Scottish Sprint Champs

[SAL]

There are 2 people who difinitely must have punched through the fence at no 10. They should in my opinion be disqualified...

The one in this household has already disqualified himself (by email, following post-event splits comparison on the way home that made him realise what he'd done). We understand that the results will be updated.

[Neil M40]

We are looking at a road crossing at JK2012 with this issue (joining two existing mapped areas into one bigger area). I (and the planner) are seeking advice on timed crossings and what is allowed at an event of this nature.

This was done at JK91.

In the days before electronic punching of course. If I remember it right it was more than just a road crossing - there was a canal, a railway, the A6 and the River Derwent to cross between the two areas, with several hundred metres of running to access the various crossing points.

I think they gave you a slip of paper with your finish time on Crich, you had x amount of minutes to get to the start point on Shining Cliff and were then started at the appropriate time - so everybody had the same amount of time and gaps between runners were preserved. Most people arrived at the second start with time to spare.

[DaveR]

There are 2 people who difinitely must have punched through the fence at no 10. They should in my opinion be disqualified...

The one in this household has already disqualified himself (by email, following post-event splits comparison on the way home that made him realise what he'd done). We understand that the results will be updated.

And one in this household too , also by email on Saturday night.

[andy]

There are 2 people who difinitely must have punched through the fence at no 10. They should in my opinion be disqualified...

The one in this household has already disqualified himself (by email, following post-event splits comparison on the way home that made him realise what he'd done). We understand that the results will be updated.

I thought your one went round and punched it correctly another 30sec later?

[Tatty]

Enough time must be allowed though. At a TVOC event I ran all the way and still took longer than the allowed time. There are some people even slower than me

[SAL]

I thought your one went round and punched it correctly another 30sec later?

You're quite right (that's partly why his time to number 11 is so long). My mistake - in fact he disqualified himself for punching through the fence at number 7, not number 10!

[rocky]

We are looking at a road crossing at JK2012 with this issue (joining two existing mapped areas into one bigger area). I (and the planner) are seeking advice on timed crossings and what is allowed at an event of this nature.

One problem is that it leads to confusion on the commentary as no one knows exactly how long a runner has taken to cross the road so exact times aren't known until download.

[SIman]

At least with the latest software, the times will be known at after download and not latter after additional caculations.

[Spookster]

One problem is that it leads to confusion on the commentary as no one knows exactly how long a runner has taken to cross the road so exact times aren't known until download.

The fix for that is to make the road crossing a radio control (both punches), so that the precise time taken by each runnner to cross the road is already transferred back to the commentary support software. That's what we'll do at BOC.

[andypat]

Does anyone know if theres been any comments from the organiser/controller posted anywhere regarding the issues in this event with the punching through the fence, and the missing control?

I notice that the BOF results have been amended to take out those who admitted the former, but (as organiser of an imminent urban event) would be interested in the decision making processes involved with regard to the latter as this will potentially be a risk for us too.

[EddieH]

You can avoid it being a risk by either finding a control site to far from the fence, or placing a solid board there.

[DaveR]

Eddie. I think Andy is more concerned about how to deal with a missing/stolen control.

I would say for most races the answer would be to void the legs to and from it. Probably eworth publicising this at the event.

I don't think he is worried about punching through fences. Donald, the planner, believes in Orienteering as a navigational race using map and compass, not a control description interpretation competition.

[andypat]

Thanks Dave - yes Eddie - thanks for your comment, but as Dave says, it was the latter of my two points I was concerned about.

LIke Dave, I thought it was a given that in the scenario of a missing control the leg would automatically be voided. However this didnt happen at the Scottish Sprint, and a quick trawl through the rules suggests that voiding the legs isnt automatically the right thing to do. In this case Tay were very on the ball and had the control replaced within minutes so it only affected a few early starters. I'm not querying the decision at all, just interested in the decision making process.

At the moment I'd be worried about making a statement about voiding legs automatically in the event of a missing control, if there are circumstances in which it would not be the right thing to do. But, I agree its a useful thing to know for competitors, as it might affect the amount of time spent looking/worrying/map checking, if you thought that time might still be counted even if the control was missing.

[graeme]

I ... would be interested in the decision making processes involved with regard to the latter as this will potentially be a risk for us too.

If a control is misplaced or missing throughout, you have three options, void the course (bad), take out the leg(best), or decide you aren't havng a serious competition and leave it in.
More interesting is if the control is missing for some competitors. If it's stolen before the race, fairly straightforwardly, your prerunner can wait at the site and tell people to run on. If it goes mid race you end up with two groups of people and its a judgement call.
In my view, if the missing control makes no difference to the positions of the leading unaffected runners you should take the legs out. If the leading positions gets swapped around, you should leave it in. Finally, if the fastest people over the rest of the course lost because of the missing control, you should take it out. I don't think you should void the course for one wrong control.
Why concentrate on the leaders? In a championship that should be obvious, in a regular race you might argue that a change which randomly swaps 24th and 25th is just as bad as one which swaps 1 and 2. But I think most people would be less disappointed if the former happened to them than the latter.