Trail-O in Focus

[Adventure Racer]

but I don't think the two competition areas should overlap.... runners shouldn't run through the Trail-O control setup.

Absolutely. JK 94 (?) mid course I remember being freaked out somewhat coming into this block of forest to see 5 controls in close proximity!

Good bit of early Micro-O practice?

[FatBoy]

Perhaps. I took the ignore all of them option and proceeded another 80m to the correct control

[awk]

In one of his earlier postings, AWK talked about the lack of route choice in Trail-O. Whilst often in the UK, Trail-O courses seem to go up one side of a long flat ride and back down the other side, courses on the continent often give a certain amount of route choice along suitable paths between clusters of controls.which certainly adds to the interest of the course.

Interesting. Is the route choice included as part of the competition, e.g. timed in some way?

[kedge]

No, the only time element in Trail-O, other than that at the timed controls, is the time limit for completing the course, usually two or two & a half hours depending on the length of the course.

[Jon Brooke]

Talk about an

exercise in nitpicking

I don't know about trail-O, but this discussion certainly is. Is Awk short for Awkward?

If you don't want to do trail-O, fine, if you thought that the Focus article wasn't so great, fine. But why don't you get off your high horse about telling people what they can and can't enjoy. What elitist claptrap.

One of the things I love about orienteering is its inclusivity. Plenty of people (maybe the majority?) aren't "racing" when they go orienteering at the weekend - they are doing exactly what kedge is talking about, setting themselves a mental challenge, but having a bit of a walk in the woods while they are doing it, they just happen to be mobile enough not to need wheelchairs. What are you going to do, ban them, or just stop them from claiming to be orienteers?

I don't suppose my 2 year old daughter was racing when she did her first string course the other day either - so should she not be allowed to tell her friends that she had been orienteering?

Score events - is that "racing"? Where does one draw the line?

The other day I was at an event where competitors were radio orienteering. I don't really know what that is and I'm not really that interested, but I wouldn't tell them that they couldn't call themselves orienteers. Instead of wasting your time trying to decide who should be allowed into the sport, why not just let people decide for themselves if they are orienteers.

As for you Nemo, quite how you get this I just don't understand:

I think trail O as presently constituted is little more than a sop to political correctness and is actually insulting to the competitive foot racing sport and to wheelchair athletes.

Are you really sure you that's what you meant to say? Does that mean that you think anyone who takes part in trail-O is actually insulting regular O competitors and wheelchair athletes? Or are they just misguided?Either way your attitude is pathetic.

[Guest]

If you don't want to do trail-O, fine, if you thought that the Focus article wasn't so great, fine. But why don't you get off your high horse about telling people what they can and can't enjoy. What elitist claptrap.

My son did orienteering in PE recently. It involved the class running round the playground looking for hidden items. No map, no compass, no clues - purely a treasure hunt. Given that the kids probably enjoyed themselves, presumably the previous poster would consider it pathetic and elitist to suggest to the school that this wasn't really orienteering and it would be somewhat fruadulent to tick the box claiming to have exposed the children to orienteering. The line does have to be drawn somewhere and this forum was producing some interesting discussions about where it could be.

[Kitch]

if this is about definition.

orienteering is called orienteering
To my mind this is because it is a combination of navigation and a timed race, it is distinct from navigation and is not called navigation.
The earlier point about navigation is a good one, navigation involves the use of landmarks (or the skies) to determine a route to somewhere else. In some cases navigation can involve the use of a map. When navigating using a map skill is required to interprate the map and relate it to the ground, it is this skill that is tested by Trail-O.

So Trail-O tests an element of navigation, and navigation is an element of orienteering.

Equally though racing is an element of orienteering; running is an element of foot-O, cross country tests running. Is cross country a form of orienteering ?

I think Trail-O is different from orienteering.

Fun-running is different from athletics, but everyone out there knows that.
The general public doesn't know much atall about orienteering and I guess some of the people on this forum who love the sport passionately don't want potential orienteers out there to ignore the sport because of a misconception gained from anywhere - from treasure hunting round a school playground, to something at an outdoor centre, to Trail-O. All are fun, but they are not the same thing.

[Jon Brooke]

I think you have managed to almost completely miss my point "Guest".

You seem to be trying to associate my comments about a specific set of circumstances with a completely different set of circumstances. If you presume that my comments about one apply to the other, then you presume wrong.

I said that it was elitist to say that competitors in trail-O were in some way not orienteers, and furthermore that to say that their taking part in trail-O was insulting to elite orienteers and wheelchair athletes was pathetic.

That is exactly what I said and what I meant.

If you really want to know what I think about your son's playground experiences, here are my thoughts, given my limited knowledge about the circumstances:

I'm glad they enjoyed running around the playground.

I'm glad they associate the word orienteering with having a good time.

It's a pity the teacher in charge wasn't a bit more informed about the sport.

Why don't you go in and help them organise a better orienteering lesson?

[Darley]

No-one was saying what people can or cannot enjoy, just pointing out that the public perception of the sport is a BIG problem.

I think that you need to have the perception of a race element if you want to attract new younger orienteers.
Need to change the public's mental picture of someone standing still holding a compass and studying a map to one of someone running fast with a map.

[Nemo]

Regarding Jon Brooke's comments.

I'm not against anyone enjoying any form of activity they like, and I don't want anyone banned from anything.

My difficulty is with trail O's Paralympic status illusions, and that this could be damaging to 'real' orienteering's image. Orienteering is already widely misunderstood by the ill-informed public at large and 'hyping' trail O could consolidate misconceptions.

My use of the word insulting was probably ill-chosen and I withdraw it.

[Jon Brooke]

Worrying about 'real orienteering' becoming lost in the maelstrom of publicity that trail-o is likely to get is like worrying about choosing the right tie when you're not wearing any trousers.

Get real.

[Mrs H.]

I'm luvin' this debate folks - keep it coming!

[Nemo]

Worrying about 'real orienteering' becoming lost in the maelstrom of publicity that trail-o is likely to get is like worrying about choosing the right tie when you're not wearing any trousers.

Get real.

Trail O has high visibility on both BOF and IOF websites (potentially accessible to 6 billion people?)and is significantly given equal prominence to Foot Orienteering, Ski Orienteering and Mountain Bike Orienteering. Should it be compared equally with these sports it bears little resemblance to?

[mharky]

Orienteering means navigation.

The sport we do is called orienteering Race, or Orientering Löpning, OL...

[kedge]

Fascinating how this debate has re-kindled.

All this discussion on Nopesport,

and probably just because 'Focus' missed outthe first paragraph of Brian Parker's article, thus making if fairly incomprehensible!

Nemo said

My difficulty is with trail O's Paralympic status illusions, and that this could be damaging to 'real' orienteering's image. Orienteering is already widely misunderstood by the ill-informed public at large and 'hyping' trail O could consolidate misconceptions.

I'm not sure about how likely Trail-O is to get Paralympic status. On the other hand, if it was included, in say London in 2012, might it not raise not only the public awareness of the sport, but also the amount of competitive Trail-O in the country beforehand, which would be no bad thing.

If Trail-O made the paralympics, there is also the likelhood that every control on the course would be a timed control, rather than just a couple. Will we then have controversy about how the purity of the sport was being distorted for TV, just as we have had when Sprint-O was introduced to the World Foot-O Champs. This debate could run & run - I wish I could!