UK Cup Sprint Maps

[mharky]

Do UK cup sprint races have to use ISSOM maps?

[harry]

it appears not, but i think they should if poss.

[graeme]

No, they don't.

Should they? Cui bono?

Not the club holding the event. After the 50 or so UK cup runners are gone, most clubs want a map which they can use for development, and therefore standard O-symbols.
The UK cup won't come back - the event has to stand alone.

Not the majority of competitors - switching standards would be a confusion for most of us in the mid-pack (Although ISSOM is better, you have to get used to it). Moreover to get the area remapped professionally for a one-off event would add 4-5 quid to the entry fee. Not popular (see threads passim ad nauseum...).

The beneficiaries are the current and future international elite, and the issue is whether we should make a map especially for their benefit. There are much larger budgets for these groups than the rest of the sport. For the cost of a training trip we could bring all our domestic races up to international standards. We could even have photogrammetric base maps for BOC and the JK.

Would the various squads regard this as a good investment?

[Ed]

Cui bono?

...

Not the majority of competitors - switching standards would be a confusion for most of us in the mid-pack (Although ISSOM is better, you have to get used to it).

...

The beneficiaries are the current and future international elite, and the issue is whether we should make a map especially for their benefit.

you admit yourself that ISSOM is better (I assume you only mean for typical sprint/park race terrain ) - therefore would not everyone benefit from having their maps using ISSOM. *currently* people aren't used to it, but nor will they ever be if they don't use it regularly - I suspect that if they knew the advantages then they may accept it.

You (ok, I) don't expect to see the same symbol usage on an OS 1:25,000 map as a 1:50,000 map...

[bendover]

agree with ed - okay the immediate beneficiaries are the current elite, but surely there's lots of local schoolkids who are 'potential elite' so why not have them orienteering on an international standard map from the word go?

also existing keen juniors (regional squad members) should be using these maps to prepare them for reality - some of them will be our future world class athletes.

[Kitch]

Also agree for several reasons.

When I was a junior street o was crap - you ran around some estate using a photocopy of some poor effort street plan and had to hunt for the marker on the post box in the wall somewhere in the centre of the circle because the actual feature was not properly mapped.

Sprint O is terrific fun because the detail and specificity of the maps provide for and support pin point choices and navigation.
It is ISSOM that achieves this.

Its exactly equivalent to the old OS photocopies that were used for forest orienteering in the early days - not much good, bit of a lottery.

Better maps mean better races, mean more satisfaction, mean more returns for another go. Hunting round on a poor map puts people off. I and I think everyone enjoys the feeling of mastering a skill when they find a control spot on, poor maps deny you that opportunity.

This all then adds to the thread on Focus about the direction of orienteering.
A major opportunity to expand orienteering numbers and demographic is through 'Urban Orienteering' and quality ISSOM maps will help this tremendously.

Interest people in this way and they will then want to explore forest orienteering, by which time they will know enough to accept a different mapping standard.

[Mrs H.]

You've made out an extremely good case for Urban orienteering - it's not something I would have given much thought to - but it definitely seems a sustainable answer to the Focus point about bringing O to the less privileged without the over-riding problem of getting access to suitable terrain.

I'm not quite clear - what the difference betwen standard O maps and ISSOM means - can you show an example?

[graeme]

There are plenty of maps from PWT, the UK sprint races and Battersea and Surrey, in CompassSport etc. They aren't very different.

The main point (IMO) seems to be to reduce the amount of black on the map (path? building? crags?) and to make it very clear where you aren't allowed to go - e.g. the difference between high fence and "you must not cross this fence". Pavement edges,
curbs etc all become mappable. Bridges, underpasses etc become mappable.

Urban areas are quite hard to reuse - my experience is that on the first visit they offer superb, accessible orienteering, but subsequently you get to know what everything looks like.

I hope all you Edinburgh ISSOM fans will be at Oswald Court next week for the sprint series race on the newly ISSOM'ed map.

http://summer.edinburghsprintseries.co.uk/events.php

[FatBoy]

There's not a massive difference between the two standards, but they're important differences in my opinion. I think somebody who doesn't know the sprint standards can adapt to them easily, but somebody who knows the sprint standard can be caught out with some features mapped the traditional way - e.g. uncrossable walls become very important on sprint maps.

[pyrat]

Moving the sport forward is remapping all urban areas and 1:5000 maps to the ISSOM standard. It describes the areas much better and the rest of the world is also taking it up.

It is part of orienteering now, and not adopting it, for whatever reason, is STUPID.

There is a difference however between consciously not adopting it and not having the time or resources to do so which is what I assume was the case at the weekend. ISSOM would have been nice but you cant have it all.

[Gnitworp]

Urban areas are quite hard to reuse - my experience is that on the first visit they offer superb, accessible orienteering, but subsequently you get to know what everything looks like.

But there is, potentially, a very large number of readily accessible (and relatively easily mapped?) areas, with inevitably high visibility to the casually passing public.
Kids in parks might even think it beats skateboarding . That's if they haven't nicked the markers first