WOC Max times

[JK]

It looks like the 70 min max time has been enforced for the WOC Middle.

In my opinion it is a shame that IOF persuade all these "smaller" nations to attend (one reason mooted is to up the no. of countries + continents is to satisfy IOC requirements) and then if they actually manage to complete the course they get disqualified.

If you look at Winsplits it says "mp" (even though they didn't mispunch and completed the course successfully, albeit in a slow time) and on Liveresults it says "disq" which puts them in the same category as someone who has been caught with drugs, violating embargoed areas or with illegal equipment in the terrain. It should at least say "timed out"!

By my reckoning this has resulted in the "disq" of the only finishers from PRK, Netherlands, Ecuador, Columbia, Taipei, China and the only woman finisher from Hong Kong. Note that 4 of the 6 Disq men finished between 74 and 81 mins, and the other 2 just beat 2 hours.

Cyprus and Egypt of course had their own problems!

[bendover]

My girlfriend is a Spanish speaker and chatted with the girl from Ecuador at the arena after the Sprint qualifiers. She was told while out on the course that she had been disqualified.

I agree that this is a real shame and seems unnecessary.

[DaveR]

My girlfriend is a Spanish speaker and chatted with the girl from Ecuador at the arena after the Sprint qualifiers. She was told while out on the course that she had been disqualified.

I agree that this is a real shame and seems unnecessary.

I agree it is a shame, but it is necessary.

This is not a comment about that particular competitor, but how long do you think 70+ marshals should remain out on a course guarding it for someone who is at the "oh good I've found one"* stage of sprint orienteering?


* This is pretty much a direct quote from a competitor overheard by a marshal in the sprint qualifiers

[andy]

Don't read too much into what it actually says on any results list, it's pretty obvious why they were dsq (and also a limitation of any software/results service)

[bendover]

it's pretty obvious why they were dsq

Is it? Care to elaborate?

I think its great that new nations are invited to a World Championships. However if it's pretty much inevitable that they are going to be disqualified, and the attitude is that marshals shouldn't stay out long enough for them, then what's the point?

[maprun]

Given these starters were starting at least 99 mins before the last starter and they were all timed out when well over half the competitors hadn't even finished, maybe some discretion might be considered by the event officials. I seem to recall this is within orienteering rules and I can't see anybody in the later starting blocks getting upset if they were reinstated. I'm sure someone can get around the software issue that was inserted to dsq over 70 mins.

[maprun]

According to Jan Kocbach at WorldofO the Eyptian delegate said this earlier this morning at the IOF meeting to decide future WOC staging.

Egypt: I think it will give us as a new country the chance to survive in the orienteering world. Many countries have no forests. As example in Egypt we have good cities to organize something like that in the future. When I can't make some result in the WOC, why should I come again to the WOC? I should have the opportunity to make good results in the WOC.

[Apologies if I did not catch all the details there] - Jan Kocbach's apologies.

I know we need rules, but shouldn't they be serving the competitors and IOF nation's interests?

[JK]

I don't object to max time (there has to be some limit), but they have to be set at appropriate levels.

According to the rules:
8.6 Bulletin 4 contains info on max running time for WOC/JWOC and WCup

[B4 is given on arrival at the event which might end up being a bit of a surprise to the competitors who have travelled a long way to the event to see info which means they know they can't finish in time. For instance if I turned up at a Level B event and was told that the cut-off timelimit for my long distance course required me to do 7 min/km then it is a bit of a wasted journey for me.]

8.13 B2 contains max time info for WRE and WMOC

23.12 IOF EA may set max times
[note that for WOC there is an SEA not an EA so it is unclear if this rule applies for WOC, in any case I think the rule should be as for SkiO - the Organiser can set max times ... with the EA's permission]

23.14 [for WOC] max times are Sprint 50 mins, Middle 70 mins
For Long it is more complicated: 110/150 for Women/Men respectively in a Qual
3 hours and 4 hours for the Long

As for WOC, there have to be some standards, and the officials need to go home at some point, but I still think that there should be more flexibility in the cutoffs for Middle in particular when moving cutoffs from 70 to 90 (or maybe 3x winner's time) shouldn't have major implications. For Sprint where there is still a Qualification then those finishing it out of time don't get a final classification in any case so it is less of an issue.

BTW for SkiO (where GBR is a "small nation") the limits are 3 hours (men + women) for both Middle and Long. This means that the "smaller" nations typically only run Sprint and Middle (which I think is OK) since the MIddle time is farily generous and Long is very harsh. Also there are constraints on daylight and temperatures that mean that very long times in SkiO can be a bad thing.

[andy]

it's pretty obvious why they were dsq

Is it? Care to elaborate?

Fair point, I guess it is to me as I was the one who made them dsq...

{after checking what the published final results look like} it's really not obvious, will pass this on. I guess we were told to make anyone who hadn't completed the course 'disq' rather than mp, dnf, over time. We were also told to remove their time from the far right column, which is normally populated if it exists (i.e. they visited the finish)

From memory as I don't have a copy of the database here, for the middle final ( http://www.woc2015.org/documents/Middle ... sults.html )

Men
Tim Roberston - retired injured and never made it to download
Glibov - didn't punch the final control (which we didn't like, but he accepted it)
The rest were over time

Women were all over time I think

[andypat]

Well given that the starts at Darnaway had to stay open for over an hour past last starts on Thursday to let some tardy VIPS tackle the yellow and orange courses it seems like leaving volunteers in the forest isn't always a problem for IOF!