Priorities

[wonderboy]

I've just read on the British Orienteering website in the relay report by Duncan Archer that Scott Fraser elected not to run the long race in order to save himself for the relays?! I feel it's a sad state of affairs that one of our top elites prioritises the JK relays over the chance for his first senior JK elite title. I know there's some good team spirit at
Edinburgh, but having two "fresh runners" on legs 3 and 4 against an SYO team where all had run the 15km the day before, seems a hollow victory to me...

After all, who remembers the relay winners, you want your name on the individual trophies don't you? EUOC could well have won the relay even if Scott had run the day before, all these top guys recover quickly. I hope there's some other reason, like resting a niggling injury from another long run out?

[ba-ba]

both ShUOC's 1st and last leg runners had run their first competitive 21 classics the day before as well.

[graeme]

The JK weekend is held each Easter in memory of Jan Kjellström who gave so much help in establishing the sport of orienteering in Great Britain.

So, we dedicated a trophy in his name. And this is for the relay, not the individual. So maybe Scott appreciates the history of the event?

[awk]

I feel it's a sad state of affairs that one of our top elites prioritises the JK relays over the chance for his first senior JK elite title. I know there's some good team spirit at Edinburgh, but having two "fresh runners" on legs 3 and 4 against an SYO team where all had run the 15km the day before, seems a hollow victory to me...

It's always difficult to ascribe motives to people without them explaining it for themselves, but taking this at face value, I have rather the opposite reaction. I think it's brilliant that an elite athlete might have put the JK Trophy first in his priorities, team before self and all that. And absolutely nothing hollow in the victory - just tactics, and some great racing.

That's not to take away one jot my respect for those who did the individual the day before. But it does go to show that prioritising and specialising can make a difference, and I think the sport is all the healthier for it.

After all, who remembers the relay winners, you want your name on the individual trophies don't you?

Do you? Speak for yourself, everybody has different motivations. I'll certainly remember the names of the 2008 Men's World Relay Champions for rather a long time!

EUOC could well have won the relay even if Scott had run the day before, all these top guys recover quickly.

They might have done, but this way they definitely did! Yes, top athletes do recover quickly, but not that quickly, and at this level every little edge counts. Watching the relays, it looked like quite a significant edge.

[mharky]

Firstly, I'd like to say how the report on the BOF/JK pages is an utter pile of crap. We didn't want to have to bring this up on nopesport, but it looks like we will.

Scott Fraser didn't run the classic because he is running the 17km last leg at the TioMila next weekend. No one should be running 2 full length classics within 7 days, so he made the choice. The JK is not a WOC selection race, so Scott has no need to run it. The TioMila is the TioMila. If anyone needs explaining why this is more important then their opinion is not valid nor sought.

As for me resting up; I did maybe 5-10 days of training in January and February combined, maybe 10-15 days in March. I spent the 2 weeks prior to the JK on a field trip working from 8am to 6 or 7pm, I went for 3 jogs. If you want to call that being a fresh runner, go for it. I'd prefer to call it someone who has very little fitness only losing 20s to Matt Crane, both running 2 mins faster than anyone else on the middle legs.

As far as I'm concerned the JK Trophy is the biggest prize in British Orienteering.

The report also says I ran 2nd leg. I didn't. It says Scott started 44s down, it was less than 30. It says that SYO put in 3 strong legs and nearly had it swen up. We were never more than 30s down at the change over. Hector actaully took 30s out of SYO. Despite this none of our runs are even acknowledged by the report. Instead it mentions how it was unfortunate that SYO didn't win, however they proved their strength and depth etc. Not once did it congratulate us.

As for a hollow victory? nope off. How about Oli's win in the individual is hollow because Scott didn't run. Nor Jamie, or GG, or Oystein Kvaal Osterbo, or Dan Hubman. Perhaps ShUOC's victory in 2006 is hollow because BJ broke his ankle on last leg.

Quite frankly i'm disgusted by the report going up on the JK website, as for it going up on the BOF one. Well, words will be had.

In the last 5 years Edinburgh has only been beaten once by a British team in the JK Trophy. Maybe that is why there is so much animosity towards us.

[awk]

Whoa mharky! I think you're being a little unfair to the writer of the report.

I agree that 'looking to have it sewn up' was somewhat off-target - as you said the lead was never great and EUOC were always close in there, but for many spectators, SYO having led for 3 legs and sending Oli Johnson off on last would have looked like them being at least favourites to win at that point. Of course, it was far more exciting than that statement suggests.

The reporter says 44 seconds, because that's the time given by the results. Presumably, the difference is because this doesn't allow for any time difference in the delay between getting from the changeover to the finish box.

The writer doesn't say you ran second leg. OK, they list you in a different order (the order from left to right in the accompanying photo) but nowhere do they say or imply what legs you first three ran.

I think you're reading too much into the final para: SYO women aren't congratulated either! If I had a comment, the whole report puts a bit too much emphasis on the last leg - it was a much longer, closer and more exciting tussle than that, and it's a pity that it misses all that out, but that might just be the way the reporter saw it. There again, it gets a couple of facts wrong in the women's race wrong too, so you're not the only ones! (If you've ever written articles for newspapers etc., it's amazing how difficult it is to get everything right, and there's always more than one view on a story).

I think you may just have to accept the burden of celebrity - reporters always get it wrong, and you're obviously no exceptions!! Anyway, my congratulations - it was a great race and a superb win!

[LostAgain]

Mharky I think you are being over sensitive, and not for the first time.

The report on the BO website reads well and AWK has addressed most of your "Gripes". Report seems balanced and offers congratulations to a superb effort by EUOC and acknowledges the 4 team members in no particular order.

As regards priorities, each individual decides this for themselves. I would assume there to be an advantage in not running the classic the day before. This option is open to all runners.

Opens up an interesting point for discussion. If many of the JK open competitors (Men & Women) chose to miss the JK Classic and "save" themselves for the Relays the JK would be worse off in my opinion.

[Jethro]

The report of the JK relay which appears on the BOF/JK websites is slightly but significantly different to the one which was posted originally. It occured to me at the time that it was slightly "biased" and it is doubtless this original report which got Markhy's hackles up.

[Meat Market]

Having spoken to Scott on Sunday where he mentioned that he was preparing to run the tio mila I have more admiration because he DIDN'T run the long day. It would have been the harder choice to miss what is an important race and watch his rivals win than to run the race.

At the start of the season he will have identified Tio Mila as a bigger priority (world stage not just UK stage). For someone like him competing at the top it would be better to compete 100% in one race than 95% in both races. The best we can do is get behind him and hope he is able to build on the great coverage that our WOC Gold medals brought to British orienteering last year.

[Freefall]

Did Simone Niggli hold back from doing races or did she just win anyway?

[LostAgain]

The report of the JK relay which appears on the BOF/JK websites is slightly but significantly different to the one which was posted originally. It occured to me at the time that it was slightly "biased" and it is doubtless this original report which got Markhy's hackles up.

If this is the case then it looks like Mark's concerns have been addressed, as I think the current report reads well and reflects well on all concerned.

[Kitch]

Did Simone Niggli hold back from doing races or did she just win anyway?

did you ever win anything ?
same question applies to "wonderboy"

[Duncan]

I have to confess I did write the report rather hurriedly on Monday evening, tired after a long weekend of helping (and running!), and it wasn't a good report. Scott quite fairly emailed me on Tuesday morning to point out as much ('nonsense' and 'biased' were a couple of his words). I totally agreed, apologised and reworded the account of the mens relay on Tuesday morning.

I think the report that currently sits on the JK and British Orienteering website is fair. Yes it points out that Scott didn't run the day before, because I think that undoubtedly made a difference to how well he ran in the relay. But it doesn't say whether he should or shouldn't have done that - people can draw their own conclusions (as they have above!). Nor does it imply whether he could have won the relay even if he had run the day before - we'll never know one way or the other.

The timings were indeed taken from the SI splits and they may be different to the times people actually handed over at, due to people taking different times between handing over and punching the finish. Ideally you'd have a professional journalist reporting, and expect them to dedicate their day to watching the relay and recording all the facts; sadly this was an amateur doing his best Interestingly at most big relays (e.g. 10mila, Jukoka, Spring Cup) you punch before handing over, not after. Anyone know why we don't do this in the UK as well? (the whole sequence usually goes something like punch, drop your current map in a bin, pick up your outgoing runner's map, and handover by passing that map to them -- see the other JK thread about how this avoids queues at map issue as well!)

[Freefall]

Did Simone Niggli hold back from doing races or did she just win anyway?

did you ever win anything ?
same question applies to "wonderboy"

1985 Royal Engineer Championships

[Jethro]

Does the fact that I didn't run the sprint race devalue my win in M50 on Days 2 &3? Apart from the fact that I don't particularly enjoy street/sprint racing, for a number of reasons, I had made retaining my M50 trophy a priority and decided that I couldn't afford the extra physical and mental exertion needed to run another race. I am far from being an elite athlete but you can't do every race if you are doing any of them seriously.
As for Simone, she's one of a kind!