Top 10 Areas for Orienteering

[greywolf]

Freefall your recollection is crap. A couple of years ago, when BOF realised that the original Speyside plans were untenable, I was asked to inspect and report on a number of potential alternatives: the list included many of the previous WOC areas (from 76 and 99) plus a few others, including some never before mapped/used. Note that this was before the WOC programme was changed to remove Long & Middle qualifiers, so we were trying to find enough areas for 5 forest races.
My opinion was that the cumulative impact of clearfelling and capercaillie meant that there was no longer enough usable high quality terrain at Darnaway for the Long race, but that it would be good for either Relay or Middle...

More to the point, if you'd actually read the previous post you'd see that the issue isn't with the Darnaway embargo but with that on Culbin when the chances that it will be used are vanishingly small. Now that Long and Middle are straight finals there are only 3 forest races, which are apparently going to be hosted in 2 areas, so why do you need an extra 6 areas embargoed as reserves? And more specifically, why do you need to maintain an embargo on Culbin when
a) the map is not ISOM-compliant (and would take very significant work to produce a poorer quality map that met ISOM and would never be used again)
b) it is a completely different terrain type from all the other areas
c) has has very significant (and on-going) felling work which has increased visibility and reduced runnability.

If the embargo rules were being applied sensibly and consistently (i.e. only to potential team members, coaches, etc) then this might not be such a big deal, but now that they are affecting schools events it's getting rather stupid

[Freefall]

Freefall your recollection is crap

Probably rather hazy now that I am an M60. I agree with nearly everything you say about embargoes and have every sympathy with the clubs and the position Sunlit Forres finds himself in. We have raised the matter on a number of occasions with the IOF and indeed this weekend the Event Director will be discussing this at the IOF HLES in Sweden. There have been some minor modifications on urban embargoes (plus a new area added) and we are also thinking about selection races as well as WOC races. Sensibly we may relax some of the embargoes for non-WOC related activity but are waiting for further feedback from BOF/Liz Campbell. I guess however Moravian did manage to orienteer pre-Culbin so it cannot all be doom and gloom.

[greywolf]

East Culbin was off-limits until BOC 2008, but the club had access to the middle bit for a fair while before that. MOR was much smaller and less active then, and of course wasn't also barred from Darnaway, Sluie, Forres, Elgin, etc...

Anyway, glad the case is still being made: slightly surprised that Liz Campbell is involved, thought she was GB squad coach (not on BOF staff page tho') rather than on the organising team. I will be interested to hear BOF's rationale for banning the Forest Jump lads (who also appear in the WOC launch vid IIRC) from their local schools championships...

[Gross]

are waiting for further feedback from BOF/Liz Campbell.

Not sure it's very PC to have the GB coach involved in the determination of embargoes for a domestic WOC. Might suggest a bit of inside knowledge.

[Freefall]

To set the record straight. It was agreed the onus on determining where selection races for WOC 2015 will be held was passed from WOC Organising Committee responsibility back to BOF (and Liz is involved with the British Squad). They may choose to hold selection races anywhere they feel is appropriate, but it would make sense to use areas which may have some sort of look and feel similar to WOC itself. These areas are likely to be in Highland and Moray, and we (WOC OC) did add some additional embargoes on areas. Liz and BOF have had nothing to do with determining these embargo areas. They have no inside knowledge - they can glean as much from old maps as anyone else.