Highland 2015 - Scottish 6 Days Programme released

[andypat]

Paul
That looks great - vastly reassured by this - the only tricky bit seems to be Day 1 (also no idea where Keppernach is). Obviously once the TBC bits are known it'll all become clearer.
Appreciate your proactive attention to this!


(not so sure I'd go for Neil C suggestion of being n/c for overall result - wouldnt that also mean you were n/c for each day?) Thats a lot of money to be n/c...

Incidentally surely the main benefit of the variance of start blocks is when you have a late start, so requesting all early starts so you can go watch WOC isnt really an advantage is it?

[graeme]

Are WOC making any courses available to the public?

If you had some great maps, great courses, 5000 punters staying nearby and a budget deficit to fill, it might be something you'd think about...

I'm mainly interested in WOC, so my dream week would be something like...

Sat: watch sprint relay - run sprint relay
Sun: watch sprint quali, run sprint quali, watch sprint final
Mon: run sprint final
Tues - spectate middle, "action packed rest day"
Wed - spectate relay
Thur: S6D on middle/relay area
Fri: S6D
Sat spectate WOC classic
Sun run WOC classic (maybe on a mass start)

(In practice its more likely to be "Put up tents, hang controls, check controls, collect controls, hang controls, check controls, collect controls,take down tents, put up tents, take down tents", but you get the idea)

[gaw]

I've been to 1 WOC (France) and the last 3 JWOCs and each time have enjoyed competing in the accompanying Tour, which have been integrated with the Championship races. My expectation was great for both but the reason I was their was to support my national team.

I imagine there will be 1000s of orienteers from overseas coming to see their national teams at WOC 2015 expecting the same with the practicality of competing at the S6D all taken into account. If I had travelled from overseas to Moray 2013 to see my national team at Euromeeting I think I might have been a bit bemused at the low profile of Euromeeting relative to Moray 2013 on the Euromeeting days. I hope we are aiming for our overseas visitors in 2015 to enjoy a fantastic WOC spectating experience with an accompanying great S6D.

[mikey]

Paul
That looks great - vastly reassured by this - the only tricky bit seems to be Day 1 (also no idea where Keppernach is)?

Keppernach is just down the road from this year's Day 6

[graeme]

. If I had travelled from overseas to Moray 2013 to see my national team at Euromeeting I think I might have been a bit bemused at the low profile of Euromeeting

Few people travel to spectate reserve teams, and they should have realistic expectations.
In fact, I went to Austria for Euromeeting 2012, which was a good deal lower key than Moray.

[sketchweppers]

Extract from Economic Impact Assessment done for Moray 2013:
For the majority of participants (52%) the World Orienteering Championships being held alongside the 2015 event had no bearing on their decision to attend.

I suspect though that there will be many like us who don't normally attend the SSD (and therefore didn't complete any questionnaire) but will in 2015 because of WOC, and would certainly anticipate being able to attend both parts.

There is also another group of people (myself included) who have attended SSD the last few times, but may be less likely to attend in 2015 because of WOC! It might just be too big for me. Also personally I have little interest in orienteering as a spectator sport - I'd rather be doing it.

[Arnold]

Surely it's possible to have timings so that all the S6D competitors can watch all the WOC days without having to be n/c or have special start blocks. The whole point is to do both!

There are only 3 days where there is both WOC and S6D. Two of these are on the same area (Darnaway and Glen Affric) so that can't be very hard. One in the morning and one in the afternoon, in either order depending on areas used, desired start times etc

That leaves the Sunday. Presumably the answer here is Keppernach and Sprint Qual in the morning, and Sprint Final in the afternoon / early evening. So that way you can either run then spectate at the final only, or spectate twice and only run 5 days total.

[andy]

That leaves the Sunday. Presumably the answer here is Keppernach and Sprint Qual in the morning, and Sprint Final in the afternoon / early evening. So that way you can either run then spectate at the final only, or spectate twice and only run 5 days total.

Yep, sprint final is traditionally at 4/5pm, way after a S6D race is finished.

[graeme]

Surely it's possible to have timings so that all the S6D competitors can watch all the WOC days without having to be n/c or have special start blocks. The whole point is to do both!

There's a balance to be had. Take, e.g. middle with maybe 160 WOC athletes and 1.5 min start interval. That's about 4 hours. Then there's say, an hour changeover, then 4 hours of S6D starts, with latest finishers some 2 hours later. So if you want to spectate WOC with a late 6-day start, you're looking at 11 hours. (probably 14 for the organising club...)

Alternately, you could run the events simultaneously. Now its only a 5 hour window, much better for everyone except that runners may miss some parts of the WOC.

In principle, the first may look better. In practice almost nobody will (be able to get the people they're travelling with to) hang around that long.

[andypat]

Alternately, you could run the events simultaneously. Now its only a 5 hour window, much better for everyone except that runners may miss some parts of the WOC.

Thats Ok for you fast guys but poor 180minuteman isnt going to see much of the elites in that scenario.

[Paul Frost]

I guess we could look at past WOCs to see how they handled the problem of participants also wanting to spectate.

2013
There were only 4 public races and only one of them was held on the same day as a WOC final. Day 4, public starts at 8:30 and the WOC relay in the afternoon at the same location. When the qualification races were on the same day they were in the morning and the public races didn't start until 13:00 or 14:00. There looks like a large entry for the public races so I wonder what sort of time the last starters would have finished?

2012
I can't work out from the programme on the website what happened when. They only had 5 public races.
2011
Website is dead

[Sunlit Forres]

poor 180minuteman isnt going to see much of the elites in that scenario.

I'd prefer for S6D Day 5 to have shorter distances (eg a middle-distance day?) if that would make spectating at the WOC Classic easier. Would be nice to think that there could be a public re-run of the WOC sprint finals on the morning of the S6D rest day, but I guess there might be complicating issues (eg road closures for WOC only that can't be repeated on another day).

I'd take early starts all week if it made it easier for me to get to WOC races. I dont care if it put me a few places down the results, but I admit that's easy to day when you don't expect to be anywhere near the top.

Easy to wish for the moon when you're not the one having to make the decisions, but I have great confidence in those who do

[graeme]

I guess we could look at past WOCs

We could. But bear in mind that past WOCs had 45 runners in the races. In the new no-qualifier format it will probably be double that.

[gaw]

. If I had travelled from overseas to Moray 2013 to see my national team at Euromeeting I think I might have been a bit bemused at the low profile of Euromeeting

Few people travel to spectate reserve teams, and they should have realistic expectations.

Maybe but my understanding was that Moray 2013 had a larger than usual entry from overseas and I had thought that was related to their teams coming, reserve or not.

[Freefall]

We are looking to stage additional races that will allow runners to enjoy the Sprint areas too. We are very keen for a volunteer to help coordinate this activity - rest day coordinator is one of the tasks but ideally we are looking for someone who can help us stage a central Inverness event on arrival (Saturday am/pm); a post Mixed Sprint Relay Sprint race; a post Individual Sprint Race (probably on the Rest Day) and assorted activities in Darnaway to coincide/compliment the WOC Middle Distance race e.g. MTBO, forest sprint, maze races, Trail O. Contact me by PM if interested.