To follow or not to follow

[rocky]

Helen wins this one.

I owe part of my result from Saturday to people following... not me following, but the train of people following GG which provided a good line feature through the tricky bit at the start of the 1:5000 section. Only took me 4 controls from latching on to the back of the train to being at the front, but on each of those legs there was a line of people stretching from one control to the next!

You make your own luck in situations like that. My luck balance was kept by my shoe falling apart then!

[Gross]

Example of Oldman above is 110% cheating. He should contact various organisers & have his results deleted from published resullts & BOF should hold an inquest & strip him of his unfairly earned ioron badge award

[DesignatedDriver]

i haven't voted - cause i don't reckon any of the choices say how i feel about it.

i have orienteered at a few different levels, running with other people and running on my own.

for the first few years i refused to follow anyone. then i got to know some of the other competitors and rather than following as such, we would run round in groups and have a laugh and generally enjoy the course. never had great results - but enjoyed it emmensely.

then i started to take it more competitively and started running on my own again. i did this for another couple of years until a JK some time ago. I had managed a couple of good results in my time, but someone i used to train with had benefited from time in Norway and became an exceptional orienteer. I took the decision, after he caught up 7 mins on the first control, to follow him for the rest of the course.
It was an eye opener to say the least. i found it extremely difficult just to keep up his pace. i quickly gave up looking at the map and concentrated on running. still found it difficult to keep up with him.

I benefited from this. it gave me an idea just how much i needed to improve.

So i have swayed from happily following, to hating it, to doing it for education.

[Mrs H.]

Gordon - you are such a jape!

When I started orienteering I went to a coaching session led by our (then) club coach who is a hugely repsected orienteer who dominates his class at home and holds his own abroad.

One of the things he said (possibly the only thing I actually remember from that day) was to watch people's body language as you approach the general area of your control (people who know where they're going - or are confident coming in from another attack point will behave very differently from someone who is not sure) then of course there is the person "dipping in" and running away from a control.

It's just another example of "using' you fellow competitors to get an advantage.

[Adventure Racer]

What exactly is following anyway? Does it count if the people you're following are people you've caught? I certainly had this on a recent event, where I caught up with a group of runners in front who were spread over a reasonable distance giving me easy lines into controls until I managed to overtake the whole group - very similar to what Rocky describes. What am I supposed to do, ignore the people around me and pretend they're not there? What is the difference between running with other people through a group of controls and just seeing somebody else coming out of your control, which again gives an advantage?

Yes of course it helps, but if it is a problem, it is up to the organisors to resolve with start times rather then the runner having to deliberately take a different (worse) route so as not to follow. Of course this all assumes you are still navigating yourself rather than following DD's tactic of just running

[Gross]

What am I supposed to do,

Same as OldMan... declare yourself to BOF and be done for bringing the sport into direpute..... noping cheats.... spoil the sport for everyone else

PS - becarful how you delare to BOF as well or you might end up being done for unethical communications as well:)

[P2B]

Firstly, Becky, although I've nothing to do with this, I can't believe you were being attacked directly. You've proven yourself many a time before. Don't loose sleep over it!

Secondly, I could have done with some 'following' last weekend. Fluffed a control and was probably only about 30m away, but of course made a decision and turned away from the control. Lost 4 minutes mucking around and then my attention was drawn by a group of runners back where I'd started...dibbing the control... If they'd been there 4 minutes earlier I wouldn't have lost time... would I have been cheating though?

Thirdly, at the same event last weekend my better half was starting 10 minutes behind me on the same course (W21L/M21S). However, in between my start and his, the starter lost 3 minutes, (it was a punching start, so not drastic) resulting in him starting 13 minutes behind me. At one point he'd caught 10 minutes on me, so if he'd started at the correct time, he'd have physically caught me.

Having worked so hard, he then fluffed the next control. Now, if he'd actually physically caught me, I'd have led him straight in to that control as I had a blinder on that one.

Naturally when we realised the loss of 3 minutes at the start, he was not too pleased and there was much joking about him writing a letter of complaint to the organising club.

But, would it have been an unfair advantage to have caught me, or was he disadvantaged by the 3 minute nope-up at the start?

More importantly,am I married to a cheater?!

[Adventure Racer]

...awaits suggestion from Gross to dob yourselves in.

[Gross]

I always thought that we dibbed in orienteering not dobbed

[Adventure Racer]

In equestrian orienteering, I believe it is conventional to "dob in"

[RJ]

The scouts 'dib-dib-dob on'!!!

[Gross]

In equestrian orienteering, I believe it is conventional to "dob in"

Ka?????

[PorkyFatBoy]

Don't quite know what all the fuss is about - just think yourselves lucky that:-

1) if you catch someone, you're able to stay with them, and
2) if someone catches you, your orienteering skill is so good that people want to stay with you

[mat-d]

I can see that both parties have good reasons for and against the "following" but to be honest, if you catch someone up who you assume should have a better result as you or who is going to do well...
You aren't just going keep going on your own when you could potentially do better with the other person!? (i certainly wouldn't!!)

This "following" happens in every relay ever in the world and I personally can't see whta the fuss is...yes you might take different routes, but what happens that you actually chose the same route as the other person for some of the controls...
Are you saying that you should change your planned route just because the other person takes it...?? or not run as fast, just because the other cometitor should be better than you...

NO! you bloody well hang on with all your strength and stay with them!

To conclude...its part and parcel of a relay and you can't do anything about it.

(BUT if the person just threw their map away then i can see this is a problem! - as with contorversy of BUSA 2005... always BUSA to bring this stuff out...)

[John Morris]

There's one (and only one) way to avoid following, intentional or otherwise.

No competitor can be allowed to leave the Start until the previous competitor has been timed through the Finish...