Prize eligibilty

[The Loofa]

Question for the assembled brainpower
At Southern NIghts this coming Saturday M21 and M35 are on the same course. Some good M35s have entered M21, and so there is a sporting chance that an M35 who entered M21 will record a faster time that the fastest person entered as M35.
If that were to happen, who should get the M35 trophy?
the fastest entry in that class?
or the fastest M35?

[graeme]

It depends on whether you're holding an orienteering contest or a form filling-in contest.

[smf]

If that were to happen, who should get the M35 trophy?
the fastest entry in that class?
or the fastest M35?

The fastest person who entered the M35 class. Who could be an M40 (looking at the entries).

[NeilC]

The general principle is that a runner is only eligible in the class that they entered. There are good reasons for that which many people do not agree with, and have been discussed on here so many times before. If you, as the organising club, wish to change that principle then you can (there is no specific competition rule for the SNC). If you do though, this should be made very clear in the final details, even to the extent of letting people change course if required.

[Arnold]

You could add a control to the M21 course to avoid having to think about it.

[Moose83]

This does raise the question of whether or not the M35 class should exist at all. Personally I don't think it should. But maybe that's for another thread.

[Arnold]

Think it's a very fair question especially in small events like this

In other countries, for smaller championships classes are usually combined. Bit like city races in the UK, so children, juniors, seniors, vets1 (40+), vets2 (55+) for example

Not sure why that isn't applied for the Southern Nights. It does make for some pretty small classes in places

[graeme]

Not sure why (they don't combine classes)

As NeilC pointed out, its a form-filling competition. If you reduce the number of classes then you'd lose most of the technical difficulty.

[NeilC]

Not sure why that isn't applied for the Southern Nights. It does make for some pretty small classes in places

Possibly because no one really "owns" the competition. BOF shouldn't be writing the rules for these sorts of regional competitions which means it's up to the constituant associations to do so. There isn't really any mechanism for doing this.

In contrast the association competitions (eg SE Nights) do have rules - and combined age classes.

[sloaner]

I wouldn't worry as Mark Bown will win M21 and Geoff Ellis will be fastest M35 (are RAFO eligible for Southern champs?)

[madmike]

I wouldn't worry as Mark Bown will win M21 and Geoff Ellis will be fastest M35 (are RAFO eligible for Southern champs?)

RAFO Members are affilited to a variety of Associations - Geoff is SCOA and has been on podia at several previous Southern Champs!

[keever]

The general principle is that a runner is only eligible in the class that they entered. There are good reasons for that ...

There are no good reasons for that.

[NeilC]

There are no good reasons for that.

Then put in a motion to the AGM / lobby EC&C to get the principle changed.

[keever]

There are no good reasons for that.

Then put in a motion to the AGM / lobby EC&C to get the principle changed.

Fighting bureaucracy with bureaucracy. Yay!
Think I'll stick with fell running, where winners win (and losers don't).

[andypat]

The general principle is that a runner is only eligible in the class that they entered. There are good reasons for that ...

There are no good reasons for that.

There's plenty of good reasons for that! Otherwise eligibility for prizes comes down to which classes run the same course, which is pointless and arbitrary.

This is one of my bugbears with the set up of orienteering - I know lots of people (usually the best orienteers) disagree but if you are going to have age classes I cannot understand why its OK to pick and choose which "age class" you want to run in - its not an age class then is it? Its confusing and dispiriting for people in the weaker age brackets (eg M35) to get beaten for trophies by people in stronger age categories running up. For me if you dont want to run your own age category, then run open, or run non-comp.