Southern Champs BKO

[King Penguin]

If anyone has contact details for any of the officials at BKO can you please let them know the BKO website has exceeded its bandwidth and final details for this Sunday therefore cannot be accessed.

[DavidJ]

Seen - am trying to contact the relevant person/people.

[EricH]

Here are the final details

Southern Champs - Final Details - 24 Jan 14 - V5.pdf

(118.69 KiB) Downloaded 468 times

[DavidJ]

Just to report that the problem was resolved overnight. The Webmaster has recognised that a 'post-mortem' will be required in due course!

[AndyC]

Prior to the infamous "Prima Donnas" Northern Champs the NATO webmaster spotted a similar problem on the horizon and headed it off. A positive lesson to all with major events approaching

[Homer]

I'm a bit surprised there's not been any post-race discussion following yesterday's event.

For those not there, an early control on 5 courses was missing for the first few competitors. The organisers (BKO) have decided to allow results to stand. In a statement on the website they claim that no leading competitors were affected by the problem.

However, looking at the results, it is apparent that Alan Velecky (the first starter on M45L) lost about 5 minutes before continuing with his race (presumably slightly less motivated than when he started). He finished 4 mins down on the 'winner'. How can this be right?

The Rules do not allow results adjustment by removings splits, etc and therefore the course should be voided. If this can happen in the Southern Champs, how long before we have to put up with similar issues at BOC or JK?

[MIE]

Technically, it was the Jury that said the results should stand
and all members of the Jury (apart from the Organiser) should have
been "independant" controllers (i.e. not members of BKO).

If Alan feels hard done by and wishes to he could appeal the jury decision,
as could anyone else who ran the affected course(s).

The "only" outcomes, as the rules now stand, are, I believe, that an
appeal is turned down or that it is upheld and the course(s) are
declared void.

Perhaps, in light of this being the first major event run under these new rules
someone may like the approach the appropriate committee(s) or person(s)
to action a change.

[Jon X]

Ah, the old 'make the affected competitor the bad guy' tactic!

I wasn't there but based on Homer's description then fundamentally the outcome of the M45 race is flawed and any jury should be able to see that and get to a common sense outcome themselves.
That is true whether or not they believe the results for any other classes on the same course are safe to stand.
Of course it is a shame for the event and the organisers if a class has to be voided but Alan is eligible for the Southern Champs so it is hard to see how any other outcome is correct for M45L. It shouldn't need Alan or anyone else to protest further for the correct decision to be taken!

[MIE]

.................

I agree with you, entirely.

I was simply stating the "options" according to the current rules

[King Penguin]

...but it has happened at the JK, in 2006.
A control was completely missing, not even any tape.
The outcome was the same - first 3 not affected so the courses and results remained unchanged.
As one of those affected I argued long and hard - through the procedure on the day and subsequently in correspondence with Mike Hamilton and Rules Group - that the sport should be "for all" and not just for the winner, and that the least bad outcome should be the removal of the legs before and after the control in question. I accept this is not what the rules said then or now, but I still believe this would be less bad than the two extreme alternatives - either results stand unaltered or course voided. I was most emphatic in 2006 the last outcome I wanted was for the course to be voided, and would have withdrawn my appeal rather than have that happen.
Some things never change .....

[DJM]

Technically, it was the Jury that said the results should stand and all members of the Jury (apart from the Organiser) should have been "independant" controllers (i.e. not members of BKO).

Surprised that the Jury was involved as, technically, a Jury is only convened "If either the Controller or the Organiser does not agree with the protest" (BOF Rule 16.7).

Given that there appears to have been no Protest, then the Jury can't have been convened, so I guess that the Organiser was seeking advice from three wise independent observers who happened to be the same as the Jury members.

This is fine, but doesn't it compromise these Jury members should there be a subsequent Protest which the C or O fails to uphold? The IOF equivalent says "The voting jury members must not be involved or consulted in the consideration of complaints" and it seems common sense that the same applies more locally too.

If the Jury does have to be formally convened in the next few days, then should it be composed of three different members?

[DJM]

the least bad outcome should be the removal of the legs before and after the control in question

When you start looking into this more closely, then you soon discover that "the least bad outcome" might not be removal of two split times ...

If you remove two consecutive split times from any "good" set of results, you will inevitably change the order of the finishers, especially if the legs concerned are not short. This is because, for some runners you will remove two legs which they did well, for others you will remove two legs they'd be pleased to lose, whilst a third group will lose one good and one not so good leg.

The same occurs in races where there is a short-term problem with a control and where the leading runners are not affected by it. Removal of two split times for all could well change the order of the course leaders. It would be unfair to lose a Gold Medal at, say, BOC because the removal of splits dropped you to 2nd, 3rd or even lower.

[andypat]

Ah, the old 'make the affected competitor the bad guy' tactic!

I wasn't there but based on Homer's description then fundamentally the outcome of the M45 race is flawed and any jury should be able to see that and get to a common sense outcome themselves.
That is true whether or not they believe the results for any other classes on the same course are safe to stand.
Of course it is a shame for the event and the organisers if a class has to be voided but Alan is eligible for the Southern Champs so it is hard to see how any other outcome is correct for M45L. It shouldn't need Alan or anyone else to protest further for the correct decision to be taken!

Totally agreed Jon. The rules should allow for the correct decision to be made without the need for intervention, and all the personal implications, of the affected competitor.

[denbydale]

the least bad outcome should be the removal of the legs before and after the control in question

When you start looking into this more closely, then you soon discover that "the least bad outcome" might not be removal of two split times ...
.

So what's your solution?

[NeilC]

that the sport should be "for all" and not just for the winner.

Indeed the sport should be for all, however within the sport the major championships should switch focus and concentrate on finding the best orienteer, on the day, in their class, on the course set.

Of course there was much discussion over course voiding / leg removal during the writing of the rules and the final agreement was that the priority had to be to find the best orienteer over the set course (at the major championships).

Denbydale asked what the solution is. The solution is what the current rules say, if at a major championship it is not possible to establish who the best orienteer was over the entire course, then no result should be declared. This happens - see the recent Ski-O World Cup race.

Regarding this particular case I believe that a protest was made once the provisional winner of the class had been found to have run a different course, and the splits had been published so that it was possible to ascertain whether or not a likely winner had been affected.

Unfortunately one of the biggest losers will be the planner and his club. So many hours of work will appear spoilt by something largely out of their control. Hopefully the Events and Competitions Committee and/or The Board will be able to clarify the interpretation of the rules before the same issue arises again.