Why are we still publishing wording like this?
"British Orienteering will select athletes to specific disciplines. This could be one, two or three races plus relay and will depend on athlete's stage of development and potential for a podium place or top twenty position in 2018 or the future."
Participation at JWOC should never be about maximising performances. It should be about maximising EXPERIENCES. With respect to this athletes should be selected to attend all of JWOC and it should be down to themselves with the support of their coach (es) to decide how they wish to approach the week. This should not be dictated by BO staff. I fully support the principals that some athletes may wish to focus on specific disciplines when approaching their final years as a junior, in order to maximise performance, but in the main, like JEC, EYOC etc JWOC is about gaining invaluable experiences competing against the World’s best across all disciplines. In recent years we have dangerously gone down the line of reducing opportunities for some athletes in order to achieve minor performance improvements in certain races. There is no way of predicting a young athlete’s future discipline preference at this stage in their progression and so by doing this you are skewing their thinking AND limiting their race experience. As Peter Hodkinson recently said – had he been persuaded to drop the sprint discipline from his JWOC experiences (when at the time his better performances and focus were in the forest) he may well not have achieved similar success in sprint as a senior.
It is not for British Orienteering to determine an athlete’s future discipline but to actively encourage experiencing all race disciplines as a 16-20 year old in order to gain valuable race experience (irrespective of the discipline) in as short a time-scale to fit with the 10,000 hours rule and enable more opportunities to learn from.
As an aside, I am also concerned that when determining talent we are all too often looking at potential from a fitness perspective and using testing regimes as the basis for this. In all my years of experience with the GB squad I can assure you all that there is no direct correlation between the fitness of a 16 year old and how they will perform as a 30 year old senior international. I can provide many, many more examples of where commitment, perseverance and sheer grit and determination is a more valuable and determinate value than fitness in the sport of orienteering.
It is incredibly important that we keep the doors wide open when developing talent between 16 and 25 and that we are not blinkered by physical shape or technical competence in the early years and by reducing opportunities and reducing the talent base we risk overlooking exceptional talent which is yet to blossom.
Discuss. Again.
GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
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GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
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Lard - diehard
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
Completely agree with all you say Lard.
I despair at all the potential talent which has been lost to the sport over the last few years with this sort of blinkered thinking.
It's a real shame you aren't the one in charge of talent development Lard.
I despair at all the potential talent which has been lost to the sport over the last few years with this sort of blinkered thinking.
It's a real shame you aren't the one in charge of talent development Lard.
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Homer - diehard
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
Agreed. A couple of supplementary points.
Selection needs to be as objective as possible and based on orienteering results, not subjective assessments of physical condition or future potential. This is more likely to be both fair and effective. I understand that there is a move to release squad coaches from the responsibility of selection and revert to the old selection panel model which I think would be welcomed all round and help make the process more objective. Certainly asking a professional coach who's job relies on achieving short term results based targets to be responsible for selections makes no sense at all if you're looking for long term development.
Selection races need to be of high quality and test all aspects of orienteering. Major domestic events aren't always the best selection races as we saw with the JK this year. Results gained at this years British Championships with quality terrain, map and planning had a much stronger correlation with results at JWOC and I would argue were a better indication of future potential.
Selection needs to be as objective as possible and based on orienteering results, not subjective assessments of physical condition or future potential. This is more likely to be both fair and effective. I understand that there is a move to release squad coaches from the responsibility of selection and revert to the old selection panel model which I think would be welcomed all round and help make the process more objective. Certainly asking a professional coach who's job relies on achieving short term results based targets to be responsible for selections makes no sense at all if you're looking for long term development.
Selection races need to be of high quality and test all aspects of orienteering. Major domestic events aren't always the best selection races as we saw with the JK this year. Results gained at this years British Championships with quality terrain, map and planning had a much stronger correlation with results at JWOC and I would argue were a better indication of future potential.
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buzz - addict
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
is bollocks.Lard wrote:...the 10,000 hours "rule" .....
But otherwise I agree!
Last edited by greywolf on Wed Aug 09, 2017 4:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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greywolf - addict
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
greywolf wrote:is bollocks.Lard wrote:...the 10,000 hours "rule" .....
But otherwise I agree!
Are you saying that world class performance at skills based sports doesn't require thousands of hours of practice, or that orienteering isn't a skills based sport, or what?
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buzz - addict
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
World class performance in sport (or music, or any skilled activity) requires lots of practice, obv., but a) there isn't a magic number, and b) practice alone isn't anywhere near enough, natural ability plays a much greater role
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greywolf - addict
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
Greywolf the research doesn't back you up - in most sports natural ability is not the most important factor in determining performance....... what's far more important is motivation and 'deliberate' practice (practice of the highest quality with the aim of improving performance - rather than half-good quantity practice). In 'deliberate' practice you have to be highly motivated to fully focus on the practice session and the practice session should be specifically designed to meet you at the level you're at (highly individual based technical training). Immediate feedback on your practice session is vital and that you practice the same skills over and over again. The 10'000 hours thing is not really what the researchers meant and was based on piano players but the media spread it around.
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
greywolf wrote:World class performance in sport (or music, or any skilled activity) requires lots of practice, obv., but a) there isn't a magic number, and b) practice alone isn't anywhere near enough, natural ability plays a much greater role
Clearly the number isn't magic certainly not in orienteering but the idea that 'natural ability' plays a greater role than practice is nonsense. Do you think the various hotbeds of 'talent' that we have seen over the years have been due to a random collection of individuals who happen to have natural ability? Its opportunity, circumstance, support, etc. that are key to talent development, plus the individual's passion for the sport and determination to succeed.
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buzz - addict
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
buzz wrote:..Selection needs to be as objective as possible and based on orienteering results....
Selection races need to be of high quality and test all aspects of orienteering.... .
Why not bring back the FCC series ?
curro ergo sum
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King Penguin - addict
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
Without something riding on it, the series will not have the relevance that it used to. The old system where you had to qualify to run FCC final weekend over the course of the series and then the first X athletes in the FCC final weekend get an automatic spot in the team, made it what it was.
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
The loss of the FCC was nothing short of a tragedy. I still don't understand to this day why it was axed. Maybe BOF felt it was too much of a loose canon to give automatic qualification to the final winners and runners up - but did anyone ever win who wouldn't have got selected any way? (It would be nice to think that they did).
Nothing has come close to creating the buzz among the youngsters just at that point when they now drift away from the sport as they leave home for Uni.
If you wanted to draw up an end of life strategy for orienteering then withdrawing the FCC would be the equivalent of turning off the oxygen supply!
Nothing has come close to creating the buzz among the youngsters just at that point when they now drift away from the sport as they leave home for Uni.
If you wanted to draw up an end of life strategy for orienteering then withdrawing the FCC would be the equivalent of turning off the oxygen supply!
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Mrs H - god
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
British Orienteering Director | Opinions expressed on here are entirely my own, and do not represent the views of British Orienteering.
"If only you were younger and better..."
"If only you were younger and better..."
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Scott - god
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericssonk/2 ... t%2014.pdf
The study you refer to Scott is too general and didn't follow the criteria for what can be defined as 'deliberate' practice, which is obviously really important, I'd say they still found quite a strong relationship in that study anyway. Ericsson's reply above.
There's no doubt in my mind that Thierry's success is down 'deliberate' practice. He was no wonder kid, I beat him regularly as a junior as did a number of other Brits of my generation. However he was highly motivated from a very young age to improve his technical skills and took 'deliberate' practice in orienteering to totally new level. Francois Gonon, Thierry's childhood friend and former top international orienteer, dropped by my house a few years ago and showed me the training sessions and post race analysis they were doing - it was on a totally other level to anything I'd seen before in orienteering. It was deliberate practice being conducted by highly motivated athletes and without a doubt the key reason to their success.
The study you refer to Scott is too general and didn't follow the criteria for what can be defined as 'deliberate' practice, which is obviously really important, I'd say they still found quite a strong relationship in that study anyway. Ericsson's reply above.
There's no doubt in my mind that Thierry's success is down 'deliberate' practice. He was no wonder kid, I beat him regularly as a junior as did a number of other Brits of my generation. However he was highly motivated from a very young age to improve his technical skills and took 'deliberate' practice in orienteering to totally new level. Francois Gonon, Thierry's childhood friend and former top international orienteer, dropped by my house a few years ago and showed me the training sessions and post race analysis they were doing - it was on a totally other level to anything I'd seen before in orienteering. It was deliberate practice being conducted by highly motivated athletes and without a doubt the key reason to their success.
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Re: GB JWOC Selection Criteria 2018
Lard wrote:Why are we still publishing wording like this?
"British Orienteering will select athletes to specific disciplines. This could be one, two or three races plus relay and will depend on athlete's stage of development and potential for a podium place or top twenty position in 2018 or the future."
I think that bit of the selection policy is outdated and misleading. Or at least the same as appeared in 2017 policy (with the year changed), but doesn't reflect what happened in practice. The formal selections were just to the team, without any selection to specific disciplines, and we agreed any discussion about what disciplines to run would be a conversation between squad staff, athlete and personal coach (so NOT a selection decision or an order from the squad staff).
Moreover there weren't many instances of athletes sitting things out:
- Middle qual - all 12 athletes ran
- Middle final - 6 athletes ran, 6 DNS
- Sprint - 10 athletes ran, 2 DNS
- Long - all 12 athletes ran
- Relay - all 12 athletes ran
- Duncan
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