UK Orienteering League for Elite Runners

[gg]

Calling UK elite runners (and other interested parties) -
I am doing some work regarding the future of the UK Orienteering League and elite runners. Please take the time to do this survey - it will have an impact on elite competition in the UK over the next few years!

Survey

[andypat]

Great that you are taking this on GG. There's obviously a fair number of orienteers who compete at a lot of the races, but I wonder for how many the UKOL is the reason. For people at the middle to low end of the spectrum, the scoring system seems very weighted to number of entrants rather than performance, which would definitely deter me for travelling to an event solely for the reason of the UKOL.

eg

951 Julian Warren M50 NN 115 42 0 0 3 4 38 28 0 0

It would be interesting to see some sort of evaluation of the concept of the UKOL.

[graeme]

There doesn't seem to be an elite competition at the moment - only age groups (i.e. the 35s aren't allowed to play with the M21s). The top-10 M21s are...

1 Romualdas Stupelis
2 Richard Robinson
3 Robert Kelly
4 Alex Rothman
5 Thomas Fellbaum
6 Lewis Taylor
7 Joe Taunton
8 Jonathan Malley
9 Sander Vaher
10 Mark Bown

Some very good athletes there, but it's fairly clear that the ranking list does a much better job of finding the top runners. There's no way to structure UKOL so that it becomes the main focus of the "real" top-10 which will always be "selection" and "internationals".

It would be a real shame to change something which serves a useful purpose for people who value it and will turn up, into something designed "for" people whose focus is elsewhere (and wont).

In particular, because I can guess where this is going, there are already too many domestic races trying to be high-profile in the April-May (exam) period. The UK Cup was a superb innovation, introducing elites (and organisers!) to a wide range of disciplines just as the IOF was experimenting wildly. But now the IOF have settled on "long-middle forest" and "short urban" as the elite disciplines, and BOF has its national Championships in each, the need has gone. The only thing missing seems to be quality "relays" - or event formats which require the same skills as relay racing.

[AndyC]

Some very good athletes there, but it's fairly clear that the ranking list does a much better job of finding the top runners.

So it's getting something nearly right

[andypat]

You would think that there's a gap in the market for a some mixed sprint relaying to be had somewhere. Its likely to be one of our best chances of a gold medal at WOC.

[King Penguin]

HOC not infrequently have a lady running a leg in a Mens Premier relay team at JK and/or Britsh Champs.

[Spookster]

You would think that there's a gap in the market for a some mixed sprint relaying to be had somewhere.

GG certainly thinks so, and E&CC (item 6, AOB) agrees with him.

[andypat]

How does the levy scheme work for relays if a club was to just hold a standalone relay event?

[Spookster]

How does the levy scheme work for relays if a club was to just hold a standalone relay event?

The type of event is irrelevant when it comes to levy. Levy is just based on the number of people who participate.