Oh no not another British Sprints format thread

[Scott]

Before I say anything else, I should say that I enjoyed myself immensely on Saturday, and I am not having a go at the organisers, who put on a cracking event in accordance with the current rules.

But... I also know I'm not the only M21 who deliberately cruised the qualifiers, knowing that we had absolutely no chance of getting into the A Final but also knowing that all we had to do to avoid the C Final was not mispunch.

I accept the old Elite Sprint format is gone and isn't coming back, but one of the great things about it was that pretty much everybody was under pressure to run well in the qualifier if they wanted to get in the heat of their choice - I twice just scraped into the B final, and both times was very pleased with myself.

Instead the qualifier has now - for a significant number of competitors - now become nothing more than a fun-but-irrelevant warm-up for the afternoon races.

Would it be possible, once you have a reasonable number (30?) of competitors in an age-class* who aren't in the A final, to split the number equally into B and C finals: so if you have 80 non-A-final competitors, instead of putting the top 75 into the B final and the last 5 into the C final, you put the top 40 into the B final and the last 40 into the C final.

That way the heats would actually be more of a competition for those of us who aren't at the top of our age class. I reckon with some careful allocation it might be possible to do this without drastically increasing the number of Final courses you'd need. But on the other hand, I guess it is supposed to be a British Championship, and I expect there will be some who feel that providing competition for those further down the results isn't a priority.

Anyway, just an idea. Any thoughts?

*I suppose I really mean "in a group of age classes" - it's just that M21 is the obvious example

[graeme]

Instead the qualifier has now - for a significant number of competitors - now become nothing more than a fun-but-irrelevant warm-up for the afternoon races.

Pretty much what I thought of it too, much prefer the idea that a race should count. Worked OK for the elite sprints where you needed heats, but its pointless when everyone in the class could run the same race.

I know of one British Champion, suddenly panicking as to whether the unit had beeped, ran back to repunch a minute later. And why not? - qualification was certain, the only mistake was not to spend a lot more time recceing the area in preparation for the second race.

Great event, poor format.

[awk]

Totally agree Scott. The whole family identified this as a major issue, and I raised it with both Lynne West and Helen Errington on the day itself (and with DJM?). It certainly affected us - I was the only one in the family who needed to take the heats seriously (the others being W50 and Men's Elite).

Like you, want to distinguish this issue from the weekend itself, which we all thought was outstanding - many thanks to NeilC and the SO team - definitely worth the trip!

[madmike]

Also d'accordo with Scott. I ran and navigated as well as I ever have in the heat on M45 without the faintest chance of reaching the A final - I might as well have just walked round and saved energy for the B final.

A great weekend but why oh why did we try and fix a format that wasn't broken.

top weekend, well planned and well organised

[NeilC]

The rules allow the organiser to decide what to do with those that don't qualify for the A-final. I chose to put all non-qualifiers into a single B-final - except for men's elite where there were a limited number of start slots available. Reasons for this were:

1) It was logistically easier. This was the first running of the new format and adding another level of complication was a risk that could have caused delays in between rounds.

2) Posters on Nopesport have regularly said that they would like to run against their age group peers more often. Splitting the non-A-qualifiers into multiple finals would reduce your opportunity to do this.

3) Ranking points are still on offer in the heats - this provides an incentive to run hard even if qualifying for the A-final is not likely. They are also races like any other, by madmike's logic one might as well stroll around the JK sprint and save oneself for the long race the next day if you have no chance of getting on the sprint podium. OK masters cup points may only be on offer for the final but starting in a faster group is more likely to encourage a faster run.

Like others I really enjoyed the old sprint format, I personally had no chance of making the A-final but could comfortably make the B-final so could cruise the heat. Let's be wary of trying to force the new format into the mould of the old one, it may not deliver what is desired. The devil is in the detail - Rules Group are always happy to consider alternative proposals - but for all age groups not just M45. Anyway as I said EBOR can introduce multiple finals for each age group next year if they wish. It will not be easy given the massive variation in numbers in each age class. Indeed more pressing is that some more thought may need to be given to how many qualify for the A final when a given class only has 7 or 8 entrants. For larger classes I think that the A-final qualification rules worked reasonably well, I met quite a few people who were really chuffed to get into their A-final. Including many who wouldn't have considered that a possibility at the start - or who I had suggested had no chance (sorry RobL).

Interestingly I was chatting to David May yesterday about how little discussion there had been on Nope about the championships so thanks Scott for kicking it off.

[Homer]

3) Ranking points are still on offer in the heats - .

I know of one British Champion, suddenly panicking as to whether the unit had beeped, ran back to repunch a minute later. And why not? - qualification was certain, the only mistake was not to spend a lot more time recceing the area in preparation for the second race.

.

This raises the question; why are ranking points available in the heats? If people are not racing to their full capability, then surely it shouldn't be ranked.

As NeilC knows, I had concerns about the format from the moment it was first proposed, mainly about the difficulty of making parallel heats equal in terms of competition. My worst fears weren't realised and the event was a great success (perhaps because the level to qualify for the A Finals was set on the low side?). Thanks to Neil and his team.

Having said that, I'd still prefer to go back to separate Elite and Age class sprints.

[Oldman]

Why do you assume that competitors will only think of qualifying when competing in heats? Many of us run every race as an experience, trying to do our best in it.

For example, although conscious that I would probably qualify from my heat (due to numbers) and also aware that I might either be tired later or injure myself (happens easily when you're "sprinting" when older ), I ran as fast as I could in the heats. It's clear others did so too judging by the number of mispunchings there were.

Good format, good event!

[Gnitworp]

I've never done any orienteering race in which I didn't run as fast as I possibly could; not even hardly ever.

[Nottinghamshire outlaw]

Scott said: Would it be possible, once you have a reasonable number (30?) of competitors in an age-class* who aren't in the A final, to split the number equally into B and C finals: so if you have 80 non-A-final competitors, instead of putting the top 75 into the B final and the last 5 into the C final, you put the top 40 into the B final and the last 40 into the C final.

Agreed - this should/could make for racing in the heats but makes the assumption that there would be reasonable equality between the three heats - something which is probably very difficult to do anyway. The 3 Heat 1 races were not, in fact, very similar last Saturday if you look at the times of positions lower down the order. In 20th positions on Heats 1, 2 & 3 respoectively were: 18:42, 19:10 & 17:15 and by 30th position the times were: 19:54, 20:31 and 18:02 and 40th position: 20:53, 22:12 & 18:55.

Perhaps the decision to allow greater numbers to run in the B final was much 'fairer' for the runners in heat 3 and allowed them the chance to race for a better final position in the afternoon?

Declaration of interest..... no, not me but a member of my family!

[EddieH]

Truely balanced heats are clearly impossible. How is taking the top x from each leass fair than a knockout competition where you might meet Roger Federer/Barcelona... in the first round? The best guys should get through - the more marginal ones have to fight for it but are unlikely to win the final.

[Scott]

In 20th positions on Heats 1, 2 & 3 respoectively were: 18:42, 19:10 & 17:15 and by 30th position the times were: 19:54, 20:31 and 18:02 and 40th position: 20:53, 22:12 & 18:55.

But in 1st position the times were 14:37, 14:57 and 14:04. There may have been some variation in quality of competitor, but I think you also need to allow for the fact that Heat 2 was simply a fair bit longer than Heat 3 (which is probably unavoidable). Point taken, though - there is going to be a number of competitors below which splitting into separate B & C does becomes unfair, but I still reckon it would be okay with 70.

Ranking points are still on offer in the heats - this provides an incentive to run hard even if qualifying for the A-final is not likely. They are also races like any other, by madmike's logic one might as well stroll around the JK sprint and save oneself for the long race the next day if you have no chance of getting on the sprint podium.

It's a question of prioritisation. If the qualifier had been the previous weekend then I would have run hard. But it wasn't, it was the morning before a British Championship, with another British Championship the next day. I'm never going to trouble the podium at either, but like a lot of people (although not everyone) I want to get the best result I can in the "Big Races".

Now, I used to really enjoy being pushed to qualify at the sprint, but at my level of fitness there's a limited amount of flat-out running I can do in one weekend , and if the pressure of competition has gone it makes sense to take it relatively easy - particularly when many of my peers have already declared that they are going to do the same!

Similarly, I'll be running flat out at the JK Sprint, because I see that as a Big Race, but (if I were going to it) I probably wouldn't run flat out at the Queen's Uni Belfast sprint the day before.

[King Penguin]

There can never be absolute equality between heats, but having something to run for still seems better to me - and I am one who suffered from this at last year's Elite sprints, where I was in the "long" heat and just missed the B final, but my time in any of the shorter heats would have got me into the B final !

[229]

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[graeme]

There can never be absolute equality between heats

Why not? For the numbers we have its perfectly possible for everyone in an age class to run the same course in the heat. And obviously this would be much fairer. The only downside is that it would emphasize how silly the format is...

Maybe I shouldn't complain - I got to run the elite qualifier and the elite final, which I'd never have done on the old system. And then they gave me a nice medal. But I had to ask for it*: so maybe it was more for understanding the system than for running well.

They tried to give it to arnold, but he's some form of dodgy foreigner and had already headed back to his English home and English family.

[RS]

"In 2005, the Elite Sprint's had an A-final of 18, B-final of 18, and C-final of everyone else (plus a D-final for some Belgian guests, but that's irrelevant).

Results for the event can be seen here: http://www.emituk.com/results/2005/20050409_BritSprint/

Back then the UK Cup scoring was 50,47,45,43,41,40... with only 45 scorers.

With that format, a lot more people were fighting for either the A or B final to guarantee themselves good points. There were still over 60 people on the Men's C-final, but this was just a BEOC, so there were not vets courses pulling numbers away."

Haha. I remember that event. Touch-free punching, Nick Barrable mis-punching and getting re-instated, bras for female prizes (beer and socks for males), loads of people and a brilliant atmosphere