JWOC - the aftermath?

[andypat]

I think what may have confused the issue is the language used on the BOF website for these champs. The word great appears to be a bit overused in the descriptions for the acheivements on the various days. Possibly with hindsight, it underplays the acheivement of Kris Jones getting a silver in the sprint. Perhaps if the term "phenomenal" or similar had been used to describe Kris' silver medal in the sprint, then the description "great" might have seemed more approriate to the 8th and 9th place for the relays on the last day?

Incidentally here's how Canada's 13th in the middle distance was described on the barebones website this week:

Our results page includes news flashes from the Junior World Champs, running concurrently Denmark. Check out the fantastic result for Canada's Emily Kemp! The Kempster finishes 13th in the world in Middle distance - just 2 minutes from the medals. And still more years of eligibility! GO CANADA!!!

[Scott]

To be fair to the Canadians, their orienteering population is even smaller than ours, and their performance programme is a much more modest affair, with no professional staff, no government funding, and highly dependent on fundraising and athlete contributions.

When the JWOC team were up at Culbin on 13 June for their pre-WOC training and we had a couple of local girls (aged 18 and 16) running the same course as some of the GB girls (shadowed admittedly) [...] Our 18 year old was 6 seconds behind the leading JWOC runner (Rebecca Harding).

Really? I would be extremely impressed if they were able to orienteer on Culbin at that speed, even if they did have somebody shadowing them .

[mharky]

Results are Culbin are completely irrelevant. You have no idea how hard anyone was trying on that course. If you want to compare yourself to someone, do it at a big competition where the chips are down. You can't win a training event.

[Scott]

I dunno, I'd be reasonably impressed if an 18-year old female non-orienteer managed to navigate around Culbin at 7.5mins/km, regardless of how hard anybody else on the course was trying.

[SeanC]

The Board are supposed to be discussing "all possible ideas for raising income" at their meeting next month. One obvious option is to use membership/levy income to fund some of the performance programme - currently no "members' money" goes towards international funding.

Those with more knowledge than me may correct me, but I would have thought that even if the full-time paid coaching posts were to be replaced by voluntary posts, there must be a minimum figure needed, probably 5 figure, to pay for travel and accommodation. Otherwise it would be difficult to get people to volunteer as coaches, and athletes may not be able to afford to travel.

However 3 years isn't a long time for a plan B in orienteering. We seem to have been arguing about the new event structure for that long.

My feeling is that many orienteers will grumble about increases in levies to BOF, and these may stop a levy increase sufficient to fund an international program, even if they are only a minority. Some will see the money as going to BOF rather than the athletes, will be some that will say BOF should cut back on "administration" first, and some that will say there are higher priorities. I hope I am wrong of course.

However events where the proceeds go entirely to the international program could generate quite decent sums and bypass this row. I suspect most of us would be willing to pay say £5=£10 more for a fundraising event for international athletes. A top area, levy free, volunteers made up of those sympathetic to the cause from several clubs, a map donated for the day, prizes given by the athletes? If every region did one then we could be talking quite serious money? Any reason why such events couldn't start generating money even before 2013 to put into a parachute fund?

[distracted]

SeanC - I think that's a credible idea - I wouldn't say no if there was a group of simple yet top-notch events for that purpose, perhaps using squad members as planners? We definitely need to get ideas off the ground sooner rather than later...

[JennyJ]

Glad lots of people have come out behind the juniors on this one. JWOC is all about learning for the future and it is hard enough to get this across without a load of criticism on nopesport! Everyone learnt a massive amount about international orienteering last week and this should stand GB in good stead for the next few years - even if the funding runs out.

Also bear in mind that 4 staff members (not all paid) was the minimum we could have coped with and made for a very tough week with Gareth having to nip off in any spare seconds to file reports on the BOF website.

My best ever JWOC result was 30th (and it's harder now!). I hope this doesn't make my international orienteering career a waste of time in anyone's eyes.

[Mrs H]

It's better than credible - its a (dare I say it) great idea Sean, I'm sure a lot of us would be interested in lending a hand.

JWOC was undoubtedly a great success for a good number of the athletes who went - and very enjoyable for those following it. Well done team. I don't agree with Blanka that the results were disappointing - but I also don't think that even if they were that it would be anything to be overly concerned with as I don't think JWOC success has been a good indicator of success at senior level for GB athletes - it seems to be more of a catalyst which sends them one way or another and for that reason it is important.

As for the abuse - well as always it says more about the people putting it out than those getting it -were you really surprised - I'd put my tin hat on as soon as I saw what Blanka posted

whoops sorry Jenny over posted you

[Homer]

I dunno, I'd be reasonably impressed if an 18-year old female non-orienteer managed to navigate around Culbin at 7.5mins/km, regardless of how hard anybody else on the course was trying

Interesting. I'd like to know a bit more about these girls. Are they being actively encouraged to take orienteering more seriously?
Anything to increase our talent pool is welcome.

[Scott]

I agree, SeanC's idea does certainly sound like one good possibility. I also think it's worth looking at how other countries who don't get government funding are paying for their international programmes.

Apparently, the Canadians pull in £5000-£6500 per annum for their performance programme through "fundraising initiatives and donations". The USA have budgeted for fundraising to bring in £2000 for their junior team and £3300 for the senior team in 2010. Both countries also rely heavily on athlete contributions (for Canadians it's £600 for JWOC and £800 for WOC, plus airfare). I think (but am prepared to be corrected on this) that the Australians even have a system where the amount of JWOC/WOC funding individuals get is related to their performance at the championships.

I know these amounts seem fairly trivial compared to the £280,000(!) that the GB international/performance programme cost in 2008/9 - it would be interesting to see how much of that was salaries, travel, entry fees etc, but the BOF accounts are far less open and transparent the USOF - but it would still be interesting to see what these other countries are doing to raise their money.

[Sunlit Forres]

Really? I would be extremely impressed if they were able to orienteer on Culbin at that speed, even if they did have somebody shadowing them

I should have been a bit clearer Scott - Eleanor Duncan was running with Jon Hollingdale who I'm pretty sure did most of the navigation. Shadowing was the wrong word to use - I was merely wanting to point out the comparison with running speeds. Jon was keen to get Eleanor out at Culbin because she's going to be studying at Strathclyde Uni next year with Abi Longhurst who will make a good training partner - and will hopefully get Eleanor doing more orienteering. It seemed just too good an opportunity to miss, and by all accounts Eleanor enjoyed the experience. Jon would be able to comment better than I can though.

I totally accept that Culbin wasn't WOC race conditions. It was at the end of a hard training week for the squad so the results are almost irrelevant. However, I think it's fair to say that at world level there will be a few runners with pretty clean runs, so to get amongst the medals requires something pretty special - and that includes raw fitness, speed and agility. Some of our juniors are clearly in there with a chance and it's great that the coaches have such talent to work with. If I were one of the squad or their coaches I'd be pretty thrilled with how it seems to be going. Well done to everybody concerned.

[Scott]

Ah, fair enough - I thought it sounded a bit too good to be true. But well done for getting her out there - if she enjoyed herself enough to come back and give orienteering another go then that can only be a good thing

[Sunlit Forres]

The younger of the two local girls who ran at Culbin, Kirstie Rogan, has an older brother who ran with the Scottish Junior Orienteering Squad when he was younger. Andrew dropped out of orienteering but now in his early 20s has suddenly rediscovered enthusiasm for the sport. I think Kirstie will stick with her hill running but her dad (Paul) is probably the best salesman we've ever had for orienteering up here. He's a bit of a running legend in Moray and is totally committed to getting all the local primary kids in to orienteering. He's currently busy teaching it in all the local primary schools as part of his job as an Active Schools Co-ordinator.

Sorry. I'm digressing but it's a nice story.

[geomorph]

I think Blanka has a point about the way in which we report success or failure. In the politico-speak necessary for public and funding-body consumption the wording tends towards the positive, and can seem unrealistic relative to the performance expectations of some insiders.

At the same time, using absolute position as a measure of performance outside of medal and podium places is misleading in orienteering. The analysis should look at the weighted time difference between the winner, medals, top 6, top 10, 20 etc. So, you could end up with, for instance, the runners in the 30-40 decile averaged 8% behind the top ten, and 12% behind the top 3 (not sure how realistic the example numbers are) in a particular format.

If the percentage time gap between the medals and the aslo-rans is increasing over time, then the overall programme is failing. If however the top national individual over time is decreasing the gap then that part of the programme is succeeding, even if they did not get a medal. Last finisher relative performance and spread of team performance are also good measure of the success of a programme in raising the bar and increasing the depth of competence.

[greywolf]

Firstly, well done to all who ran at both JWOC & EYOC - some fantastic individual (and relay) performances, and overall 2 sets of results that are a credit to GBR.

Regardless of how the BOF site reports it or how Blanka or any other Noper comments, the only assessment that really matters is the athlete's own, whether or not they feel they acheived their own aspirations and whether they can use their performances, good or not so good, and what they learned from the event, to motivate themselves to go even better next time...

And just to clarify re Culbin: Eleanor was towed round, not shadowed (and i think would be embarrassed by any suggestion otherwise). As well as being an entertaining training run the idea was to demonstrate that she could handle the physical demands of the sport (and what a friendly, supportive bunch orienteers are... ) and might consider taking it up - always trying to find new ways to recruit