England win SHIs 2013

[Duncan]

The senior home internationals were in Ireland this year. All teams fielding below their best runners, and not helped with JIRCs the same weekend so little chance to call on 18s to help.

Relays yesterday, on Carnawaddy. Men's race: 1st and 6th England, 2nd and 5th Scotland, 3rd Ireland (I think). Women's race: 1st and 2nd England, 3rd and 4th Scotland. So England in the lead overall. Men's race in particular was well fought, first leg finished Wales, then 3 Irish teams, then England. After the second leg England leading, with Murray Strain left to chase down Dave Schorah by 4-5 mins on last leg. They were seen together 2/3rds of the way round, but a mistake from Murray near the end gave England the win. A few other mistakes being made on the tricky rocky hillside (and a couple of trips to A&E), but nothing compared to today....

Individual today, on Carlingford Mountain. The rocky open hillside was already tricky enough, but the mist was down, reducing visibilty on the top to a few tens of metres (if that). Lots of BIG mistakes being made. The most challenging orienteering I can remember doing in a long time. Maybe Jones, Mcleod, J. Tullie mixing it at the top of the mens (maybe Strain too, but not back before I had to leave for the airport). Summary: Scotland scored better in the the indivdual, but not enough to overhaul England's lead from the relays, and England won the SHIs overall. After the relays at least it looked like Ireland were going to win over Wales.

Thanks to the Irish clubs (3ROC and Fingal?) for putting on a great weekend.

[Duncan]

Relay results here: http://www.orienteering.ie/results/FullSIRelayResults.php?2135

[Homer]

and individual here:

http://www.orienteering.ie/results/Full ... s.php?2137

[Homer]

Hold the presses!

It appears England may not be the winners after all. It depends on which version of the scoring system you use....

[mharky]

So I've just gone through the results, using the scoring system that put in place in 2009 and Scotland win by 2 points.

It would be good if the organisers could post the their version of the team results, as I am only going by the online results that may be wrong, and the last version of rules that I had.

[Becks]

So, did any women run Duncan?

[Duncan]

So I've just gone through the results, using the scoring system that put in place in 2009 and Scotland win by 2 points.

Yeah, I was just reporting who the trophies were awarded to at the weekend. But I know there is some ongoing discussion since. Seems like the rules changed several years ago (2008/2009?), previously they heavily weighted the relay over the individual, but then things were evened up. The organisers may have been using the old rules, not the new ones. Not really their fault as the rules only published seem to be here: http://www.orienteeringengland.org.uk/event-organisers/guidelines/shi-rules/, which are apparently the old ones. BOF have rules published for many things here: http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/page/rules, including e.g. JHIs, but not the SHIs.

[Big Jon]

So what is the official result????????????

[Paul Frost]

So who changed the rules "several years ago"?
Did they have the authority/power to change them?
Did they submit them to British Orienteering to be published?
Did the organisers declare which scoring method would be used in advance?
How did the participating athletes expect the score to be calculated?

[Gross]

Rules used to be agreed by the meeting of the Team Leaders held every year... Basically if John Rye and me agreed then it happened.... Don't know about modern political orienteering

[NeilC]

It was made clear to the old BOF rules group that the rules for the Home Internationals were a matter for the individual home nations not for BOF. That will be why they are not (all) in the BOF rules section of the website.

[mharky]

They were changed by the 4 team leaders from each of the home nations at the time (2009). BOF weren't particularly interested.

[Paul Frost]

It was made clear to the old BOF rules group that the rules for the Home Internationals were a matter for the individual home nations not for BOF. That will be why they are not (all) in the BOF rules section of the website.

But surely the joint body that represents the 4 home nations is BOF. Where else would the 4 nations store or publish such joint agreements?
Or you end up with one nation (England) unilaterally publishing the rules but not updating them when there seems to have been an agreement for them to change, but no one knowing who or when.

I've always understood that a role of a national sports body was to maintain and develop the competition rules that apply to the sport. We are not talking about a local club deciding on a scoring system for it's club champs, we are talking about a major? international competition for elite athletes representing their country (or are the SHI's just a fun competition between friends?)
If it's not that important perhaps all regions could/should decide the rules that apply for all events in their region, and that would remove the need for BOF to be involved in competitive orienteering in the UK.

[Gross]

Having been involved with the SHI from before day 1 (i.e. taking the idea to BOF International Committee) I can state that responsibility for the rules was devolved to the meeting of the 4 Home Nations i.e. Scot, Eng, Ire & Wales. It was further devolved to the Team Leaders.

Rules etc were agreed each year at the SHI & implemented the following year. There was a set of guidelines issued by the 4 Home Nations to ensure everything was fair. The host nation Team Leader acted as chair of the meeting.

In reality if England & Scotland agreed then that's what happened.

BOF have never had anything to do with the operation or organisation of the SHI

[graeme]

We're doing SHI next year at RaceTheCastles on Balmoral and Forvie. Could someone point me at what the scoring should be? And if you're going to tell me "its up to the team managers" - please tell me who they are.

I can't make any sense of the orienteering England page...

First it defines a "Team score" (based on 1,2,3,4 in M/W 20 and M/W21 - essentially double-weighting the 2 20s vs the 4 21s)

Then it defines an "Individual Score" of all counters (which looks very biassed against 20s, but isn't really).

Then it defines a "relay score".

Then it defines a "combined Score" as the "individual" + "relay" scores. The "Team score" doesn't get mentioned in this bit.

Anyway, my memory of what has happened since 2009 suggests that the rule is "Scotland win". don't see any reason to change it .