Shorts!

[Parkino]

Olli-Markus Taivainen on the start line for WOC Middle distance ... in shorts. Commentators: he "always wears shorts".

Okay. So I've got some questions for the rules hawks among you:

What are the rules regarding full-body cover?
Are requirements at the discretion of organisers? If so, how is it that Taivainen has been able "always" to wear shorts, regardless of the roughness of the forest, whereas in the UK he would rarely be permitted to wear them, except on grassy moorland and, of course, in park/urban terrain?
Is there a divergence between British rules and IOF rules? If so, why? On what grounds? Or is it just a matter of custom? Or the weather?!

[Freefall]

Bulletin 4 for WOC 2017 states:
There are no regulations regarding clothing. Choice of footwear is free for Long Distance, Middle Distance and Relay. Spike shoes are not allowed for Sprint Qualification, Sprint Final and Sprint Relay

IOF rules state:
As long as the rules of the organising Federation do not specify otherwise, the choice of clothing and footwear shall be free.

So when we staged WOC BOF rules applied:
Competitors must wear clothing that fully covers their torso and legs unless the Organiser has stated otherwise and has permitted shorts to be worn.

In Bulletin 4 we chose to say:
For forest competitions, competitors must wear clothing that fully covers their torso and legs. There are no restrictions for the sprint competitions.

[Parkino]

Thanks, Freefall.

I wore shorts in the forest in Australia, not often, only for short races, but it was at my discretion. If Taivainen always wears shorts, it must also be at the competitor's discretion where he races. So why is that not the case here? Why is it at the organizer's discretion instead? On what grounds?

(I was brought up - in the late 70's/early 80's - believing full-body cover was mandatory and was told the reason was the prevention of the spread of hepatitis C. Evidently that is not a pressing concern any more.)

[Domhnull Mor]

This sort of rule is set by the individual national federations rather than being anything set in the rules of the sport. Full body cover is mandatory here in Sweden under the rules of the Swedish federation. You'll probably have noted this if you've ever run at the O-Ringen. They were even demanding it for the elite sprint in Sälen last year. If I remember correctly, the reference to Hepatitis C you make is also why national level events and above here generally have to have washing facilities.

[ifititches]

The main blood=borne virus of concern is hepatitis B. You can now be vaccinated against this (everyone doing clinical care in the NHS is vaccinated, for example) Hep B is still currently the most efficiently transmitted of these viruses. If you had an inoculation with blood from a Hep B carrier, as would occur if you had a deep scratch on a branch/wire on which blood from a carrier had recently been deposited and you were not vaccinated, you have a 1 in 3 chance of contracting the virus. Not everyone is seriously ill with it and only a proportion go on to be carriers. It can be transmitted mother to child and cause chronic disease and is far more common in some parts of the world than others. In the UK we go to strenuous attempts to prevent mother to child transmission
Hepatitis C is generally reckoned to be less infectious, by inoculation, by a factor of 10 than Hep B, but can also go on to cause chronic disease.I've not come across it being transmitted in orienteers. Again, much more common in some areas of the world, As far as I know, currently no vaccine.
Finally (though probably more blood =borne viruses remain unidentified) HIV is ten times less likely to be transmitted than Hep C, and, since most individuals in Europe will be on highly efficient treatment, the risk is probably much lower than that, due to low viral levels in the blood.
All of the carrier states of these infections are more treatable than they were back in the 1970's, though the treatments are not pleasant and may not be successful. Also, the disease may not be diagnosed until considerable damage has already occurred. Personally, if I were a carrier, I'd do my best to use any measures to prevent me leaving blood on scratchy objects and not share potentially blood-contaminated cleaning/drying materials with other people. But a lot of carriers are still unaware of their status, so personal protection for other athletes is still seen to play a role in prevention of transmission.

[Tim]

Shamelessly cribbed from a previous thread: this gives a very good background to full body cover (interesting bit starts on page 467 with "Hepatitis among cross-country track-finders")
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2467205/pdf/postmedj00343-0009.pdf
This was common knowledge in the late 70s/early 80s when I started. Has the rule changed to reflect reduced risk or are we suffering from short memories.

[graeme]

It's an interesting thing that people sort-of remember the "scratched on the same branch" meme, which is only a throwaway line in the paper. The main issue highlighted is shared washing facilities. Full body cover is a classic case of a highly visible non-solution to a real problem. As Domhnull Mor says, the risk is reduced with sensible washing facilities. Typically, the UK copied the non-solution and not the actual-solution, although we don't have the same lake-wash facilities and culture as the Swedes.

Since I lost the calf muscle I fall a lot and seldom get out of a forest unbloodied, full body cover or not, so I feel for my and other's safety I shouldn't wash after events .

[nooomember]

so bare arms can't scratch, leave blood and pass on the virus? Or tears in o-trousers? If it's good enough for the elite at the WOC that's good enough for me.
Or as Graeme is suggesting no need for this rule as it isn't the cause/problem?
Yet again can't we, the individual competitor make his/her own decision and be responsible for that?

[madmike]

This sort of rule is set by the individual national federations rather than being anything set in the rules of the sport. Full body cover is mandatory here in Sweden under the rules of the Swedish federation. You'll probably have noted this if you've ever run at the O-Ringen. They were even demanding it for the elite sprint in Sälen last year. If I remember correctly, the reference to Hepatitis C you make is also why national level events and above here generally have to have washing facilities.

I remember an ORINGEN where they had teams of little old ladies tapping up every rip in trousers and tops en route to the start and a couple of brits ending up looking like mummies.......

[ifititches]

Hepatitis B was the virus involved in the case of the Swedish outbreak. I'm not even sure we'd identified Hep C at the time it happened, as Hep C wasn't discovered until 1989.
It was always the case that far more washing of sweaty/bloody bodies on-site went on in Scandinavia than the UK, so it was sad that an attempt at better hygiene should have led to an outbreak..
Hepatitis B remains the most infectious by the blood-borne route, but there is an efficient vaccine which protects you against Hepatitis B, which I'm sure you could get privately if you're not entitled to it through work. Preferably you need to have completed a course before the risk of injury.
Hep C has been a major problem in the older generation recently as it causes very little illness at the time it's acquired and remains asymptomatic for years, presenting instead with liver failure in later life. Past use of injecting recreational or performance drugs , however remote and almost forgotten, has come back to haunt many of my age, as has blood transfusion prior to September 1991, when testing of donated blood was introduced.
Hopefully the current fashion for tattooing will not result in extra cases, though it could, if not conducted to a high standard of hygiene.

[andypat]

so bare arms can't scratch, leave blood and pass on the virus? Or tears in o-trousers? If it's good enough for the elite at the WOC that's good enough for me.
Or as Graeme is suggesting no need for this rule as it isn't the cause/problem?
Yet again can't we, the individual competitor make his/her own decision and be responsible for that?

I think what Graeme was suggesting is that with respect to aetiology, the issue of being scratched by the same thorn is a red herring. When you consider the risks - how likely is the same contact, % risk of the source person being infected- % risk of the blood actually being inoculated into someone else's bloodstream it all seem very low to insignificant risk.

[maprun]

I did some googling and found a whole chapter on orienteering medical stuff including ankle injuries, hepatitis, tetanus, Lyme's disease and risks of heat and cold. Page 388 gives the numbers on the Swedish outbreak that dropped from 392 in two years at the start of the 1960's, to 6 in a year when preventative measures were introduced, then up to 41 a year when the measures were relaxed, when it was decided the full body cover would be reintroduced in 1966. I only know of one orienteer personally who has had hepatitis through orienteering in Scandinavia during the late 1970s. They were unable to get out of bed for 3 weeks and lost 90% of their liver function, but they and their liver have since fully recovered! I did not inquire whether they ran in shorts or which country they thought they might have been infected in. It was a good 10 years after full body cover was introduced and the risks of bathing in the same bath water was known about.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BiD ... ad&f=false

[ifititches]

I used to think the same as Graham about the low likelihood of being scratched by the same bramble/branch, but when I started to actually make my own observations, I suspect it's more common than we realise now that forests are considerably more brambly. Often there are routes through the brambles made by other competitors before you get there, and it is the most robust, and scratchiest brambles/branches that remain and are not trampled down.I would imagine that most people taking that route would get scratched on these beasts without leg protection. I am often grateful for the leg protection I wear when encountering them. Arm injuries are perhaps less likely on these beasts, but I was a bit surprised when they relaxed the arm-cover rule, as clearly blood from the arm will contain just as much virus as blood from the leg.

Take into account injuries at barbed wire fence crossing places used by many competitors and you are down to only a few barbs on each fence that may scratch many.

[Domhnull Mor]

I think we'd all agree that the risk of tick-borne infections is now far greater than anything else that would have maybe been seen as a risk in the past. I have heard this quoted (although not officially) as being a reason for retaining the full leg cover rule. Here in Sweden it's quite common to have TBE innoculation services offered at events, indeed we had a van at our event last week.

[ifititches]

TBE definitely a major problem and spreading to other areas of Europe not previously thought to be at risk.Always worth getting the appropriate vaccination for the area you're going to; it's a disease to avoid at all costs.
Full body cover hasn't stopped ticks invading me at pretty much every event I've been to this year across the UK, so I've started to supplement it with insect repellent.Been trying out Smidge as well as the original DEET preparations. They are cunning little critters though and I often find one just about to start feeding a few days after an event, having presumably evaded my full body search a day or so before (probably been on my scalp despite hair brushing) Think yourself fortunate if you've never had a tick embed in your skin.
Re Hepatitis B again, I read today that universal Hep B vaccination for infants is to be introduced in UK this year, only about 20 years behind the rest of the world, so future generations should be protected (but still not against Hep C or HIV, which are much less infectious through scratches)