JWOC - the aftermath?

[Blanka]

In the report for the JWOC relay day, Gareth Candy claims that

"It was a great last day for the team in what must be one of the most successful Junior World Championships for the British Team, all the athletes will enjoy themselves tonight and then will be ready to focus on their next goals and continue their development."

OK, there was one silver medal from Kris Jones but I think that most of the other performances were far below par, especially considering that some of the athletes have been receiving coaching support from BOF for a significant length of time.

I am not criticising the athletes, everyone can have an off day and I grant that some of these athletes are relatively inexperienced, but I think that they should be capable of more than what was achieved. Should the report really refer to a "great day" for the relays when the teams finished 8th and 9th? I think not, a great result would be a medal and a good result would be top 6 in the relay.

Can we really talk of "one of the most successful Junior World Championships for the British Team" when in the long all but one athlete (13th) were placed 31st-88th, in the middle all but two qualifiers (Ralph's 7th was great, Mairead's 20th OK) were placed 36th-50th? In sprint, I grant there were 1 great (2nd) and two good (15th and 18th) results for the boys, but the first girl was 28th, and everyone else was in the range from 34th-95th.

I repeat, some of the athletes are inexperienced and will hopefully get better, but I believe that the British Orienteering International development team should stop this unjustified back-slapping, look at the results and say, "well we could have done a lot better" and see what they can do to achieve that. The JWOC pool of athletes is much smaller than for WOC so the Brits should be aiming at medal positions. When you aim for top 10 results and call top 20 great, you will never do as well as you might if you targeted the medal position and called a top 6 great.

What do others think?

[RCB]

I imagine that internally the Team Managers and Coaches are already thinking about future improvements but externally giving the whole team a good 'back slap' via the BOF news page, Nopesport etc .... and why not, especially if these are the best ever JWOC results? I expect they will move forward, adjust individual and team goals as necessary and aim for even better next time. Well done the JWOC team (and their coaches, managers and support team).

[mharky]

[snip]

I can't believe you have the audacity to call those JWOC performances "far below par".

Ralph Street has had arguably one of the best JWOC's since the World Class programme was introduced. Right up there with Scott Fraser and Graham Gristwood.

Alasdair McLeod's 15th in the sprint was a tremendous performance, he is in shape or form a sprint orienteer. Three men in the top 20, amazing. Third nation that day behind Sweden and Denmark. Personally, I consider putting more men in the top 20 than Norway, Finland, Russia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic a bloody fine performance!

Three men in the top 35 on the long, also a good set of results.

I would certainly call it one of the most successful Junior World Championships for the British Team, and I congratulate the whole team on their performances.

As with any British Team at JWOC there was some sub-par performances. They will be evaluating their runs, good and bad, learning and moving on to their next competitions. That is the learning process.

BOF has every right to celebrate their achievements, I can't remember the last time we had something to cheer about on every day of an international competition.

Here is a small quote from Heather Monro, it's take from the squad training manual:

Advice to juniors aiming higher?

You need to have patience! There are a couple of trend breakers in British Orienteering, but for most of us international success has been a long and slow process. Concentrate on where you are now and how you can be better in the next race, next month, next year...

In 2003 we got 1 man to the middle final and none inside the top 25 of the long. Seven years later 4 of those runners will be representing GBR at WOC and another has previously been WOC reserve.

Back then we didn't have anywhere near the knowledge of physical, technical and mental aspects of the sport as the juniors nowadays. Our junior programme has progressed greatly thanks to the hard work of the staff members and the willingness and commitment of the juniors. The fantastic performances this year reflect that.

[RCB]

Follow that Blanka!

Good to see such strong support for our juniors (and knowledge of their performances) though the first sentence from mharky should perhaps remain in the Banter section of nopesport forums.

Kris Jones is looking like a great prospect for the future (not to mention Ralph Street and others). Kris has followed his World Schools Gold with a JWOC Silver so fingers crossed for the future. I echo mharhy's congratulations for the whole team and look forward to reading more positive comments following their future performances.

[redkite]

Think Blanka has got it very wrong.
Just about all the athlete's achieved thier own targets for the week and there were some great individual performances as has already been said. A few highlights

Kris getting the silver in the sprint and Spongy and Ralph not too far behind

4 of the boys and 5 of the girls getting into the middle final (much better than 2009)

A great 7th from Ralph in the middle behind 5 swede's and only 1 second off podium. From an early start this was a truly greeat run.

Whilst the boys may have been dissapointed by their relay position, this hides some very fast runs by Kris, Ralph and Peter( in 2nd team). Heard someone say that their combined times would have put them in a medal position.

The girls also had some good relay runs, Charlotte pulling up 16 places and and hazel having 4th fastest on last leg.

JWOC is very much part of the building blocks and I am sure that a number of the athletes will go on to achieve at a senior level. Lets focus on the positives

[distracted]

Are GB's JWOC performances improving? A crude analysis on positions only gives the following data from 2006-2010.

Sprint - average position of top 4 GB runners
M - 43, 46, 56, 54, 17
W - 69, 65, 61, 53, 49

Sprint - top GB
M - 12, 22, 42, 25, 2
W - 48, 60, 37, 33, 28

Long, average position of top 4 GB runners
M - 60, 43, 50, 41, 33
W - 68, 45, 53, 27, 42

Long, top GB
M - 42, 36, 16, 21, 13
W - 36, 26, 41, 12, 37

Middle - # qualifiers
M - 3(/4), 3, 3, 1, 4
W - 2, 3(/4), 5, 5, 5

Middle - average position of those qualifying for A final
M - 46, 35, 37, 16, 32
W - 43, 36, 46, 21, 37

Middle - top position in A final
M - 35, 16, 27, 16, 7
W - 38, 28, 37, 12, 20

Relay
M - 9,13,9,15,8
W - 16,13,10,7,9

The 2010 GB team performance relative to the last few years?

The guys did brilliantly in the sprint - a medal and two other top 20, better than usual in the long and qualified more for the middle than in any of the last 5 years. Ralph is the best ever GB man in the short/middle, 3rd best ever in the long, and it was the best relay result since 1995.

The girls are improving year-on-year in the sprint - Bex now has the best ever GB sprint result - but couldn't match last year's performances in the long, or in the middle where they had 5 in the top 30 in 2009. But their performances are comparable with the two years before that, with some better high-end results.

How are they doing in comparison to other nations/where they should be aiming for? Should top 20 finishes, top 10 relay positions etc be the norm? I'll leave that for the management to decide...

[Blanka]

First of all, may I suggest that either mharky himself or one of the moderators removes the first line of his post. The rest of his posting is entirely in keeping with the theme of the discussion I started but there is no need for such rude language and personal attack on someone who has simply expressed an opinion.

Three men in the top 20, amazing. Third nation that day behind Sweden and Denmark.

Yes I agree with you that these were great results and I have acknowledged them as such when I said that "in sprint, I grant there were 1 great (2nd) and two good (15th and 18th) results for the boys". However, you are simply pointing out the best results of the week - and I was more concerned about the results as a whole, which includes the whole team.

I simply expressed an opinion and wanted to start a debate going that followed on from something we discussed at circuits last week, and judging by the number of people debating here this aim was entirely successful.

Looking at the statistics that Ian has put together, I may be tempted to say that perhaps targets need to be set higher, the results in general look like they waver in the 20-40 range for the best/average ones, with the odd especially good result here and there. Does it not strike you as a surprise that a silver medal is the BEST ever British JWOC result? With so many people through, wouldn't you have expected at least one gold or another silver since the beginning of JWOCs? Don't you think that if a top 20 result is glorified (it's OK, but not amazing), then the up-and-coming juniors will think that it's OK to aim for a top 20 instead of aiming for a medal?

[Becks]

I'm with Mharky on this one. You only have to step into European orienteering and see the depth of competition in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the list goes on, to see that our juniors are punching well above their weight. They are very fit, they are highly motivated, they are excellent orienteers. But they are not highly experienced at running races where every second lost drops you a significant amount of places, where the pressure is so high that 90 seconds is the difference between qualifying and not. I will never forget Hollie either winning or coming second in the FCC final (In Yorkshire I think) the year that she made two large mistakes and lost her shoe ten minutes from the end. Contrast this with racing in any of the major countries, where the fields are 5-10 times bigger, and every slip up is punished, and our juniors are doing very well.

At sprint and middle races our 18+ juniors should always race with the seniors, and standards will improve in both those groups. At classic distance you still have to allow for a little bit more physical development.

Our Juniors had, on the whole, an excellent week, and I find it inacceptable that people who have never been anywhere near the position they are in see fit to judge them from the numbers on a page. I have coached some of these guys for years, some just more recently, and I have never seen such a dedicated team. I think they did us proud. There will always be misses, perhaps at the worst of times, but that is the nature of our sport and every junior there will treat it as a learning experience, and go on to bigger and better things.

Congratulations guys. I'm proud of you.

[Patrick]

Does it not strike you as a surprise that a silver medal is the BEST ever British JWOC result? With so many people through, wouldn't you have expected at least one gold or another silver since the beginning of JWOCs?

Well, yes you might. But then, you also might take it as an indication that achieving that level of result is pretty phenomenal. If my memory is correct, the highest ever GB male placing before this year was 9th. This year two athletes beat all the British men who have ever run at JWOC - surely something worth celebrating, no?

Something in your original post suggests to me you haven't thought this through...

The JWOC pool of athletes is much smaller than for WOC...

Nonsense. In JWOC six athletes from every nation run in all races, while at WOC it's three. Take out the extra Swedes, Swiss, etc and the number of top 20, 30,... positions for GB shoots up.

Second, a number of IOF countries aren't entering WOC these days, largely due to the expense, but will have at least some presence at JWOC.

Third, the proportion of juniors at British orienteering events is far lower than in most competing countries. Scandinavia obviously has a larger base than us, but at junior level so does pretty well all of Eastern Europe. More juniors means a stronger level of domestic competition than our boys and girls are exposed to. It's no accident that the likes of Jamie and JD barely made the top 20 in their JWOC years. Where GB has done well (recently) is pulling our limited resources at the top of the junior tree through to success in the senior ranks.

So...

Can we really talk of "one of the most successful Junior World Championships for the British Team"

Aside from Alison and Mhairi's performances in Poland I can't think of any that come close, can you? In the past the BOF news pages have definitely been guilty of (to use your phrase) unjustified back-slapping over championship performances. I think it's ludicrous to say that this is one of those times.

Patrick

[Scott]

If my memory is correct, the highest ever GB male placing before this year was 9th. This year two athletes beat all the British men who have ever run at JWOC

<pedantry>Apparently, Siggy Gould was 8th in the Short in Belgium in 1997. Not that that actually affects your point.</pedantry>

[distracted]

Third, the proportion of juniors at British orienteering events is far lower than in most competing countries. Scandinavia obviously has a larger base than us, but at junior level so does pretty well all of Eastern Europe. More juniors means a stronger level of domestic competition than our boys and girls are exposed to.

As Patrick is the second person to raise the same point - what can we do about this? The obvious answer is to increase the number of juniors, but could we instead/also somehow expose the junior athletes to higher level competition more often - abroad if not at home? Or does it not matter?

If the "average" top-level junior is more advanced as an orienteer at that level, we may also ultimately benefit from a better level of competition at the senior level as well.

Can we learn anything from what those nations similar to us are doing? France, for one, seem to be producing a fair few top class athletes nowadays. What's changed over there for that to happen?

[PhilJ]

Managed to get some recogniton for Kris in the local paper
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/sport/Silver-medal-joy-Kristian/article-2403232-detail/article.html

Also Becks notes:

They are very fit, they are highly motivated, they are excellent orienteers. But they are not highly experienced at running races where every second lost drops you a significant amount of places, where the pressure is so high that 90 seconds is the difference between qualifying and not.

Yet i did raise a point on an earlier thread that both GB and Ireland did not send a full allocation, (4 runners m/f for 16 & 18) to EYOC http://forum.nopesport.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10785 so to get experience to be JWOC medallists surely they need to attend these high profile world events?

[Mrs H]

I wonder how relevant JWOC success is to senior performance in GB anyway
Some of our athletes who have done well at that level don't seem to have translated it to senior competition others with a less spectacular record have gone on to win golds at WOC! I'm inclined to look on it as an experience gaining exercise for all that attend, enjoy the success of those who do well and don't worry about those who don't. It's what happens after JWOC that's important.

[Clive Coles]

It's a shame to be discussing this issue in such a way just after the individuals concerned have performed so well. We need to salute their achievements.

Beneath the arguments however there are valid issues and concerns. These effect the whole question of how BOF are spending their grant funding and "is it delivering greater success at all levels of international competition".

When you look back a few years our greatest successes were achieved with inadequate funding and a far slimmer BOF structure. The individuals (and families) concerned had to dig deep to achieve personal goals. To excel at the top level individuals have generally had to relocate & train in Nordic areas. You really need this exposure to develop into a top international orienteer.

For the last few years we have enjoyed significant national funding and this has enabled us to build up our Development/coaching staff. I think as a result more orienteers are being included in programmes and developed. This is great. Time will tell if Junior successes can be translated to the senior competitions.

We need to be realistic ~ as money becomes tight can this level of resourcing be sustained ?

[Blanka]

Our Juniors had, on the whole, an excellent week, and I find it inacceptable that people who have never been anywhere near the position they are in see fit to judge them from the numbers on a page.

It's a shame to be discussing this issue in such a way just after the individuals concerned have performed so well. We need to salute their achievements.

To both Becks and Clive, I didn't intend the thread to be criticising the athletes. As I said above,

"I am not criticising the athletes, everyone can have an off day and I grant that some of these athletes are relatively inexperienced and will hopefully get better"

I am sure that for many of them it was the best they could do.

What I was criticising was the fact that the team management always seem to put a "what a great result" qualifier on the reports, whether the result is good or not (and I do think that results below the 20s are not that good), and I think this is not good for the juniors. If you read the Czech O federation's reports of the same event, they are not afraid to say when the results were a bit disappointing. For instance, on the 9th July, the report of the middle final concentrates on the fact that the event was dominated by the nordic countries, stating the Czech results but clearly saying that they were not so good: "The Czech juniors weren't as successful today".
http://www.orientacnibeh.cz/index.php?vice=1226

If you keep presenting results in the 20s and 30s as good, then don't be surprised when the juniors aren't motivated to try and be better than that.