WOC overall view

[EddieH]

From the punters'point of view I thought the whole week was fantastic. Our visitors had no interest whatsoever in watching WOC but decided to stay for the relay to enable Margaret and I to travel conveniently. They were totally converted and glued to the WOC long race as well as watching all of BBC's coverage reterospectively. No previous spectator races could have achieved this as only the dedicated would go.

I am concerned that the workload was infinitely bigger than the normally busy S6d and that we will lose some people to the sport, although having been heavily involved in both WOC and S6d in 1999 the teams were massively happier this time.

I think that Richard Oxlade deserves a substantial reward for his calm efficient and enormous workload as coordinator - you just cannot conceive how much and how hard he worked.

Beyond that there are so many that did exceptional amounts and I doubt anyone could name them all. What a sport that gets so much volunteer effort.

[maprun]

Some points stand out for me. Incredibly close individual races, and relays where the medals were in doubt right to the end:
- Men's long the lead changed eight times! Long and short route choices, micro route selection and tiredness all playing their part.
- Middle, so many runners, left thinking what if.
- Men's sprint with roughly six runners just one poor leg away from winning.
And the Danish women's relay team leaping over the finish line showing what an easy sport - it isn't!

So much to analyse and learn how the best in the world get it wrong, thanks to WorldofO. Magnanimous comments in defeat by Daniel Hubberman and Thierry. Great sport.

Thanks to all for putting on a great show.

[Adrian]

The WOC and S6D were amazingly well done. Not quite unique, since when WOC was in Hungary, the spectator races were part of an annual multi-day event series - the Hungaria Kupa. In fact our experience in 2015 was largely the same as in 2009, of two massive enterprises being brilliantly organised, and allowing ordinary orienteers to get close to elite orienteers and elite orienteering in a way that is very rare in sport. My daughter, who's not ultra-keen, was greatly enthused by her week in Scotland and Maja Alm is her new hero

p.s. A quick boo to the British media (except BBC Alba) who have gone out of their way to ignore the event entirely.

[JK]

I thought the offerings through SVT, BBC Alba and the online coverage were as good as what I've seen elsewhere. It would have been nice not to have to pay for GPS tracking though, but I understand these things do cost money.

Everything I saw about the event through the media described above showed a top-class, professional event taking place so well down to everyone involved. Courses looked very good too, but terrain looked tough!

ps one of the most entertaining memories of WOC is of exhausted athletes lying on the ground with a helper running in and ripping the SI Card off their finger while ignoring the athlete

I saw that on TV too. I've been to many previous WOCs but that's the first time I've seen that. Maybe the SIAC cards become unstable if they are left stationary for too long without being downloaded.

...
* I didn't get to meet James Bond, Club: "Her Majesty's Secret Service", running M45L dressed in a suit.

He'll be back at a 6D near you, sometime soon ... although I hear rumours he has returned to his posting in Lombardy, but "M"s the word!

I think WOC 2015 was somewhat unique (?) in that the spectator races were an established multi-day competition. In most other WOCs the spectator races are simply there because WOC is there (e.g. Swedish WOC spectator races are not the O-Ringen, Swiss WOC spectator races are not SOW, Finnish WOC spectator races are not the Finn5, etc.) and not intended to be the main attraction, whereas the S6D probably was the main attraction for many people this year (i.e. those who don't care much for WOC).

Not quite unique, a few examples are
SUI 2003 was alongside Swiss O Week
SUI 2012 with Swiss 6 Days
FIN 2013 was alongside Kainuu O Week
ITA 2014 - Italian 5 days

In other years they refer to "WOC Tour"

Note that like 2015, the Swiss events were without WTOC yet the Finnish, Italian and French managed to put that on at the same time.

I had intended to be there, but decided to head back South a few days beforehand (and for those who read my other post ... no I have still never received a reply from info@6days showing me how to get camping or parking passes when I didn't have a pre-entry - apparently these weren't available to EOD. I did however hear that they had received my request but were prioritising enquiries from those who'd pre-entered. Hopefully that queue will go down soon )

[andy]

ps one of the most entertaining memories of WOC is of exhausted athletes lying on the ground with a helper running in and ripping the SI Card off their finger while ignoring the athlete

I saw that on TV too. I've been to many previous WOCs but that's the first time I've seen that. Maybe the SIAC cards become unstable if they are left stationary for too long without being downloaded.

It was actually a request from the commentary/media types that we do it asap to ensure the athlete hasn't missed anything. The aim was to give them 5/10secs of camera time then one of the finish people jumped in and either asked them to come to download or took their SI card. A lot of the top runners were coming in pretty quickly themselves.
I watched the sprint relay the other day and it was interesting to see just how keen Maja Alm was to download when she finished and most of the cheering from their team happened inside the download tent when she got the all clear...

[RS]

I agree/disagree with lots of the comments posted.
Firstly, a big thank you to every one involved for their huge efforts.
To comment in order posted to some of the comments already made:

Spookster - "I've heard a lot of positive comments, including some specific comments from athletes about the great courses. I've heard very few negative comments. You can't please everyone." - suggest you read some of the comments made on Attackpoint.

Mappingmum - agree with excellent Alba coverage. Commentary/screen improved at Woc for relay, Chris Poole is the best! Per is difficult to understand at times.No queues for us but with not getting WOCSPEC AND 3 31/2 splits every day for people entered together, we arrived very early each day. Agree with stress about queues etc.

Mrs H - agree.

Rosine - Totally agree that I felt WOC compromisedS6D.

I felt sorry for the volunteers who had not been given any information except what their role was eg point the finger this way on car park so were unable to answer any questions such as 'can I park any closer as I have 2 under 4s in my car please?' and refused the requests.I believe from an organiser that team leaders should have briefed the volunteers with this type of info

Highlight of the week for me was the sprint race at Forres - one of the best I've been to in a while A very big thank you to all involved.

[Rosine]

I felt sorry for the volunteers who had not been given any information except what their role was eg point the finger this way on car park so were unable to answer any questions such as 'can I park any closer as I have 2 under 4s in my car please?' and refused the requests.I believe from an organiser that team leaders should have briefed the volunteers with this type of info

It varies: when I arrived on Day 4 with a heavy crate of SI units in the car to hand to download I mentioned this to the first person in a dayglo jacket and was immediately pointed towards a route to the front. I guess that some teams/individuals worked better than others in this respect, especially if there had been last-minute changes to plans or roles.

[JK]

Another question.

How did people think the Event Centre / central camping worked? I know it was at the Bught Park which is very close to a whole load of amenities so I'm guessing that was a great location for it, but I've noticed in recent years that at the JK and multi-day events there isn't always a proper event centre.

[andypat]

Highlight of the week for me was the sprint race at Forres - one of the best I've been to in a while A very big thank you to all involved.

Which sprint race in Forres?

I'll assume the rest day sprint on Tuesday for obvious reasons. As planner I've given some feedback to the S6D central team re the S6D rest day sprint. The organising team for this race (it was different to Nairn as they have the same infrastructure and planner as for the sprint relay) didnt really get any remit from the wider S6D team - eg event level/courses etc. With hindsight I think this was an oversight and could (potentially) have gone quite badly wrong. With three WOC sprint races I felt that people would be expecting more from the spectator race on the WOC final map than a turn up and go level D race. I havent been to a WOC before though - maybe thats what you get. So we tried to run it along the lines of a Level C urban race (sprint distance - although I got the times a bit over sorry - the hills took more out of you than I expected!)

The problem we encountrered though was that not so much volunteer resource is allocated to the sprint and we had difficulty getting what we needed to put the event on - everyone already committed to WOC or to other days. We were very lucky to have Robert Findlay to do our IT side of things - he didnt have a run all week. But we had to impose limits for safety in Forres and also to allow people to get to Darnaway and didnt have the manpower to change/add/entries on the day. So a bit of a compromise there.

I know as a result of our feedback Dave Kershaw has agreed to add some guidance on the rest day sprint to the technical manual for Deeside. I guess it may go back to being informal level D race again - I'm not sure. I'd love to see a competitive sprint race as part of the festival in some shape or form though...

[andy]

I guess it may go back to being informal level D race again - I'm not sure.

That would be really sad...

I'd like to see the 6 days go to 4 or 5 forest races and 1 or 2 urban/sprint races, with a rest day too for proper rest! A lot of other multi-day events have done this and it's great.

[SJC]

I'd like to see the 6 days go to 4 or 5 forest races and 1 or 2 urban/sprint races.

The appeal of the Scottish 6 Day, and what makes it worth traveling hundreds of miles from the South of England to come to, is to run in the glorious forests. Please keep the event as it is. There are plenty of towns to run round back home.

[Len]

Day 5 certainly wasn't a 'glorious forest'

I'd take an urban/sprint over that rubbish any day.
4 long days, 1 middle, 1 sprint would work well I think.

[Kitch]

SJC has it right
running urban races makes you soft as -----

[Sunlit Forres]

I'd definitely advocate a proper rest day with absolutely no orienteering of any kind whatsoever.

I think incorporation of an urban event (UKOL) as one of the days is a great idea but I also think it would have to be on an evening or the opening Sunday unless the host town is fully engaged. There was a wee bit of discontent amongst the locals here in Forres about road safety and inconvenience to shoppers on the High Street. I know there were similar mutterings in Nairn too. But this was tempered by the sense of utter delight and privilege at hosting a WOC event. The overwhelming message coming back to us was so positive, with many many folk saying what an astonishing boost it's been for the town, and recognizing, just as we do, the great organization behind it all.

The magnitude of the week as a whole was very late in dawning on the general public, but dawn it did. The appearance of the road closure warning signs at 2 weeks to go were a game changer in publicity terms!

To quote local councillor George Alexander whose jaw hardly moved from the 'dropped' position at the Darnaway VIP day on Day 4:

"This is huge. I don't think we've really got our heads round this yet."

[Big Jon]

I doubt Deeside 2017 will have a sprint race as one day - we don't have the towns and those we have are very small - we'd struggle to get 4000 people round any of them safely!

Maybe 2019???