WOC Classic Q

[Gross]

20.7 A competitor with a control punch missing or unidentifiable shall not be placed
unless it can be established with certainty that the punch missing or unidentifiable is
not the competitor’s fault. In this exceptional circumstance, other evidence may be
used to prove that the competitor visited the control, such as evidence from control
officials or cameras or read-out from the control unit. In all other circumstances, such
evidence is not acceptable and the competitor must be disqualified. In the case of
SportIdent, this rule means that:
• If one unit is not working, a competitor must use the backup provided and will
be disqualified if no punch is recorded
• If a competitor punches too fast and fails to receive the feedback signals, the card
will not contain the punch and the competitor must be disqualified (even though
the control unit may have recorded the competitor’s card number)


The rule above would suggest that the jury was correct. It would be impossible to prove with certainty that Oli heard the bleep. Everyone can believe him 100% but to prove that is impossible. Therefore using the control unit is not possible & the runner must be dq'd as the rules stand. The jury made the correct decision - it's job is to uphold the rules and not to judge wether the rules are fair or not... but it's still naff

[Kitch]

I tend to disagree with that interpretation of the rules.

Oli has a time on his card - but no code
That shows that in some way the control unit (any control unit be it the right one or the wrong one) or his card has malfunctioed in some way.
The assumtion is - slow enough punching you get full registration
too fast punching - you get nothing.
Oli has something
therefore something is amiss

the evidence suggests that something technical
i.e. not the competitor's fault
has gone wrong

and that should justify interrogating the control unit

[Ed]

I'd disagree with your analysis, Gross.

From my understanding (and I'm not an expert on this), if the punch is recorded in the unit but not to the card due to the card being withdrawn too soon then there will be an error code stored in the unit: therefore to be absolutely sure that the no-punch was caused by withdrawing the SI card too quickly then this information would have to be checked. Otherwise, you can assume that it was from punching too quickly but it isn't proved. Unless the organisers/jury have done this then they haven't ruled out a technical failure (i.e. they haven't established with certainty that the punch missing or unidentifiable is not the competitors fault).

[Toni]

Kitch - I wasn't actually being sarcastic... (and I don't think you were either - it sounded like a hot headed reaction to the %^&~*)

And so the time was on Oli's card not just on the radio control? If so I personally think the jury were wrong... this sort of precedent has not been before them before in my knowledge.

[Gross]

Disagree guys.... you can't establish with 100% certainty that it was not Oli's fault (I'm not suggesting it was his fault at all) and unless you can establish with 100% certainty that it wasn't Oli's fault then you can't interogate the unit. Oli can say he heard the bleep... but he can't prove it 100%.

This is one of the areas looked at in some detail at IOF clinics and the Event Advisers are told again & again that thier job is to ensure the rules are followed & not to put their own slant on things....

So Oli should be dq'd.... but the rules are naff & in future for WOC etc it should be allowed to check the data on the box....

And it's still naff that he got dq'd coz of some crappy technical screwup when WOC is being promoted as the most technologically advanced WOC ever

[Kitch]

Toni

I was being sarcastic...

[Kitch]

Two things

One. the rule is stupid,
As Gross says you can't be certain it is not the competitors fault so you might as well stop after that the rest of the wording is pointless.

Two.
Any idiot can enforce the rules. Surely the jury should be there to interpret the rules - particularly the crap rules - and ensure fair play.

"nothing to do with me gov. its in the rules" is just rubbish and if that is all the jury are prepared to do then they should be sacked and required to pay back the cost of their WOC junket flights and accommodation.

[FatBoy]

From my understanding (and I'm not an expert on this), if the punch is recorded in the unit but not to the card due to the card being withdrawn too soon then there will be an error code stored in the unit:

No. The only time you get an "error" code is when the card is removed so early only the card number has been written to the unit - but this isn't really an error code either - just an area of memory that is in it's primed but unwritten state.

The basic punching process is (as far as my tests can work out):

1) Write card number to station
2) Write time to station
3) Write station number and time to card
4) Send acknowledgement (beep/flash)

They are the only 4 steps I can percieve. There must be another step somewhere to increment the memory pointer, but as I've never managed to get a blank or erroneous card number this must happen after the card number has been written. It would therefore seem logical that the card number and time are written to the station in 2 steps deliberately (otherwise you'd move the memory pointer after doing both).

If it turns out that step 3 is in fact two steps - one to write the time and one to write the station number then that would explain the situation. However if it were two steps then it would be more consistent to write the time after the station code, and this would also be safest as the order of punches on the card shows they have been visited in the correct order, regardless of the times on them. However as I said before I've never seen a punch on a card half written. There is also a memory pointer on the card and I would guess this is only updated the once therefore never showing half written cards.

I've no idea what validation of card writes goes on. There's a certain amount of pre-checks done like checking the CRC of certain parts of memory on the card.

I think it's fair to say the rules are a bit silly not allowing the backup punch in the station to be used, but I would also say something has failed outside of the competitor's knowledge and the competitor shouldn't be penalised.

We don't want a ridiculous situation where competitors start always using the pin punch because they don't trust the hardware, particularly when the hardware manufacturer (who do need to sort whatever caused this out), provide their own electronic backup.

I don't think a radio control should take longer to register, but the older stations do take a bit longer and I guess many of the radio controls used will be older stations.

[Neil M35]

From my understanding (and I'm not an expert on this)

And neither am I.

From my understanding so far, the control unit will contain information on whether or not the transaction was completed. The only way to prove whether or not the transaction was completed (so Oli would hear a beep) would be to interrogate the control unit. But he is not allowed to interrogate the control unit until he has proved that he heard the beep.

That's a great rule

Woops crossed over with Fatboys post. Now I'm just confused.

[housewife]

In an international race such as WOC or a World cup race, even in a qualifier, there are very limited amount of controls out in the forest. I can't see it taking too much time or effort for an organiser to interrogate the one or two units which a competitor claims to have punched where no punch is registered. For the oringen or 10 mila, where there are hundreds of competitors and hundreds of controls, fair enough, but this is WOC. Think of that compared to the effort Oli has made to train for this specific long race over the last year. It seems the IOF is being shockingly lazy by writing that rule into the rule book. It is not as if you could ever say an athlete punched too quickly on purpose to save time - no sane person would risk it.

I was disqualified at a PWT race for punching too quickly. The nice organisers had read the unit and reinstated me within about 10 mins of the race finishing.

[Gross]

I was disqualified at a PWT race for punching too quickly. The nice organisers had read the unit and reinstated me within about 10 mins of the race finishing.

But PWT are nice people & will act in fairness to the competitor....... now if only they hadn't fallen out with the IOF............

[Ed]

From my understanding (and I'm not an expert on this), if the punch is recorded in the unit but not to the card due to the card being withdrawn too soon then there will be an error code stored in the unit:

No. The only time you get an "error" code is when the card is removed so early only the card number has been written to the unit - but this isn't really an error code either - just an area of memory that is in it's primed but unwritten state.

In which case what are the codes ErrA..ErrD being referred to in this post (in German)?

rough translation of the important bits of the post:
he didn't have too many punches but a good punch then a big gap and then good punches until the finish.
In the SI-Boxes 110 and 54 he was recorded with a full punch (no, not a ErrA - ErrD, but correct).
On Saturday he had, and admitted to, a normal mispunch, but said he had in earlier races this problem with the unrecorded punch

OK, it's a different circumstance in that this one was caused by an SI card that was later found out to be dodgy, but from this post (and the guy who posted it seems to know what he's on about on most of his posts, quite apart from being a real pedant) I'd conclude that there are four possible error codes recorded in an SI box when a punch is not correctly completed.

[Adventure Racer]

From my understanding so far, the control unit will contain information on whether or not the transaction was completed.

Does it contain information on the fact that it has completed and beeped, or just the initial recording that is made at the start of the transaction? If it does record that it's beeped, then it seems that it is within the rules to interrogate the box for this information. If not, then this feature should really be added to the boxes - though we have a bit of a chicken and egg situation, as there is no incentive to add this if the rules don't allow you to use it.

It is not as if you could ever say an athlete punched too quickly on purpose to save time - no sane person would risk it.

Not with a V6 card, no. Does make me think though - presumably the rules were drawn up before V6 cards when it was a lot easier to mispunch (and more incentive to try and punch too fast to keep a good control flow). Given the far decreased likelihood of this with V6 cards, maybe there is a case for revisiting the rules, at least for major competitions (I still think it's not unreasonable for organisors not to have to retrieve boxes to resolve queries at lower level events).

[FatBoy]

In which case what are the codes ErrA..ErrD being referred to

Good question - the documentation does mention the error code being passed (instead of the time), but no mention of what the error codes are (typical of the documentation actually). My assumption was (which may be incorrect) is that the byte where the high time value OR error code is written is primed to a value before the write (ErrD seems to be the one to me), but once the time is written over this there is no error. Of course the error code isn't passed as a nice friendly ErrD but actually 0xFD - which you can only tell is an error because it would result in a time > 12 hrs. No mention of how to tell this in the docs either.

I remember my testing as being able to write the station correctly but the card knowing nothing, but then again that wasn't what I was actually testing for so I may have misremembered. I've just tried doing some more testing but it's difficult with the kit I've got here at the moment. I couldn't get it to register a time on the station but not on the card, and I got at least one ErrC (all others were ErrD though as I remember). I'm prepared to be corrected on the station knowing if it thought the transaction was successful - this could be the key to this case although we're still a jury with no power. However I stand by saying I've never seen a half written card, nor do I think it should be possible, so this alone should be enough to use the backup data?

[Gross]

then it seems that it is within the rules to interrogate the box for this information..

The rules do not allow you to read the info on the control unit unless you have certainty that the athlete was not at fault. You cannot read the control unit to establish if the athlete was at fault or not.