Did anyone read the Talent Squad Feedback given to the Talent and Performance Steering Group? https://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/news/4468
Athletes and parents give feedback, get patronising response. Can some changes PLEASE be made? Something along the lines of:
Sprint training camp? Yes, we'll delegate to Sprint Scotland who do a great job, and get some of our world class sprint orienteers along to give some talks.
Relay training? Yes, lets help you organise yourselves a trip to Jukola / 10mila.
Self catering? Food? Why don't you let us know what arrangements you'd be most comfortable with, and that way you can feel most at ease on the start line. (personally my best run came 2 hours after an O-Nosh burger, because I had got really hungry, and that filled the gap and stopped the tummy rumbles and let me focus on the nav).
Lets see how many seniors we can encourage to come along and share their route to success and inspire us! Lets find out what worked from them, and see if we can build this into our programs.
Lets not pressurise anyone to come on training weekends. Lets make weekends fun and collaborative, such that everyone always wants to come.
Sports testing is expensive and takes time to arrange. Lets only offer it to specific athletes - e.g. those who have trained consistently and hard for at least a 5 year period and have hit a plateau perhaps - who can build a case to state why it would benefit them. Lets not force it on people. Lets not use it to monitor development and improvement of juniors that are still very young and therefore could be development and improving for a multitude of factors, as it is not massively relevant to our sport - that should be done by looking at orienteering results! Or a track time trial!
Lets always take a full team to internationals, as a surprisingly high proportion of the current senior team were at best mediocre juniors. You can't tell where future talent lies.
If we are going to charge staggeringly high amounts to go to JWOC, we'll at least acknowledge that this is a terrible situation to be in, and do you the honour of giving you a full breakdown so we can agree together with athletes how to minimise these amounts in future years.
We'll let the athletes have the first and then final say in which flights are booked for them, to ensure they get to the races rested and relaxed.
Lets treat athletes as people rather than Sport England performance targets, and let them decide on their own JWOC program, without butting in at all. Lets not pull them out of middle B finals, lets not tell them that they are not good enough to run everything, lets just give them the respect of treating them as sensible human beings.
If we do all of this, juniors might have more fun on trips, feel more respected and less cynical, and be more motivated to make the team in the future and build good, positive experiences of the sport.
Talent Squad Feedback
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
The one issue I really disagree with them about is the selection policy of not taking a full team to junior Euro and World events.
From a psychological perspective if I get selected and find myself at the back of the pack but I see my teammates doing well that might be the kick up the backside I need to train and or focus more for next year.
Conversely if I dont get selected but they dont actually take anyone for that spot - really? **** it, its time to try a different sport.
(and before anyone says -when I say "I" I dont mean me...)
From a psychological perspective if I get selected and find myself at the back of the pack but I see my teammates doing well that might be the kick up the backside I need to train and or focus more for next year.
Conversely if I dont get selected but they dont actually take anyone for that spot - really? **** it, its time to try a different sport.
(and before anyone says -when I say "I" I dont mean me...)
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
Got to agree with Housewife. I read the feedback paper & was really disappointed with the responses. Seemed to me to say: This is how we are doing it and that's it.
I know it was a long, long time since I was involved with the squads etc but I always felt we had fun, training was open to all who wanted and the athletes were listened to.
Biggest issue I had with the review was the odd reference or two to Sport England want this, UK Sport want that.
I remember the training weekends in Grantown.... self-catering (or mass gross cooking) and sending the likes of Andy K home with big jars of pasta sauce to keep him going...
All seen through the haze of time.... but NEDS & SEDS must be one of the best long lasting formats in UK elite orienteering
I know it was a long, long time since I was involved with the squads etc but I always felt we had fun, training was open to all who wanted and the athletes were listened to.
Biggest issue I had with the review was the odd reference or two to Sport England want this, UK Sport want that.
I remember the training weekends in Grantown.... self-catering (or mass gross cooking) and sending the likes of Andy K home with big jars of pasta sauce to keep him going...
All seen through the haze of time.... but NEDS & SEDS must be one of the best long lasting formats in UK elite orienteering
Go orienteering in Lithuania......... best in the world:)
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
It is rather patronising although not quite as bad as housewife suggests?
The bit that always gets me is that we go for this super sophisticated approach using sports testing, individual analysis yada yada when, let’s face it, we’re not actually that good! That approach might work for Roger Federer or the top elites, but for junior orienteers there’s no evidence that this is actually better than the old school method of doing it on the cheap and having a blast in the process!
The bit that always gets me is that we go for this super sophisticated approach using sports testing, individual analysis yada yada when, let’s face it, we’re not actually that good! That approach might work for Roger Federer or the top elites, but for junior orienteers there’s no evidence that this is actually better than the old school method of doing it on the cheap and having a blast in the process!
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Re: The miracle of sports testing
greywolf wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCITMfxvEc
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
Well that was a depressing read.
Interesting to read that BOF view EYOC and JEC as the pinnacle of the sport. Is that why they aren't involved in WOC 2022?
Interesting to read that BOF view EYOC and JEC as the pinnacle of the sport. Is that why they aren't involved in WOC 2022?
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
Well to be fair, this is about the Talent Squad, for which those (+JWOC) are the appropriate competitions. Any athlete with the potential for WOC2022 would expect to have moved on to the Senior Squad before that time. I think this also explains the slightly nannying perspective in the responses - some of the athletes concerned could be only 15.Dave wrote:...Interesting to read that BOF view EYOC and JEC as the pinnacle of the sport. Is that why they aren't involved in WOC 2022?
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
I aired my frustration about this on my Twitter account. It's so very clear that funds could have been stretched to support more athletes across more sessions to encourage more people to improve, enjoy the sport and work towards the top (orienteers usually peak mid-to-late20s), so reducing numbers being supported in the Talent Programme, preaching training schedules to them rather than educating and instilling the opportunity to learn, think for themselves and become more involved in their programme planning is leading to an increase in individual performances at Junior internationals (a small number of athletes) but is not necessarily leading to increased performances in senior competitions, increased numbers competing on the world stage or increased numbers getting involved in the support of elite orienteering .
Lottery funding, in the latter years, has stymied orienteering, prevented us from thinking outside the box, dis-encourage more people to get involved and behind the elites and has not, by any means, seen an increase in map time in training. Rather like practicing tennis without a racket - huh?!?
Frustrated.
Lottery funding, in the latter years, has stymied orienteering, prevented us from thinking outside the box, dis-encourage more people to get involved and behind the elites and has not, by any means, seen an increase in map time in training. Rather like practicing tennis without a racket - huh?!?
Frustrated.
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Re: Talent Squad Feedback
Thanks to Peter Hart I can confirm that British Orienteering are fully supportive of WOC 2022 and he is on the Steering Group.
Fac et Spera. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the Scottish 6 Days Assistant Coordinator
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