White Rose - Running Up

[LostAgain]

It's interesting how the White Rose organising Team interpreted the BO course guidelines for the new Colour Based courses i.e. preventing running up. I have 4 childeren who regularly run up, particularly as 2 are often in the same year group (family diplomacy) and have never come across an occassion when they wold be deemed none competative.

At this years White Rose:
A W12 won the W14 class and was deemed NC for prizes
A M14 was 2nd on the M16 and was deemed NC for prizes
numerous people were head of the 2nd and 3rd placed M21L

Has anyone else seen this interpretation of the new colour coded guidelines?

Having spoken with the Organising personnel I understand that this rule will be modified for next year, however, it stands for this years races.

[karen nash]

I had read it and thought it was a mistake.
Surely the idea fom BO was that we can chose?
Having said that I ran up W35 not W45 at L5D and don't see how they can give me ranking points as they could in he past when you could belisted in any age group regardless of your real age.

if it isn't broken......

[DM]

Bizarre! Where is this new guideline on the BOF site, must admit I don't go there much these days

[NeilC]

Surely this was a White Rose event-specific rule and nothing to do with the BOF rules/guidelines?

[awk]

Ebor's own interpretations Lost Again, nothing to do with British Orienteering. Does look somewhat odd. Indeed, the British O guidelines indicate that where somebody enters out of class (i.e. up), then the entered class should be the one shown, implying just the opposite of what you say Ebor has done.

BTW, those running up will still score for the Yorkshire League - I can't see any sense doing it any other way.

Karen - you can still get ranking points, as it's just one list now, so there will still be people against whom your run can be measured.

[EddieH]

Of course it is entirely up to EBOR what events and prizes they give. However I too noticed this and my reaction is that all it achieves is to add to confusion and give apparent justification to those that say that the current system cannot work. With interpretations like this it can't and won't.

That aside, my first White Rose for many years, and I really liked the extra races, particularly the sprint which was the most brilliant use of a tiny patch of pleasant woodland.

[Neil M40]

British O guidelines indicate that where somebody enters out of class (i.e. up), then the entered class should be the one shown, implying just the opposite of what you say Ebor has done.

But these days you don't enter a class, you enter a course.

Take the Brown course. The classes allocated to this are M35 and M40, but the course was won by an M45. In the old days if he wanted to run up he would have chosen to enter either M35 or M40 (depending on whether he wanted more or less competition) and there would be no dilemma about which he was competing on. Now he enters the Brown course – does he get the M35 prize, the M40 prize, or both? I think we have had this discussion before.

The White Rose gets round the problem by ignoring anybody running out of class. They are entitled to do this but it does seem unfair, and I know the W12 who won against the W14s was quite upset about it.

Personally I think the fairest method is to say that adults running up are competing in the oldest class on their chosen course, juniors running up are competing in the youngest class on their chosen course. This does not solve all the conundrums (eg the M45 on Brown would only get the M40 prize even though he beat all the M35s) but it seems a lot better than the system the White Rose has adopted.

The White Rose should be applauded for being so inclusive with their prizes (literally hundreds are handed out), but that only makes the omission of some course winners seem more unpalatable.

[NeilC]

If anyone is interested below are the criteria used for SEOA competitions held at (current) level 2 events. Of course one can argue about the fairness or otherwise but having a consistent and published policy does help.

"Competitors will be only be eligible for a medal in the age class category that they entered. For example if M45 and M50 (say) share the same course and the winner is an M50 then they shall win only the M50 gold medal. The highest placed M45 shall win the M45 gold medal even if they are beaten by many M50s.

If a competitor runs a course other than that recommended for their age class then they shall still be eligible for a medal assuming that there is an appropriate class associated with the course being run. Where there are several possible classes then they shall automatically entered into the closest class to their actual age class. For example if an W18 runs a course above that designated for W18 but does host the W20 and W21 classes then that competitor shall automatically be deemed to be entering the W20 class.

If a competitor wants to run up to a particular class then they must inform the organiser of this. For example in the above situation then the W18 would have to inform the organiser if they wanted to compete for the W21 championship."

[SJC]

But these days you don't enter a class, you enter a course.

and this is where I find the BOF guidelines confusing.

If I go to what was an old fashioned colour coded event then I enter a course - no problem.

If I go to an old fashioned badge event, but where the age class competition really has no meaning, then I don't mind just entering a course (although I will probably pick the one recommended for my age).

However, if I go to an event which has prizes based on running a specific course for my age, then I am entering a class. I actually don't care what they call the course my age class runs on. Hence the idea of entering a course in these circumstances is a nonsense.

Some events in this last group now give the option of entering by class or course and then sorting out the class/course combination for you. Hopefully more will do this in the future.

[Neil M40]

White Rose results have been published with this comment

This year White Rose changed from age to colour based entry, unfortunately this resulted in the SI team only being able to produce combined results for the 2 days main events by colour course.
With White Rose prizes being awarded by age class this caused a last minute problem for the prize giving.
Having no choice but to work out prizes manually, it soon became apparent that with the amount of different classes running on most of the courses and with competitors running out of class, we did not have the available time to do this on the day.
To have a prize giving on the day we therefore applied the rule from the White Rose web site and the final details that stated above colour/class combinations

The first statement is not true. The White Rose used colour based entries last year, and had exactly the same policy with regards to age classes – you must run the course for your age class or you don’t get a prize. I know this to be the case because the final details for WR2009 are still online at http://www.whiteroseweekend.org.uk/2009/

Presumably the last minute problem for the prize giving also occurred at the last minute a year ago.

The last statement implies that if they had the time they would not have applied the policy that they had published in the final details – surely if they had a published policy they intended to apply it all along.

Thanks to the White Rose team for an excellent event, and I know the results team were working very hard to sort the prizes out. It just seems a bit tenuous to blame the switch to colour based entry when a) this was done for the last White Rose, and b) other events have a more reasonable policy for age-class prizes without it being an issue.

[LostAgain]

The first statement is not true. The White Rose used colour based entries last year, and had exactly the same policy with regards to age classes – you must run the course for your age class or you don’t get a prize. I know this to be the case because the final details for WR2009 are still online at http://www.whiteroseweekend.org.uk/2009/

Presumably the last minute problem for the prize giving also occurred at the last minute a year ago.

From memory there was no issue last year. A quick look at last years results indicate that no Juniors running up won any prizes. However, the M21L category shows Tim Tett 2nd, and again if my memory serves me right he was given the prize. If this is the case then it is inconsistent.

[EddieH]

Interesting quote from the website. I am still getting results "Not Available". Are there duplicate sites?

[Ben.]

http://eborienteers.org.uk/white-rose-results/

[EddieH]

Right. Someone might lke to note that there is a White Rose 2010 page which has a link to non existant results. I cannot be the only person that looks there.

[mappingmum]

No, you're not!