White Rose - Running Up

[mharky]

Anyone on here actually read the BOF Rules? They are pretty simple...

Competitors are divided into classes according to their age and gender.

Competitors’ orienteering ‘ages’ are defined as their age on the 31st December of the year of the event. Competitors therefore change from one age group to the next on the 1st January of the calendar year.

Competitors aged 20 or younger belong to each class up to the end of the calendar year in which they reach the given age. They are eligible to compete in older classes up to and including 21.

Competitors aged 21 or older belong to each class from the beginning of the calendar year in which they reach the given age. They are eligible to compete in younger classes down to and including 21.

Women may compete in Men’s classes but Men may not compete in Women’s classes.

A competitor may enter and compete in only one class at any one event.

At events where British Orienteering age classes are used they shall be as follows (see image below),unless defined otherwise within the relevant Event Rule.

Juniors have to be under the maximum age, not between the age limits. Seniors have to be over the minimum age, not between the age limits. The 21 courses are open for all. Women can run the men's course.

BOF Rule 2.4.7 would come into play in night events, for example, where young juniors are not allowed to run for their own safety.

[Miner]

I'm not sure the assumption that people running short courses would always be beaten by the people who opt for the long course is strictly true. Perhaps it is horses for courses - by training for short courses that is what you become better at. I'm just an average short course runner and always assumed all the long course runners would beat me hands down but when I have actually competed against them in middle distance or urban races I have done much better than I expected.

There doesn't seem to be this kind of class distinction in athletics - nobody tries to suggest a middle distance runner is inferior to a marathon runner...

[mharky]

Perhaps it stems from when they were called A and B, which does have connotations of A being better than B...

[frog]

The BOF rules say nothing about who an event gives prizes to though, so I presume these could be at the discretion of the organising club and that whilst people can be divided into age classes that doesn't stop you just giving prizes to the first 3 men and women in every course irrespective of their ages.

[Tatty]

Sarah Rollins regularly runs on the Men's courses and does very well

[mharky]

The BOF rules say nothing about who an event gives prizes to though

They do for British Long, Middle, Sprint and Night Championships, JK Sprint, JK Individual and English Area Championships. In Scotland the only change is the eligibility criteria for being Scottish or an SOA member. I presume WOA and NIOA are similar for their area championships.

Each of the BOF events has it own guidelines online, and I can't be arsed to copy all the relevant rules out. So I'll summarise the key points.

British Championship Trophies shall be presented to the winners of the highest category (Elite, Long or A) in each age class. British Championship medals shall be awarded to the first, second and third placed competitors in these classes. Competitors are only eligible for medals and trophies in the age class they have entered and if they satisfy the Eligibility Rule above.

That is to say, if you are allowed to be on that course, then you are eligible for prizes.

BEOC Middle seems to have a slightly different rule, as shown below, where 18s, 20s and 21s are on the same course...



Pretty simple stuff.

These rules cover all championship events. Plenty of other races have prizes, and yes it's up to the organisers discretion as to who gets the prizes. However seems logical to follow BOFs convention for this.

I can see how this may cause problems at city races where there may only be a few courses. But BOF rules state you can only win a prize in the class you enter. Different organisers may have different ideas about how the prizes are given, but they should all make it clear BEFORE the event...

[graeme]

I like to compete against a similar age group who are similarly either new to the sport or coming back to it.

I think AWK is in a minority of genuinely recreational orienteers. Most of us, at least some of the time, want to run a class with a chance of winning against our own self-defined peer group. L age classes make for sensible peer-groups (be as good as is reasonable for your age), but S classes seldom do.

Our best elites can be heard being pleased about being "top brit" at international races. Why would a novice, want to race someone with 20 years experience? Why would a novice M21 want to race mharky on M21S (or vice versa).
Why would Steve Wilson be in my peer group this year, but not last year? What does it even mean to "win" if there are no awards? If all I really care about is winning, which class should I enter?

I reckon we should abandon all these "S" classes, and just have exactly what you suggest: age awards plus "age&novice" classes, eligibility for which could easily be based on ranking points (or with a little more faff, never having won a novice course before). That would at least spread the prizes among those who had a good run, and save the embarrassment of top runners who fancy a "middle distance" run.

Graeme

[roadrunner]

British Championship Trophies shall be presented to the winners of the highest category (Elite, Long or A) in each age class. British Championship medals shall be awarded to the first, second and third placed competitors in these classes. Competitors are only eligible for medals and trophies in the age class they have entered and if they satisfy the Eligibility Rule above.

That is to say, if you are allowed to be on that course, then you are eligible for prizes.

BEOC Middle seems to have a slightly different rule, as shown below, where 18s, 20s and 21s are on the same course...

Not quite - for the sprint championships, there are no M/W18 and M/W20 classes, so the people in these groups can only compete on the open (M/W21) courses for the open trophies or medals.

All clear enough, but a bit of a mess - why did BEOC middle deviate from the principle that all the others use, that you can only win the age class you enter (which of course could be M/W21 for any age group)? And why did BEOC sprint differ again by not leaving out some of the age classes?

[graeme]

That is to say, if you are allowed to be on that course, then you are eligible for prizes.
...

Nope, totally wrong. You have to actually *enter* the class. So if, say, M35 and M40 are combined on the same course, and you're an M40 aspiring to become British Champion (or aspiring to podium ), then you have to guess which will have the stronger field and enter the other class. In general, M35 will be stronger if the Champs are not combined with 21E, otherwise M40 will be. And then, you may have to second-guess your rivals. Spookster is the master of this.

So which course an M40 should enter depends on whether or not the vets BOC is combined with the elite championships.

[NeilC]

All clear enough, but a bit of a mess - why did BEOC middle deviate from the principle that all the others use, that you can only win the age class you enter (which of course could be M/W21 for any age group)? And why did BEOC sprint differ again by not leaving out some of the age classes?

The variation arises from the fact that a national championship is there to identify a national champion at each age group but also an overall elite champion. At both middle and sprint championships history shows that M/W20s (and to a lesser extent M/W18s) can compete with the top M/W21s in these disciplines in the UK. If M/W20s were only allowed to compete for their own age class championship then this would devalue the M/W21 open class (if they competed in M/W20) or the M/W20 class (if they competed in M/W21). For the single race middle championships then the solution was to let M/W18-21 classes run the same course and allocate medals as shown above. For the sprint champs with qualification and final races then the solution is not so simple hence the decision to combine M/W18-21 into a single age class.

Of course age classes other than 18-21 might feel that they deserve a shot at both their own age class champs and the overall title. This presents too many logistical problems (note that the recently finished elite sprint champs did not allow this in a fair manner) and so competitors need to decide which title they want to go for.

A final comment is that for non-elite classes the course that a competitor will run at a major championship is not defined at the point of entry. There are guidelines but extra courses may be put on if numbers are higher than expected. Thus M50s may or may not compete against the M45s (say) another good reason for saying that you can only medal in the class that you entered.

[fleetfoot]

I reckon we should abandon all these "S" classes, and just have exactly what you suggest: age awards plus "age&novice" classes, eligibility for which could easily be based on ranking points (or with a little more faff, never having won a novice course before). That would at least spread the prizes among those who had a good run, and save the embarrassment of top runners who fancy a "middle distance" run.

Graeme

mmm! Sounds very similar to the 'rules'/ethos that surrounded the old A+B courses

As they say, if you don't like a change then hang around long enough and it will all return to the same place!

[awk]

I think AWK is in a minority of genuinely recreational orienteers. Most of us, at least some of the time, want to run a class with a chance of winning against our own self-defined peer group.

I do too! It's just that I don't need that self-defined peer group to be a completely separate class: for instance, I'm more than happy to run in an Open race with no chance of prizes, as long as I have a good competition at my level (last year's British Elite Sprint C Final was one of the best races I've ever been in). Equally, running M40+ in urban races is great, even though I'm near the top end of the 15 year span - but my competitive focus is on my own self-defined peer group within that. Of course sometimes, that self-defined peer group and the definition of the class I'm in coincide, with the result that beating that group leads to a prize, which is very gratifying (I'm very proud of my one British Champs medal!), but far more important than the chance of winning a prize is the quality of the competition.

The problem with the BOF age classes is that they rarely enable me to compete against my peer group in anything like its entirety. With 5 year bands, it means that for 40% of my time in a class, I can't compete against people within less than 1 year of my age.
That's OK for odd races, like championships etc., when there are enough people even then to get a decent race where seconds count*, but not at events like the White Rose or similar, when there simply aren't the numbers to generate decent competition. I'm not interested in competing in tidgy classes of a dozen people or sometimes less, nor in winning races when there's no competition. I also know that the S class, for all the semantics, is the B class, and so when I do win the S class, I have no interest in a prize - it's meaningless. Thus the 'winning' in apostrophes in that last post.

* Like at the WMOC this year, where a 15-20 sec mistake in the sprint B final cost me 6 places.

[andypat]

I reckon we should abandon all these "S" classes, and just have exactly what you suggest: age awards plus "age&novice" classes, eligibility for which could easily be based on ranking points (or with a little more faff, never having won a novice course before). That would at least spread the prizes among those who had a good run, and save the embarrassment of top runners who fancy a "middle distance" run.

Graeme

mmm! Sounds very similar to the 'rules'/ethos that surrounded the old A+B courses

As they say, if you don't like a change then hang around long enough and it will all return to the same place!

Well I'm not the slowest on M40s, but unlike "180minute man", I have no desire to be out in the forest for 2-3 hours every other week on M40L. So if you could let me know when youre bringing in this change so I can find another sport.....

[frog]

I've only started running the long course sice I got older and the distances became more manageable. If it was W21L or a novice course I'd have abandoned the sport. It was called A and B when i started and that didn't bother me. I was happy to accept the B course was for wimps.
For most events the age thing is irrelevent anyway as colour coded and I just enter the length I fancy.
If you are a strong runner though you could do proportionally better on a long course than shorter one, as usually the number of controls isn't proportional to the course distance so you may spend less time proportionally faffing around looking for controls on a longer course, especially if open area/ parkland and you can get some speed up.

[mharky]

Graeme >>> I did have this quoted in my post "Competitors are only eligible for medals and trophies in the age class they have entered and if they satisfy the Eligibility Rule above"

Maybe I wasn't being entirely clear, my point was that if you are allowed to run in a class then you are allowed to win a prize. Obviously you have to enter it, run it and finish within a prize-winning position.

Roadrunner>>> I had said "Each of the BOF events has it own guidelines online, and I can't be arsed to copy all the relevant rules"

There are easily found, easily read and easily understood BOF rules that the majority of people on here clearly haven't read. I really couldn't be bothered copying the relevant sections from all the different documents.