World Cup Question Time

[HOCOLITE]

Having taken part in my first sprint O, against my better judgement, I think on the balance I enjoyed it. The sprint down the track was the best bit
I had to hurdle a Scottie dog on the way out of the stadium and also played football with a young kid on the way round when the ball landed at my feet as I was passing. I think he and his dad were impressed
Wasn't too sure about group with mountain bikes up in the bushes though.

When in the park earlier watching the elite and buying lunch the trader had no idea that the event was going on. Thought they might have been briefed, also expected a banner at the entrance to the park. Tescos had one for their race for life.

I wonder what it would have been like in torrential rain. Obviously less public to avoid so easier running.

I might do another if it were convenient but as a country lover and city hater I wouldn't go round the country to take part.

[Joykok]

By the sounds of things the Sprint in Battersea Park had many spectators (whether they intended to be or not!), some of those spectators would be possible participants. When Gross suggests a Grand Prix Series around Great Britain to me it conjures up the image of a Park World Tour of Great Britain (in association with Billy Connelly ) getting Orienteering seen by people in populated areas of the country and raising the profile of the sport. Which Sprint racing was originally conceived for.

A national Grand Prix series might not necessarily be for everyone to tour around, but if you have the same concept (and standard) of race in several cities it could be a big weapon for getting Orienteering into public view.

Learn from Battersea Park and other successful Sprint races from around the world… have big posters/banners saying what is going on (e.g. UK Sprint Orienteering Grand Prix)… have good commentary, spiced up with a bucket load of razzmatazz…have people handing out fliers…have a big prize giving with class prizes…have a core of Elite attracted to run all the series…have a sponsor so that Joe Public who is there could take part for free (e.g. get a printer in each city to sponsor it)…have a few lazy reporters roll out of their office to report on it in the local/or potentially national press…have a web-site address prominent on posters…have some smaller races in the city to follow up the big one…have it on a hot day!

Big amounts of work maybe? But maybe not? Some races like this are already set up, and it would be good to fully utilise the good areas in central city locations like Edinburgh – Princes Street Gardens, York – City Centre, London - Battersea Park, Milton Keynes – err maybe not…or maybe it would be good to centre them in places close to where big races, such as the JK, will take place shortly after, so as to kick start media interest.

Sprint racing has definitely not taken off in the UK, most probably because the vast majority of the orienteering community hasn’t tried it, but it truly is a first-rate discipline of Orienteering that is not exploited enough in this country!

[Drew]

i think this is a good idea, but i think quality of field in the elites etc so linking to bigger competitions would certainly be the best route of attack probably. Perhaps a uk sprint league or somesort.

-drew

[RFM]

I was asked to host the Mayor of Wandsworth for the afternoon on Sunday (the park is in her patch). She was somewhat bombarded by facts, waved a flag enthusiastically at GB runners and was pleased to present prizes to the winners. However, I got the sense that what really excited her was the number of young people taking part and the potential for orienteering as a family fun activity. She thought the word 'sport' was a turn-off for many.

We went walk-about through the park so she could press flesh with the locals. Unfortunately most of those we met seemed to be from out of the Borough. One gentleman made a point of coming over to complain about the event being held on a Bank Holiday as it was potentially dangerous whilst others though it was great entertainment and the kids wanted a go. I agree there was perhaps not enough to explain what was going on.

On Friday evening I also spoke with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Director of Sport and Director of Estates at the University of Surrey, all of whom were impressed by the use of the grounds for an elite event with its opportunity for public participation.

Finally, I'd like to congratulate Tim Pugh and his enormous team of voluteer helpers for what seemed to me to be a higly effectively-organised World Cup. I hope the competitors and other spectators thought the same.

Ranald (BOF, Vice-Chair)

[Guest]

Hi

I was at the first 4 days of the World Cup, I thought Battersea was espicallly good. Lots of young people in the YOF and most of the people in the park seemed fairly interested. But I have a couple of suggestions for improvement:

1) Make it free for novices- I'm sure experienced competitors wouldn't mind paying £1 extra if it meant new people got introduced to the sport.

2) Have people wondering round the park, giving out leaflets + info and offering to escort people back to the start, show them how to enter + dib + read a map and maybe even go with them to the first control.

3) Have much more basic flyers etc to hand out, all we had to hand out were GB team squad info booklets, which were good, but weren't ideal for new orienteers. How about a flyer with club contact details, upcoming events etc?

I don't mean to complain about the WC because I thought it was done well, but perhaps whoever is planning the next big event will want some ideas (and who knows, he/she might be reading this board?)

BTW Surrey was definetly more technical than battersea, but battersea was still fun, I guess mostly because of the atmosphere more than the orienteering.

[distracted]

The World Cup as a whole was very well organised, and it was obvious a lot of effort had been put into it. Congratulations to all those involved for putting on a great spectacle.

However, and I'm sorry to put a slight downer on things here, I'd be inclined to say that the Battersea Park event could have done a bit more to promote the sport. I approached the park from the NE corner and the first I knew of the orienteering was when I saw Jenny W run through a control on the top of a hill. I don't know what it was like from other directions, but there seemed to be an assumption that people would be coming from Guildford for all of the events - not necessarily the case. The atmosphere within the stadium was great, but if you weren't in there then there didn't seem to be much advertising-wise around. It wouldn't have taken much to put a big banner on all of the entrances promoting the event, would it? It is the World Cup, after all. And as Guest suggested, have people handing out flyers, not just wandering around but at gates which people have to walk through. Pin directions on trees to the stadium where all the action was going on etc. Unfortunately it all seemed a bit too inclusive again.

[The Loofa]

Ok - as Race Director at Battersea, I'd better get my 2p s worth in.

You are all right in the we missed a trick with the leaflets-to-passers-by approach. In defence I will say that relations with the park had been tricky. In the space of a year we had gone from their being surprised that orienteers actually ran through lots of hassle on health and safety, risk assessments etc, to a point a few weeks before the race when I was told that the proposed event looked too big and dangerous for the Park on a Bank holiday. So I was on a bit of a tightrope, and leafleting the place could have been seen as OTT

The Squad profile booklet was intended as a handout (the inside back page has local club and event details), but due to a communication ****-up the only ones handing it out were Scoopy and Snoopy, who were at least getting mobbed for them.

Speaking of those 2 dogs, I am really grateful to the two inside for taking it on. I'll protect their real identities for now - just to say they are available for weddings, barmitsphas etc for a fee.

Disappointed that none of you nopesport types took up my challenge last week to wear the costumes yourselves. I thought I'd find a few up for it - all too busy chained to the screen and keyboard I suppose.

I was really pleased with the atmosphere and a lot of that was due to the YOF.

Of course the Surrey Uni qualifier was more technical than the Battersea final. Those of us on the inside have always known that, but it wasn't the point - or indeed the point of having the World Cup in the south-east in the first place. However the Swedish coach (former British coach) did approach me to tell me he thought the technicality at battersea was quite good enough.

More sprint races? Absolutely. But how? No-one is going to travel far just for a sprint race; so some link through the UK Cup series is needed or just go for local series only.

Milton Keynes could have loads going on. I did a long O there 10 years ago. 24+km of TD3 o'ing - it was majic. many new towns would make good venues - (Bracknell, Stevenage, Cumbernauld) as the way they are built - traffic free cycle lanes etc - would suit urban o'ing.

Finally, a bit of "wet blanket" thought on mapping. Our controlling/technical people went to hell and back to get the maps of Surrey and Battersea up to scratch and so anyone planning an large-sclae urban O race needs to marry up their intended race plan with the quality of map used. I'd be interested to hear how the sprint races mentioned earlier in this thread did their mapping.

OK - so that was more than 2p s worth. Bye for now

The Loofa

[Becks]

I had thought before setting off to Battersea that perhaps the technicality wouldn't be up for it and was proved wrong. It was obviously less tricky than the campus but I still made small errors and many others did too. Very enjoyable. Health and safety was a nightmare with our Oxford Street Race (just about to have a rescheduled date sorted in the next week by the way) so I appreciate what Loofa's saying here.

I'm informed Ralph Street was the one vaulting over fences in athletic styles - nice one Ralph!

Fingers crossed some of my YOFfers turn up to TVOC's event on Wednesday - e mails went out last night.

[Guest]

Milton Keynes – err maybe not…

So I guess that you won't be coming to the British Sprint Champs next year, then?

[graeme]

I'd be interested to hear how the sprint races mentioned earlier in this thread did their mapping.

Badly, and for free (i.e. as well as I could but I'm not very good at mapping).
At KB I started with a campus map of the buildings and roads only, made the decision as to what to leave off (contours, steps) and what was essential
(hedges). Then there's too much black - uncrossable thin building walkways look the same as roads - so I lowered the threshhold for putting on the black.
Uncrossable walls and fences really are: so I thickened and emphasised the symbols.
Then I planned the course. Then I ran it, and all the reasonable options (the good thing about sprints is you can actually do this), looking very hard for ambiguities or unfairnesses. Then I remapped the corridor of the course. (then some building work appeared so repeat above...)

On other areas I've used white for OOB impassible. The guidelines may say olive green, but the spirit of O-mapping (IMO), is clarity and so most of the map should be white (e.g. on totally open areas with the odd thicket).

This for a much lower-key event than WC, but some principles remain:

1) You have to decide what to leave off and put on. this varies from area to area, and the criterion should be helping to make route choices possible.
In particular, impassible fences, walls, hedges etc. are

2) You have to iterate the OCAD once you have the courses.

Yes, I know that's not how its meant to work. But I've been involved with mapping at two WOCs and that's how it worked in practice. Leaving each new organiser to find that out for themselves can't be helpful.


Graeme

[harry]

Rocky and I are trying (not very hard yet) to get a Spint series in the central belt of scotland off the ground. It won't happen this year - too many pre-existing fixtures to fit around but next year with ideally about 5 stages with a mixture of the different kinds of sprint races. a potential programme could look like this;

Glasgow - park sprint eg. Kelvingrove
Edinburgh - urban sprint eg. Kings Buildings
Stirling - forest sprint
Glasgow - park/wood sprint eg. Rouken Glen
Edinburgh Princes Street Gardens Grand Final

It will take a bit of talking to the different clubs/finding suitable dates/trying to get sponsoship for prizes/trying to get maps updated to ISSOM etc but I think it will be good I'll get onto it soon and make it happen for 2006.

Mr pyrat and I found a cool sprint are on Skye last weekend, Dumvegan Castle. Is it sad when you look round somewhere and just think, this would be fun for a sprint-o? Anyone fancy going and mapping it? - I'll talk to the PWT guys...

[FatBoy]

This for a much lower-key event than WC, but some principles remain:

1) You have to decide what to leave off and put on. this varies from area to area, and the criterion should be helping to make route choices possible.
In particular, impassible fences, walls, hedges etc. are

2) You have to iterate the OCAD once you have the courses.

Yes, I know that's not how its meant to work. But I've been involved with mapping at two WOCs and that's how it worked in practice.

I think this is the way it should work for any map.

Any area even the most ridiculously featureless area will have something you'd like to map but there's just not space. Anybody who's done mapping will realise just how little space there is on a 1:15,000 map and yet when you run with it it's fine.

I also think the purist view that the map should be perfect for any course is not realistic, in part due to the previous point! In the old days if an area of the map is a bit peculiar from one direction you'd either wing it or more correctly not use that control. Now you just fix it! A good example of this is perhaps night-o. Things look very different in the night and things on the map that are fine for day-o sometimes need tweaking a little. The only people who will find this before the competitors do are the planner and controller. Sutble things like changing a small path to an indistinct path make a massive difference at night.

[Blanka]

Milton Keynes could have loads going on.

I gather that the British Sprint Champs are due to be in a park in Milton Keynes next year.

[PorkyFatBoy]

Somewhere in the "ideas I'll never get past the committee" is a plan for park racing in Suffolk - Ipswich and Bury St Ed's somehow linked into some public event as the culmination of some schools events. We're probably talking 2007 at the earliest.

On Joykok's idea - why can't we think this big and make it happen (apart from the overcrowded fixtures calendar)? What we need is some sponsorship from a big organisation to help with costs and getting some decent prizes/prizemoney to entice the "names" to turn up, and some TV exposure (preferably terrestrial) so that the sposnsor(s) get their bang for their buck.

It also needs pre-and post-event events organised by local clubs to maximise the benefit.

Harry & Pyrat - you're very welcome to flydown to Stansted for a leg in Ipswich if you like - the Christchurch Park map even has contours on it

[Guest]

What we need is some sponsorship from a big organisation to help with costs and getting some decent prizes/prizemoney to entice the "names" to turn up, and some TV exposure (preferably terrestrial) so that the sposnsor(s) get their bang for their buck.

:

Ref Trophies topic. Drew says we don't compete for what the prize is so this shouldn't be necessary. We just need the event to have 'cred'