Scottish Sprint Champs

[andy]

Live results for anyone who's vaguely interested (you'll have to manually refresh)

http://live.o-results.net/

[andy]

http://esoc.org.uk/home/news/scottish-s ... -2nd-race/

Start lists for the 2nd race (for anyone sitting in a cafe)

[andypat]

Really enjoyed Saturdays races. Fast and furious. Liked the 30s intervals for the "final". Nice mix of terrain too.

[graeme]

Rules allow clubs to do pretty much what they like for the sprints, but I also really liked this format. Two races made it seem worthwhile, and allowed varied challenges. 30 sec intervals is more than enough in a reverse start and gets the event done quickly.

Might be nice to set the leading elites off 5mins last to set up a grand finale?

[awk]

Whilst not a fan of cumulative time sprints in the past, this format definitely worked, giving some great racing in both rounds. Definitely worth the journey!

(Enjoyed today's urban race too, even if somehow missed out no. 10, running straight past it within a few metres whilst focusing on a later route and testing a gate for a return leg that should have been open but wasn't). Early long legs did make it easy planning for later though.)

[andypat]

Just in case anyone has the same panic as me (I had my disqualification email to Mrs Dalgliesh all but sent!) the map on RG for the sprint final seems to be the map from the urban race which bizarrely has an additional bit of OOB red hatching along the road to the last control. Took me a good 10 minutes to find my own map to check - off for another drink now!

[andy]

Just in case anyone has the same panic as me (I had my disqualification email to Mrs Dalgliesh all but sent!) the map on RG for the sprint final seems to be the map from the urban race which bizarrely has an additional bit of OOB red hatching along the road to the last control. Took me a good 10 minutes to find my own map to check - off for another drink now!

Yes, we've (Mr Planner) realised this now. Currently investigating changing the map on RG without upsetting routes.

[Big Jon]

Good races both days. Enjoyed them more than expected - especially Saturday.
But why have extra complicated control positioning when a metre away would change the control description and remove all ambiguity? - (Control 17 course 2 on Sunday)
PS I saw several people going OOB on second race on Saturday - I don't know names but it seemed to be very easy to firstly not see or ignore the "do not cross dark green" and secondly to ignore small areas of OOB printed on the map but not marked on the ground (on grass area to north of buildings.
In my opinion sprint spec. maps and planning/controlling need to be simplified and ambiguities/over-complicated control descriptions removed. The races should be decided by people choosing a decent route, executing it at speed not by wasting 30-60 seconds in the circle because a control is trickily positioned. Orienteers are stupid enough to miss routes (eg me running right past a light grey patch underpass in a building and doing a loop round the building before reaching the control!) without trickery in the control circle. I regard over-complex descriptions much as hiding a forest control in an unmapped thicket.

[andy]

PS I saw several people going OOB on second race on Saturday - I don't know names but it seemed to be very easy to firstly not see or ignore the "do not cross dark green" and secondly to ignore small areas of OOB printed on the map but not marked on the ground (on grass area to north of buildings.

Totally agree. The controller took the decision yesterday that it was only fair to not DSQ people from names given by others, but only DSQ people who came forward themselves. Not ideal but not a lot else could be done without having people on each bit. I think more could have been done with marking these with tape (or similar) but when you only have 2/3 people looking at it it is very difficult. 200 people critiquing is v different! There were 2 or 3 classes where someone else won by virtue of self disqualification by the 'winner' and about 10 self-dsqs in all.

[andypat]

But why have extra complicated control positioning when a metre away would change the control description and remove all ambiguity? - (Control 17 course 2 on Sunday)

Its noticeable that a fair few people further down the results did comparably better at this control. I'm on the side of the planner for this although I acknowledge there are those who disagree. I think this control is for me what distinguishes Urban from Sprint orienteering. Any Urban enthusiast would recognise this control as a potential banana skin right away and the time taken to check the control description before committing to a route choice is time well spent. Those who failed to do so and who presumably assumed that the control would be on the far side were caught out. You werent the only one by a long way Jon Of course the big white van parked over the entrance to the alleyway S of the control simply added spice to the situation!

[awk]

I have to say, I disagree Jon; the siting was pretty unambiguous to me, given the description.

[housewife]

I had real problems seeing the pink dots for oob gates. Part of the problem might have been that I dodn't run Saturday so sunday was my first experience of them. Is this in any way a sprint standard? As a result I went oob to 16 on WOpen, and wasted time going to 17 trying to get down the wrong side of a building (and then missing the correct alley due to the white van - faff, faff, faff...). I went south on course 2 between 11 and 12 and wasted time as couldn't get through a section marked as grey. It was an entrance to the grounds of that building, which seems to have been a pair of big oak doors which were shut when I went past. Apparently you could get through them earlier. Did you have problems here Andy? You were in the area the same time as me.

Could you put me in the results as n/c or disc, for the oob and going around course 7 with the kids prior to starting, forgetting when entering this would make me non-comp. I am such a ditz.

[andy]

It was an entrance to the grounds of that building, which seems to have been a pair of big oak doors which were shut when I went past. Apparently you could get through them earlier. Did you have problems here Andy? You were in the area the same time as me.

I went North which was fine. Interesting that they were shut, that's the entrance to 'The Quad' so the uni guys probably shut it without thinking about our event... oops.

Could you put me in the results as n/c or disc, for the oob and going around course 7 with the kids prior to starting, forgetting when entering this would make me non-comp. I am such a ditz.

Will do so tonight (and resubmit 3 different files to various places! )

[graeme]

Part of the problem might have been that I dodn't run Saturday so sunday was my first experience of them. Is this in any way a sprint standard?

That convention wasn't used on Saturday.
It's not particularly sprint standard - I guess its the normal ISOM orienteering "barrier which may not be crossed" symbol. It didn't work: e.g. at 225 the purple barrier blends with the purple circle, and it is hard to criticize the many people went through the gate (annoying those of us who went round). It also looks rather like a segment of contour. But its a hard problem.

On deliberately ambiguous control placement and control circle misplacement. I'm with BigJon: I now carry a compass exclusively for orienting my control descriptions . I got them all OK but it detracted rather than enhanced my enjoyment of the event. Especially seeing juniors DQed for punching at the wrong side of the hedge with controls on both sides.

I did like the bold font numbers with white backgrounds. Immediately changed the JK map when I got home!
Interesting to see huge amounts of unused complex terrain on the south and east too: looking forward to getting back there again soon.
PS Did anyone take on the crossable river on 1-2 course B? Didn't seem to save quite enough distance to risk it in flat shoes.

[Scott]

I did like the bold font numbers with white backgrounds. Immediately changed the JK map when I got home!

If you mean you're putting white borders around the control numbers, I hope you're going to be very careful how you position them