JWOC/EYOC selections

[Homer]

Quote: "However I suppose there's an argument that we "the members" dont necessarily need to know the bigger picture, so long as those that it affects directly are aware."

Agreed. However I'm pretty sure that plenty (most?) of the athletes involved aren't aware of what is going on behind the scenes.

The other thing which could do with some transparency is how athlete's 'attitude' is assessed. From the selection policy:

5.
Professional Attitude
The athlete demonstrates:
-
the ability to manage their time
-
the commitment to and execution of an appropriate
lifestyle
-
the commitment to training and the programme
-
a good attitude to interactions with support professi
onals
and fellow competitors
Score should be substantiated by exemplars and third party
evidence.

I wonder how these criteria are assessed for athletes who have yet to come into contact with the Talent Development Pathway?
I suspect that those who have been to one Talent Development Camp have been assessed and labelled. It is then difficult for them to be reassessed should their 'attitude' change in the future.

[greywolf]

Can someone in the know please explain how the Domestic Performance Standards (the 15% behind the winner etc) are actually applied? In the table in section 9 it says "Achieved required Domestic Performance Standards in races specified in the season schedule", but this "season schedule" isn't defined - is it the same as the "selection schedule" in Appendix 3, i.e. just the three JK races (or for M/W16s just two races, as they didn't do the JK Middle)

I can see the attraction of using measures such as % behind when trying to compare athletes who don't always all compete against each other - e.g. you could decide to select athlete B rather than athlete C because although they never raced head to head, they both raced several times against athlete A, and B was on average 10% behind A whereas C was on average 20% behind A - but you would want to have a reasonable number of results for such a process to have any validity, and in particular to ensure that (in the example above) athlete A was providing a consistent benchmark, especially in a sport with such built in variation as orienteering*

The impression given however is that the % behind criteria are being applied based on a very small (2 or 3) set of results, and not just to select between athletes, but to set arbitrary qualification standards. If this is the case (and if not please explain what is happening!) then it's difficult to see how this supposedly objective process has any validity - i don't know where the % behind criteria originally came from but can't believe that's how they were intended to be applied.

*no better example of this than at the JK: Jorgen Martensson won the M55 sprint by 82 seconds (over 10%) - a huge margin when the top 5 in M45 and M50 were covered by 13 and 12 seconds respectively ... and then on day 2 finished 18 minutes (33%!) down in 36th - quite reassurring that even the legends of the sport can be all over the place from one day to the next

[maprun]

Greywolf, hopefully the selectors and SH have a good understanding of statistics when applying percentages behind the winner criteria for men and women because of the smaller population of women who orienteer both here and worldwide. For example, the percentage behind the winner at WOC and JWOC to finish 40th is higher for women than men. Hopefully the percentages behind the winner criteria throughout the development and selection process are larger for our female athletes.

[graeme]

maprun: It is true that the % behind is different for women than men. But it's even more different from one WOC to another, so you might argue that the percentages behind the winner criteria should be larger when WOC is in tough terrain. Or that if the selectors understood statistics, they wouldn't use this measure.

On the other hand, they appear to have used ranking scores to pick the WOC team. So maybe all isn't lost

[Glucosamine]

The athlete demonstrates the commitment to and execution of an appropriate lifestyle.

So what would an inappropriate lifestyle be? And where would that leave selection of the likes of e.g. a young Ron Hill? I can appreciate a need to commit to an appropriate training regime and a suitable racing programme (though that might have kyboshed Ron Hill's chances) but this seems to have the ring of Big Brother.

[DIDSCO]

Patrik Sjöberg jumped 2.42 in the high jump, he still has the European record and only one man has ever jumped higher. Patrik's appropriate lifestyle in achieving this was a fair bit of training and a lot of smoking and drinking……….

[graeme]

We really don't want to go down the line of Sjöberg's training regime. On the other hand, I think you could easily see he has the natural attributes needed in a high-jumper.

[buzz]

I do not think the performance programme should be defined without reference to the rest of the sport.

Absolutely - a medal winning programme is meaningless on its own - it should both contribute to the participation and coaching programmes and benefit from them.

Interesting viewpoint. Taking performance sport in general in the UK I don't think the link exists (case in point the two gov't agencies dealing with both are separate. Yes I know it's different in Scotland/Wales/NI). You might not like it to be this way and to be the way that you've described.

As I understand it Sport England support BO as a whole including the Development, Talent and Performance programmes (although I appreciate the Performance part is nominal), and as I understand it they take a holistic view themselves.

[Big Jon]

Patrik Sjöberg jumped 2.42 in the high jump, he still has the European record and only one man has ever jumped higher. Patrik's appropriate lifestyle in achieving this was a fair bit of training and a lot of smoking and drinking……….

Great point to make!

[Big Jon]

It appears that that the BO performance programme is aimed at creating nicely balanced, well-rounded sociable individuals....... whereas I though it was to find the individuals most likely to win medals and top-10 places in WOC.

[andypat]

It appears that that the BO performance programme is aimed at creating nicely balanced, well-rounded sociable individuals.......

starting from an orienteer thats quite an ask!

[JennyJ]

http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/i ... 9yZy51ay8=

[PhilJ]

this is turning into a pigs ear, so those not selected may now already have made new plans for their non JWOC summer, booked flights outta here, where as the ones selected may be de-selected, there are many adages that I could use here, but do not want to be flamed off nope, i'll just use incompetence! time for heads to roll.

So one must assume that BO are happy with the selections for EYOC, even though they would have used the same criteria as JWOC

Safe to assume no JEC selections for a while.

[Duncan]

Safe to assume no JEC selections for a while.

Yes, given that the policy (linked from here) says "Races used to establish current form performances" are JK, EYOC and JWOC (although the policy does allow for pre-selections, but final selections would have to wait).

[Arnold]

Whoa. Didn't expect it to all be opened up again this late!

It's good to see that "due process" is being followed though - the only thing that's surprising is that the same people as before are being asked to look at selections again.

With all due respect to the individuals involved (who I'm absolutely sure had the best interests of athletes and the sport in mind), surely if there's been a problem then someone else should do the revised selections, to avoid any bias? Or at least it should be validated by someone with fresh eyes?