British Sprint Relay Classes

[DaveL]

Just looking at the classes for British Sprint Relays and notice they are all "combined" ie require male and female participants!
I get the whole equality thing, and I can just about accept the "1 out of 3" Female requirement in the veteran categories, but is it really appropriate to demand 50% (2 out of 4) Females in the elite category given the M / F balance of the membership ?
How many clubs realistically have 2 elite females (ideally under 35) to make up a team ?
Surely a Mens' and Womens' trophy would be appropriate ?
(posted as DFOK now have 4 potentially competive M's but no F's !!!)

[Ravinous]

Mixed sprint relay of 2+2 is the world champs discipline and world unis and world games so we should probably have a national champs in it!? I am not aware of any nation which has separate M and W sprint relay classes??

[graeme]

How many clubs realistically have 2 elite females (ideally under 35) to make up a team ? ... Surely a .. Womens' trophy would be appropriate ?

er, OK....

It seems fine to have a MSR title, the more interesting question is whether it is OK to run n/c all-male teams in the same race, or n/c multi-club teams. Or how far neighbouring club alliances can be stretched.

[Arnold]

Seems a fair question though. Given the general M/F imbalance in orienteering, if an average % of each club's runners want to participate, then there'll be a lot of Ms left with no team.

We already seem to acknowledge this issue for the non-Elite courses where it's indeed a 2:1 ratio not 1:1

In some ways I'm surprised the question hasn't been asked before. Perhaps because we also have an age imbalance issue so that most orienteers are 40+ where the M:F ratio is 2:1...

[Auld Badger]

From the BOF rankings, the current membership between 2nd season 16 and under 65 is 62% male. Biggest differential is in 35's which is 65/35, and closest is 40's (57/43), closely followed by U20 (who I've lumped together to give them parity with the five year classes) at 58/42.

Under 45's is 60/40 male, while 45-64 is 62/38 male, so not a major difference until we hit the 65's, which I didn't look at. No surprise that the biggest age classes are 55 and 60, as the teachers' disputes of the 1980s put an end to school clubs in a major sense.

We're talking about the "elite" race though - how many people are going to go to Norfolk for a Sprint, regardless of their declared gender, never mind their desire to race in a 2x2 format?

[DaveL]

"Seems a fair question though. Given the general M/F imbalance in orienteering, if an average % of each club's runners want to participate, then there'll be a lot of Ms left with no team." -
- Exactly my point !!! We (and I'm sure others are in similar position) have 4 Male 35 and unders who cannot get a competitive run and whos' only option is to run ad hoc - That can't be right !
Slightly tongue in cheek - but if there's any female uni runners without a second claim home club they're welcome to come and run for DFOK ! - just £2 membership for the year !!!

[SeanC]

Initially my sympathies weren't with DFOK on this one, after all the event is called 'the British Sprint Mixed Relay' (though not consistently). Also there is an Ad Hoc class for any random mix (of 3 runners).

But the Ad Hoc class isn't really an Ad Hoc class...
In some respects it is
- no age restrictions
- any combination of clubs
- no medals (well fair enough it's not the main event)

But in this respect it isn't:
- there must be at least one female runner, or the team is non-competitive.

So my sympathies are back with DFOK - having sufficient club spirit for a small club to gather a team for a long drive, but then being declared 'non competitive'. Surely either it's an ad hoc course or it isn't? Ad hoc should mean any combination of runners to mop up the remainders who can't make the main classes. I'm all for encouraging more diversity in orienteering (it probably needs it)... but it shouldn't come at the expense of stopping people entering.

Dave - I guess instead of the £2 bribe - maybe you could find female runners from other clubs to make up two ad hoc teams?

[pete.owens]

How many clubs realistically have 2 elite females (ideally under 35) to make up a team ?

Significantly more than could field an all female team of three for the JK or British relays with single sex classes.

Surely a Mens' and Womens' trophy would be appropriate ?
(posted as DFOK now have 4 potentially competive M's but no F's !!!)

I would guess that there is probably more than one woman in your club.

All team events pose club captains the problem of making up eligible teams. And different clubs will have different compositions of members making it easier to create teams for some events than others. In the particular case of your club with a highly biased composition of young adult members then you are unlikely to win this particular competition - but would have a better chance at the JK or British relays. The opposite would be true for a smaller club with a more balanced membership. In general, the sprint relay championships with fewer broader classes should make it easier for most clubs to assemble teams.

Indeed, one of the main motivations for mixed relays in all sports is to make it easier for a small club/nation to at least be able to enter one team.

[awk]

At Brunel, we ran an 'elite' team consisting of a W21, M20, M55, W50. They had great fun, and actually managed to get into the top third of the field (8/24).

My point is that you don't need 'elite' runners to enter an 'elite' team. That's one of the great pluses of sprint.

However, I do have enormous sympathy with the issue over ad hoc (a label I hate anyway) - as described by SeanC.

To give a specific example on the comparison with British/JK relays by pete.owens, as relay captain for a small club, I find the British Relays far worse than the British sprints for sorting relay teams out. We were effectively unable to field a single age class team there with the restrictions placed, and landed up running 5 teams across Men's Short, Women's Short and Ad Hoc (and the long Ad Hoc leg is an absolute pain, and should be scrapped) - JK is vastly friendlier in that respect (and a lot more enjoyable for the club as a whole, however much I personally enjoyed my run at Bigland).

[King Penguin]

... and last year at Birmingham MSR we had a one-family "elite" team comprising M20, W18, M50, W50

[graeme]

My point is that you don't need 'elite' runners to enter an 'elite' team. That's one of the great pluses of sprint.

Exactly! And not just sprint. This weekend is Jukola: the biggest club relay race in the world (possibly in any sport, depending how you measure it). The top "elite" runners will be there racing at elite level along with thousands of others.

But the Ad Hoc class isn't really an Ad Hoc class - there must be at least one female runner, or the team is non-competitive.

It is so weird, what does "non-competitive" even mean? You don't get to be British Champion in Ad Hoc, and there's nothing to stop you running as hard as you can, which most people do. Alternately, any team with an elderly man shuffling round with a walking stick is non-competitive in practice, regardless of the gender of his teammates.

We simply need to say that any team of four can run the Sprint Relay, but the British MSR champions are the first team with composition WMMW.

[pete.owens]

There is an issue sending a man (or at least a good one) out on first leg on the elite sprint relay. This leg is a head to head mass start leg run by women so there would be a significant advantage if that man happened to be on your gaffle.

I agree that it makes no sense to insist on a woman in an ad hoc team. The whole point is to enable everyone to have a run - and there are no medals at stake.

The other class that should allow all male teams is the young juniors. The sex advantage does not kick in that young - we don't have separate M & F mini-relays at the JK or British.

For the other age classes the at least one women is needed for fairness. It is the same rule as for the M/W70 relay at the British.