Penrith Urban

[DaveR]

Reading the above - it appears to be the standard issue that has arisen again and again - that organisers/planners assume that people will obey the features on the map (most do) and so don't worry about 'gaps' that can be got through thats houldn't be.

The solution is always raised that these 'gaps' should be taped off and yet still never done - why is that?

These gaps can be anything that can be used to cross and 'uncrossable' feature - hole in the fence/open gate etc - you are never going to stop this - but by taping will mean you can disqualify because it can't then be construed as a 'mistake'.

I can't imagine why the organiser, planner and controller didn't tape off every possible point in Penrith where people might have gone through something marked as "do not cross"

Addendum: I'm quite happy with disqualifying people who have broken the rules, whether they have done so by mistake or (very rarely) by deliberate intent.

[FRBlackSheep]

Dave, maybe I should have specified the previous points rather than just referring to them - if a route is going to make an obvious difference to a course then it needs to be taped or we just stop complaining when people do cheat.

Not sure how much Urban/sprint you've done but the key points are always fairly obvious which make the difference.

[AndyC]

The pink mark on the map may be a clue to the development of this incident. I would hypothesise that the planner at some stage intended to get one specific gate through the fence opened and mark it as a crossing point (and did so on OCAD) and then changed their mind. The gate by the mark BTB was visually closed and had a very visible padlock as I ran past (OK ran towards the wrong control)
On the other hand I might be completely wrong

[usuallylast]

The pink mark on the map may be a clue

I'm only guessing it's the one you mean, but there is a small pink mark on the map jpeg that was posted here which is exactly where the control circle was for my first control of two in the school on course D - I suspect it may be a vestige of that which has remained on the map. My second control was 127, I didn't have the one in between (128) which is much closer.

[Jayne]

Reading the above - it appears to be the standard issue that has arisen again and again - that organisers/planners assume that people will obey the features on the map (most do) and so don't worry about 'gaps' that can be got through thats houldn't be.

The solution is always raised that these 'gaps' should be taped off and yet still never done - why is that?

These gaps can be anything that can be used to cross and 'uncrossable' feature - hole in the fence/open gate etc - you are never going to stop this - but by taping will mean you can disqualify because it can't then be construed as a 'mistake'.

I don't think you're quite right - it's not that it was assumed by the planner that the competitors would obey the uncrossable line - it's that it was mapped as uncrossable because it is usually locked. If expected to be open I think it would have been mapped otherwise. It is complicated by sending a marshal out a marshal as this does seem to me that you were less likely to get disqualified later on (similar to the stream in Cambridge) because that happened I actually think it's a situation where a time penalty would be useful - doubt that would happen though.

[FRBlackSheep]

Reading the above - it appears to be the standard issue that has arisen again and again - that organisers/planners assume that people will obey the features on the map (most do) and so don't worry about 'gaps' that can be got through thats houldn't be.

The solution is always raised that these 'gaps' should be taped off and yet still never done - why is that?

These gaps can be anything that can be used to cross and 'uncrossable' feature - hole in the fence/open gate etc - you are never going to stop this - but by taping will mean you can disqualify because it can't then be construed as a 'mistake'.

I don't think you're quite right - it's not that it was assumed by the planner that the competitors would obey the uncrossable line - it's that it was mapped as uncrossable because it is usually locked. If expected to be open I think it would have been mapped otherwise. It is complicated by sending a marshal out a marshal as this does seem to me that you were less likely to get disqualified later on (similar to the stream in Cambridge) because that happened I actually think it's a situation where a time penalty would be useful - doubt that would happen though.

My point was slightly different and not relating specifically to an open gate or this instance in particular - over the last year there has been several instances of people crossing where they shouldn't and sometimes it is an error or a misjudgement - the open gate in the city race, the space between two fenceposts in a Cambridge city race that was mapped uncrossable but you could squeeze through - the gap between a hedge and a wall - Edinburgh and one of the British sprints I think - all stated as being unfair to those who obeyed the map and gave an advantage to those who used them - solution has always been to mark them with tape - but we never do and thus keep on having the same debate over and over again.

[Jayne]

I think there's two different situations though; features that are there all the time, and could have been mapped more clearly or, if not possible, taped, and things that you can't envisage, e.g. gate that is always locked being opened/or locked gate that was held open (think this happened in oxford a years ago).

For the first I think you may have a point but for the second I think the competitor should obey the uncrossable line. For me at london it was obvious that you weren't meant to go through that gate, whether open or not and this time if you took the correct route you shouldn't even have gone near that gate and if you did you would you should have got there and gone back.

As they sent a marshal out it's difficult to know what to do because clearly some people would have broken the rules but didn't because so the marshal's presence. But then we;re not looking to catch people out - so for this case I think a time penalty might actually be reasonable, because it makes the people who got disqualified "the same" as those who went and got turned back by a marshal.

[NeilC]

solution has always been to mark them with tape - but we never do and thus keep on having the same debate over and over again.

What about buildings? There have also been cases of people sneaking through University buildings and there has been potential in urban races to cut through shops etc. You can't tape off all those possibilities. Gate symbols are often messy on an ISSOM map and I certainly wouldn't (and haven't) added them for gates that I have never encountered being open. Leaving a gap and then blocking it with a red line is also asking for trouble in my opinion. I can't see that the Penrith officials did anything wrong.

I'm not convinced by the IOF argument - an open gate has to be interpreted as not to be crossed if that is what is on the map. The solution has to be education, regular urban orienteers will just need to get used to being told the message over and over again in final details and at the start.

[FRBlackSheep]

If your going through a shop or a building then that isn't a mistake and these individuals would also quite happily duck under the tape - don't think its worth bothering about these individuals as probably would climb over or around the obstacle - 'a la the uncrossable bridge in Cambridge this year' where an individual was seen climbing across it around the outside....

[IanD]

I'm not convinced by the IOF argument - an open gate has to be interpreted as not to be crossed if that is what is on the map.

I agree with Neil. I would say that it would be a bad idea to use a solid black line on the map to indicate a totally invisible not-to-be-crossed boundary. But a gate is visible in the terrain, even if open, although you may need to look to one side.

I would add that the IOF has no rules for classic-distance urban races. A World Cup sprint is a totally different animal; a much smaller area, many more people available for taping and marshaling. It is no contradiction to say that a potentially open-able gate should be taped for a World Cup sprint, whereas in a classic-distance urban race, people should be guided by the map.

[andypat]

Leaving a gap and then blocking it with a red line is also asking for trouble in my opinion.

Why Neil?

[JennyJ]

I completely agree with EddieH - if someone knows they went through the gate they should withdraw their result. I inadvertantly crossed some uncrossable Green at the JK Sprint in Guildford and only realised when chatting to some of the other women afterwards, I then went and told the controller I needed to be DSQ.
We have had this discussion so many times, it makes be wonder how many people cheat in forest orienteering situations that we just don't find out about!

[NeilC]

Leaving a gap and then blocking it with a red line is also asking for trouble in my opinion.

Why Neil?

For starters it's not the intended use of that symbol in ISSOM. Techincally you would use it if a normally open gap became closed at the last minute for some reason. However in the age of digital mapping it's just as easy to amend the actual map.

[Paul Frost]

A few people have commented that they thought that there must have be an alternative route as it would have been a "dog-leg" otherwise. I seem to remember an urban planner telling me that "dog-legs" are good, and should be planned rather than avoided, so a different mindset is required.
I guess it makes the route choice more critical if there is only one way in (and out) of a control site.

[haloite]

according to the specification the edge of a bridge should be a black line 0.25mm thick, whereas an impassable wall/fence should be a black line 0.4mm thick. Also, a passable fence is a black line 0.21mm thick, and the edge of a paved area is a black line 0.07mm thick (except in non-urban areas, where it's a black line 0.14mm thick). So I hope that's helped to clear things up

...but in all seriousness, I do struggle myself to tell the difference between "bridge edge" and "uncrossable wall" myself quite a lot of the time.

I think it should be compulsory for all competitors to carry a micrometer!