly that there were no CDs on the map. Surely the details should have said "Unusually, there are NO CDs on the map"?

[madmike]

would be never leave a control until you have a good plan for the next leg

buzz, nearly right - I would say never arrive at a control unless you have a good plan for the next leg - and flow through, not run to the control,