(Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
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graeme - god
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
Got to agree that you need 4 different runners to really call it a british champs. A lot of teams in a traditional relay have 1 or 2 'superstars' propped up by a punter or two...
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
PG wrote:[BTW the draft rules (here with Martin's comments for Saturday added) say "On the open class, men's and women's courses may be similar, but men must not be gaffled against women"]
Why does only the open class have this restriction, whereas the other classes can gaffle the short leg against the long leg?
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graeme - god
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
andy wrote:Got to agree that you need 4 different runners to really call it a british champs. A lot of teams in a traditional relay have 1 or 2 'superstars' propped up by a punter or two...
Plenty of other sports have "teams of two" competing at world or national level, but I'd agree with you that in orienteering it seems likely that clubs ought to have enough runners to form a team of 2 men and 2 women in this event.
graeme wrote:PG wrote:[BTW the draft rules (here with Martin's comments for Saturday added) say "On the open class, men's and women's courses may be similar, but men must not be gaffled against women"]
Why does only the open class have this restriction, whereas the other classes can gaffle the short leg against the long leg?
Maybe because it's considered more important for the Open class to be "fair", and the other classes can be "close enough to fair"?
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Spookster - god
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
The 2:1 ratio men:women in juniors and vets is probably about right for the overall demographics of the sport, but I think most clubs will find it much harder to field equal numbers of men and women in the Open. Maybe a woman should be allowed to run twice in the Open but not a man ?
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
I still dont believe that would be a better option than say a W16 or Wvet running up.
I mean take for example the underpass 1st control on the British Sprint champs final. Some people lost minutes here. Huge advantage if you've been to the control before or even just seen the map and seen other people.
And I'd worry you'd end up with the situation where a slower W21 is frozen out of the open team so the superstar can run twice. hardly ideal but how would you stop it.
I mean take for example the underpass 1st control on the British Sprint champs final. Some people lost minutes here. Huge advantage if you've been to the control before or even just seen the map and seen other people.
And I'd worry you'd end up with the situation where a slower W21 is frozen out of the open team so the superstar can run twice. hardly ideal but how would you stop it.
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
The problem isn't finding people able to run these relay courses, it's finding people willing.
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mharky - team nopesport
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
Realistically, there aren't enough women to go around. For many clubs, every female vet who runs up on the open class will mean one fewer vet team, and two vet men who therefore don't get a run.
I support the principle of having an open class that mirrors the international format, but I also think (orienteering) relays should be at least in part about a club's (or country's) strength in depth. And how many juniors over the year have had the inspirational experience of taking middle leg for their club in the JK premier classes with a couple of superstars first and last? There's plenty of potential for that in the mixed sprint as well, and it would seem a shame to encourage clubs to have a superstar running twice instead.
Personally, I'd allow open team runners to double up - to recognise that it's the only way that some clubs will be able to form an open team - but I'd make any team of fewer than four people non-comp when it comes to awarding British Champs medals, so there's no incentive for clubs to use someone twice unless they absolutely have to.
I support the principle of having an open class that mirrors the international format, but I also think (orienteering) relays should be at least in part about a club's (or country's) strength in depth. And how many juniors over the year have had the inspirational experience of taking middle leg for their club in the JK premier classes with a couple of superstars first and last? There's plenty of potential for that in the mixed sprint as well, and it would seem a shame to encourage clubs to have a superstar running twice instead.
Personally, I'd allow open team runners to double up - to recognise that it's the only way that some clubs will be able to form an open team - but I'd make any team of fewer than four people non-comp when it comes to awarding British Champs medals, so there's no incentive for clubs to use someone twice unless they absolutely have to.
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Scott - god
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
andypat wrote:...a slower W21 is frozen out of the open team so the superstar can run twice.
Not even a superstar. I suspect no club has a second-best woman who could hope to beat their fastest woman on a course she'd already seen.
The problem isn't finding people able to run these relay courses, it's finding people willing.
At present, yes. But sprint relay is a lot of fun, even if you don't get to touch a woman. And it can be popular even for, um, older people as evidenced by a couple of somewhat larger events in Scotland...
http://www.esoc.org.uk/scottish-univers ... relay-2015
http://www.taysideorienteers.org.uk/eve ... 9-jan-2014
People drafting guidelines would do well to look at these successful events which have a more typical spread of orienteers than WOC...
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graeme - god
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
If it's going to be such an issue why make it four legs anyway - just because that's what they do at WOC? Let's not kid ourselves! Horses for courses.
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Mrs H - god
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Non-binary gender Sprint Relay Champs
Mrs H wrote: why make it four legs anyway
Because three legs means either the short leg is identical for all, or we'd have to overcome the shibboleth of not gaffling long and short sprint courses.
- just because that's what they do at WOC?
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graeme - god
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
I'm also not convinced for the need to avoid gaffling M&W courses (so long as there are not significant differences in physicality between the gaffles). The planner would also need to make sure that there were no significant differences in length between the parts of the course with shared gaffles, but that wouldn't be too difficult. Having four gaffles in the early part of the course would help split the pack and cater for larger fields.
I don't know what the overall gender demographic is in British Orienteering but a four person open relay combined with three person (at least one women) junior/veteran classes could match this.
I'm not a great fan of allowing team members to run twice. It has proved successful in some events such as the Night Hawk but for reasons previously mentioned I don't feel that it is right for a technical sprint event.
I don't know what the overall gender demographic is in British Orienteering but a four person open relay combined with three person (at least one women) junior/veteran classes could match this.
I'm not a great fan of allowing team members to run twice. It has proved successful in some events such as the Night Hawk but for reasons previously mentioned I don't feel that it is right for a technical sprint event.
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
I think people are focusing on the details of this race rather than of the format in general. I ran the Danish sprint relay champs last year, which is the same format with people running twice. The difference was that the first two legs were in a different part of the area than the second two legs - like the heats and finals at the British Sprints. Thus there is no navigational advantage to running two legs and you have to weigh up being tired for the second race. This obviously wasn't going to be achievable around the Edge in Sheffield but given a suitable area..
I think making it easy for people to get together competitive teams together is important for the success of the format. If it is difficult then people just won't bother.
I think making it easy for people to get together competitive teams together is important for the success of the format. If it is difficult then people just won't bother.
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
But the draft rules say that "men must not be gaffled against women". If the two same-gender laps are in different parts of the area then there can't be any gaffling at all.
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Re: (Trial) British Mixed Sprint Relay Champs
Kris wrote:people are focusing on the details of this race
I disagree, mainly people are focusing on the draft rules, and the restrictions implied by them, which is sensible at this stage. Once the rules become fixed, we can get stuck with a poor format for a very long time (e.g. the unnatural pairing of sprint and middle).
e.g.
A Danish-style paarlauf-sprint could be run alongside a four-leg relay. If pairs are faster, just have a separate award for full teams.
The number of teams is critical to the feel of the race. Less than 10 is likely to lose any head-to-head relay feel, more than 40 probably make the first leg unmanageable.
Alternately a three leg MWM relay may fit the demographics and make it easier to get teams. Or substituting slow age-groups for slower genders, which probably take us to WMW.
The key at this stage is to try variants out, and see what works, not write restrictive rules. Pretty much anything other than the strict WOC format require dropping the "men must not be gaffled against women".
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