Scottish Relays

[Spartan]

I'd like to go back to Graeme's original question and to put the case for keeping the relay trophies open and winnable by all-comers, regardless of nationality. In fact, I'd argue that this should also be the case for the individual trophies. I realise that in arguing this as an Englishman I'm in danger of treading on a hornets' nest! In mitigation, one of our children, born in Scotland, would be disadvantaged by what I'm proposing.

Let me illustrate my case with a little family O-history. Sometime back in the early-mid 90s (1994, I think!) two of our boys won the M10 and M13 (as it was then) Scottish Champs individual races at Creag Mhic. At that time the individual trophies were open to all-comers and, though English to the core, both boys were really proud to be proclaimed Scottish Champions. It was the first major trophy that both had won and it was a real incentive for their future participation in O (one went on to qualify for JWOC, the other was selected for several tours). It was so refreshing to have a national champs trophy not restricted to members of that nation, and we regarded it as emblematic of Scottish generosity we have always experienced north of the border.

Sadly, the 'winnable-by-all-comers' rule was changed a year or two later. While we understood the reasons for restricting the individual trophies to Scots, it took the edge off the competition for our lads, and they were never quite as keen to attend the Scottish Champs again. Whilst this might make them sound like pot-hunting trophy-grabbers, at that young age incentives to participate are all-important.

This 'disincentivisation' (sorry for that awful word) was continued when we attended the Scottish Relay Champs in 2000. Not having club teams to run for, three of our children formed themselves into a mixed-sex team for the BOF age 42- relay. To their surprise, they won. But, when it came to the prize-giving, only the second-placed (Scottish) team was called forward, and their victory was not even mentioned. Naturally, they were pretty disappointed - to put it mildly - and have never pressed us to attend the Scottish Champs since.

I'd therefore argue that the Scottish Champs would be a better and even more significant event in the British (and maybe even international) O-calendar if both individual and relay trophies were open to all-comers. OK, the trophies in all the English regional champs are restricted. But, as several people have pointed out, Scotland is not a region but a nation. A better model for the Scottish Champs would be sports like tennis and golf, in which the national Australian, French, U.S. Champs etc. are open championships whose trophies are winnable by competitors from any nationality. I appreciate the need to provide incentives for Scottish competitors, especially at junior level; so maybe there could be an additional prize for the first-placed Scot. But a self-confident, up-and-coming and outward-looking O-nation like Scotland deserves an Open national championship.

[Suzy R Sopham]

I agree with Jethro. My comments weren't meant to be so negative, as I know it is a hard job to keep commentary going without on-the spot results. (I think it took almost a week with EMIT to get the full results, and this isn't helped by your time starting once you go thru' to the waiting pen and collect your map!).
I think the commentary does add to the excitement and possibly a person with a 'walkie-talkie' at the spectator control would have been able to pass more info back. If the assembly area was in an open field then it would have been easier to see competitors and there may have been less emphasis on the comentary. I note that a large number of people watched the spectator control to see their runner coming thru' and then at that point knew they had about 10mins to get into the box and await the handover.

[HOCOLITE]

Re your comments on commentary info.
I supported the commentary team a number of years ago at JK Relays in Wales because they wanted info on juniors, and I had a reasonable Knowledge, the commentators often ask for info to help them but they can't know and recognise all runners particularly if it is one person

[jab]

Yes, of course it should be a fun club competition, and the three youngsters (declared interest here: my son was one of them!) competed without any expectation of winning anything (they didn't) and had fun doing so! They came together at this event because (a) they are very good friends and (b) at least 2 of them are in clubs where there is no opportunity to compete in a remotely competitive junior relay team and (c) none of the had other junior teams to run for. In fact 2 of them are from adjacent clubs, and were competitive with another youngster from an adjacent club last year, but with his unavailability, they invited somebody else who they knew hadn't got a junior team to run for.

But the person who wasn't there this year did have a competitive team to run for last year and at the time the other team members were slightly upset that he chose not to run with them. It was only very slight and it didn't last long as someone else stepped in so they got a proper run and in the end and they actually won a rather splendid trophy even though they were an English Club. All was right with their (very young) worlds. I'm NOT trying to suggest that any damage was done or any resentment harboured, because it definitely wasn't, just saying that I guess the judgement of what is or isn't a competitive team from one's own club can be a very subjective decision

[awk]

I'd agree Jab: the issue is a bit tricky. Juniors naturally want to run with their friends in their immediate peer group, but because of the small numbers of juniors in the sport this can often only be achieved by running across club boundaries. Thus a potential conflict between club loyalty and friendship, a situation which probably wouldn't happen if there were sufficient of each peer group in each club. This is why university orienteering can be so exhilarating: you can combine friendship and club loyalty. To some extent, regional junior squads help this out, but sadly there is currently no opportunity to run in a peer group regional team (JIRC being a combination of 14, 16 and 18 ).

Orienteering is brilliant for the ability to develop a social network beyond one's immediate school/street/village/town, especially with the advent of messaging, texting etc. We need to find ways of enhancing that through the competition structure, especially for those not yet at university.

We also need to find ways to enable more youngsters take part in relays: the British this year saw only 3 W14- teams (2 from UVHS). It's fairly obvious that competition isn't currently working. Finding the right balance between club competition (I do believe that top relays such JK and British should stay as club only) and getting more youngsters to take part is quite a challenge, and I don't have any immediate answers. The aim is surely to ensure there are enough youngsters in clubs to form club peer group teams. It's good to see that the Scots at least are exploring one route to encourage participation - this year none of that team of 3 would have taken part in the Scottish without the team aspect (Rob and Duncan would have certainly not travelled). More discussion is surely needed!