The error affected a significant number of people on courses 2, 3 & 4 [W21L, M20A, M35L, M40L & M45L]. The only step we could take on the day was to void these courses. For M18A it was realised that all competitors visited the control after it was re-sited. For this class there was no need to take any action.
Following the decision to void courses affected by the wrong siting of control 143, representations were made by a number of competitors that we should consider taking out the time taken by all from that section of the course and then treat the results as if a full course has been run. I have had e-mails from competitors giving their views on this and those in favour of such an action are in a large majority.
Technical committee has been consulted as the rules and guidelines were written before the full impact of e?punching arrived, and it is apparent that this problem will cause them some debate at their next meeting. They have agreed with the action we will take. No solution is going to suit everyone and there are reasons for leaving the courses void.
a) The control was in the wrong place for part of the competition.
b) An unknown number of people will have stopped taking the race seriously after losing time at the control. They may then have finished the rest of the course in a time which does not reflect what they would have done if they still thought it was a serious race. This implies that doing the time adjustment does not produce a fair result.
c) These people will be giving ranking points and badges away to people who they would normally have beaten. This devalues the badge and ranking schemes.
d) It looks like we are being lenient on planning and controlling errors.
Having weighed up all the views I believe that on balance the classes should be adjusted and the resultant times left to stand as a full result. I appreciate that this decision is a compromise and is going to be examined in the future. Perhaps a full public hanging for the controller at JK relays.
There weren't any JK relays that year so no public hanging.