WOC Long final - who's going to win?

[andy]

now if only Scotia hadn't cocked up the first control

[EddieH]

A pretty good British showing I reckon. 6, 20 and 27 in the men's and 23 in the women's

[graeme]

Scott's not making friends on World of O.

Scott has done brilliantly. Hurrah for Scott.

I spent overmuch time writing a report for the IOF about how to stop people following. They know how to do it. They choose not to. One can only deduce its part of the game.

Meanwhile, here's what one of Scott's WOO critics had to say on the subject of following here at nopesport..

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4368&p=51644&hilit=+graeme+following+following+pack#p51644

[DIDSCO]

Scott Fraser proved today to us and himself he's got the speed and strength to match it with the best, which is great for the future. I've not seen the splits but if he's behind Norberg on every split from no.8 by just a few seconds he's not been offensive in his orienteering, then he hasn't proved his technical skills to be quite at the level which his result reflects, I'm sure he'll admit that himself. It's not cheating because its not against the rules. The Swedes complain a lot because they do have a domestic rule, as of this year, and have disqualified runners from their big races for obvious following based on split times.

[awk]

Oh Gonon! What a way to lose out on a bronze!

What did he do? He seemed to dive down below the final control - did he go to the earlier intermediate one by mistake? Awful way to finish an otherwise great run.

The sort of thing that happened with Scott, and with Hubmann's train, and elsewhere (there are plenty of smaller instances of comings together) is just part of this sort of racing. If the IOF wanted otherwise, they'd have bigger intervals and more efforts to split the race up than one rather small pair of butterfly loops. I'm full of respect that he managed to stay stuck in there! I'm sure he'll go on to greater things too.

Easy to forgot the other good runs too - the Long isn't our best discipline, and there were some good performances today.

[Becks]

I don't think BJ is entirely critical - mixed feelings I guess. But I think they're mainly mixed because he knows that Scotia can do this again, and improve on it, entirely alone.

I think this indication of Scott's fitness is fantastic. He's closer than he's ever been. But I also think there are far better things to come from this young chap. Hopefully this will give him a ton of confidence for the next big race to come.

And yup, you're totally right. No one out there would have done anything any different. That butterfly was completely useless as far as pack splitting would go. It's a complicated argument, but Scotia is not the one in the wrong here.

[Becks]

And yup AWK, Gonon dropped down tothe intermediate and had to climb back up again. Nightmare! It would still have been super close with Thierry, but that's a pretty agonising way to go.

[Adrian]

Tero was already up on Gonon, so the mistake didn't cost Gonon the bronze.

I was one of those who railed against Mamleev last year for cheating, so I'm not afraid to say that it looks like Fraser cheated too. The problem is that IOF condoned Mamleev's cheating last year, so there was no reason this year for anyone to think they shouldn't follow another runner.

I also said the solution, at international level, is to make the course planning complex enough so that continuous following is impossible. (The onus shouldn't really be on the runners since they need to concentrate on the race, not on how to separate themselves from other runners.) I think some changes have been put in place that will come into effect next year (?) and other suggestions have been made for improved loops that the IOF needs to take up.

Orienteering is a navigation sport. No-one outside the sport (and only 50% of us inside the sport) will take it seriously if we allow following.

[Scott]

Yes, full credit to Scotia - it's an excellent result, and hopefully a sign of great things to come. As everyone kept saying about Mamleev last year, he had to earn his starting position with a fantastic individual performance in qualifying.

As Becks says, it is not the competitors who are in the wrong. If the IOF were concerned about following at WOC, the simple solution would be to increase the start interval to five or six minutes, and drastically reduce the number of qualifiers who make it through to the final. Looking at today's results, eight from each heat (24 total) would be about right to make sure you had the top guys competing for the podium with nobody else there to interfere with their runs (at least for the Long). I guess it depends on what you think the purpose of WOC Finals is, but from the competitiveness point of view there are a lot of people at the moment who get to the Final with little hope of challenging for the top ten.

[awk]

I was one of those who railed against Mamleev last year for cheating, so I'm not afraid to say that it looks like Fraser cheated too. The problem is that IOF condoned Mamleev's cheating last year, so there was no reason this year for anyone to think they shouldn't follow another runner.

You use the word 'cheating', which basically means deliberately breaking the rules to gain advantage (unless you're using another definition?).

Please explain how Fraser and Mamleev cheated. Whilst some purists may see following as cheating, as far as I can see it's not in the IOF rules, and therefore isn't.

[bendover]

adrian, honestly, you don't know what you are talking about. have you personally experienced world class elite level orienteering? do you actually understand the dynamics of a world championships race?

are you really suggesting that a competitor should gallantly stand aside and take a 2 minute rest if they get caught up?

you're accusing Scott of cheating. were you out there in the forest today, intently observing everything that Scott was doing out there? er... no...

[fleetfoot]

... If the IOF were concerned about following at WOC, the simple solution would be to increase the start interval to five or six minutes, ....

The IOF Congress 2010 is to discuss a Norwegian proposal for a mass start race to be introduced by 2014 (or maybe even 2013) that will either be "a new mass start discipline or a change to mass start in the long discipline". The IOF Council have already stated that they are in favour of it.

I'll let you all draw your own conclusions as to the IOF's concerns....

[Kris]

Massive congratulations to Scott, he earned his starting position and he earned his finishing position. Massive respect.

[RS]

Well done Scott

Adrian, you are talking a lot of tosh. I suppose you would go another way if you were caught

[dust]

Playing devils advocate, would people be sticking up for Hubmann if it was him who just happened to be a few seconds behind his 4 minute man from virtually every control having been caught at no.8, right to the finish and kept a GBR runner from the podium?