Scottish Champs

[andy]

I can't think of any other country that would do that with an elite class at a National Champs.

Well, technically it's a regional champs, not a national champs. BOC is our national champs.

But if you read the seeding and selection guidelines (I was bored before the British Middle and did so) they have actually followed them for the Scottish.

-------------warning - extreme o-geeking below this line-------------

The main points from it:

A 'seeded block' shouldn't generally be used. (2.3)
Seeding is where (seeded) competitors should not start close together (minimum is 4 mins) (2.1.2) - most of the guidelines are aimed at reducing following rather than producing an exciting finish.
Runners should be allocated their requested time slots (early/middle/late) (2.2.1)
Start times should be allocated randomly (2.2.2-ii)

http://britishorienteering.org.uk/downl ... ection.pdf

I can't fault the Scottish start list given the guidelines

[Patrick]

Becks, the Scottish has traditionally been equivalent to the English Regional Championships (Northern, Midland, Southern). More recently, it has had National Event status, as opposed to Championship. As far as I know, events of these type have never been required to have a seeded start list, for elites or anyone else. Indeed, these days most National Events don't seem to have an elite course. Considering the number of elites that bother turning out for the Scottish, I could understand if future organisers decided that planning elite courses was more hassle than it's worth, especially if the competitors involved spend so much time complaining!

Cheers,

Patrick

[Becks]

But that's my whole point! If you're going halfway with the elite, why not go the full way and do the start lists etc etc. What we have is a glorified long race, and numbers of competitors being split between two courses which are only 700m different in length. Is that 700m really what raises the course to from "long" to "elite?" I don't see how it can be. But having a properly ranked start list with correctly timed intervals would at least help raise the level of competition towards that "elite" standard. Put us four minutes apart, rank us, and get a sense of racing in there. It's a small field at the weekend, but a really good one, with some cracking vets and young stars running up. I'm not talking about guidelines, I'm talking about a better racing atmosphere, which is the whole reason for entering an elite course.

[Patrick]

Hmmm...I think you're being a bit melodramatic here. The fact that you've got a top quality area - a large chunk of which is brand new - and a course which has been planned specifically for the requirements of your class ought to have a lot more bearing on the "eliteness" of a race than whether you happen to start four or eight minutes in front of the next person. Do you really only feel you're racing if there's someone immediately in front of or behind you?

As a side note, I think it's probably good practice for our elites to not be seeded every now and then. I suspect some of them get quite used to always starting last with the same old faces around them, and get something of a shock when they're dumped in the unseeded block in an international race.

Finally, I'm glad you think there's a good field this year in W21E. Bear in mind, though, that last year there were four(!!) starters on W21E. Even with a mass start you'd be hard pushed to get much of a racing atmosphere out of that!

See you tomorrow,

Patrick

[Becks]

Having "raced" the entire JK Classic (aside from the last 700m) and the British Champs classic completely alone, at the British without a ghost's chance of seeing anyone due to folks not running etc, I have to say that yes, it does make a difference. Probably a failure of my own particular approach this year (lacking!), but yes, nonetheless it makes a difference!

[graeme]

So here's the history, and what to do if you don't like it...

When I last reviewed the Scottish Champs, there were two strong opinions of what it should be.

1/ That it was our National Championship, and the main point was to find Scottish Champions.

2/ That it was the "third major" - a top UK classic race, compensating for the fact that JK/BOC only comes to the country with the best terrain once a decade.

Both approaches have merit (actually there's a third - "you all take yourselves too seriously and BOF/SOA has no right telling clubs what to do"). I argued for the second, but the Executive went for the first option (with much fun and games leading to the weird recursive definition of a Scot, but I digress)..

In rewriting the guideline I considered seeding, but at that stage the old "third major" view meant the Scottish was part of the UK cup, and a National Event and I was told in no uncertain terms by the BOFocracy that seeding in National Events/Uk Cup was none of our business. Which was a relief for me as SOAs perferred option 1/ clearly implied separate start blocks for Scots and non-Scots, which would have caused a fuss.

Anyway, I'm not competitions convenor anymore. If there's anything you don't like about the competition, there's a feedback form on the SOA website where you can post directly to Phil Smith.

See you tomorrow!

[Mrs H]

BOFocracy !

[Wendles]

Does anyone have any results from yesterday?

[greywolf]

Does anyone have any results from yesterday?

can't find them and its not clear where they'll be...

i had a really enjoyable weekend (once i stopped getting lost in the conifer block) : great area & map, good courses, glorious weather - thanks to all concerned

to pick up a theme from another thread, at yesterday's prizegiving the first 3 on S courses were announced, but not awarded prizes - which seemed fair to me

however, i don't think the balance was right at todays relays, where (unless i'm mistaken) there were prizes for the first 3 teams in both men's and women's open races, which weren't exactly oversubscribed... and then just one prize for the winners of the handicap race - which was c. 80% of the teams (not counting juniors)

[andy]

Does anyone have any results from yesterday?

nobody could get a connection after the event yesterday, as soon as PaulF or SIMan get home they will go up (both days) - I don't have a set of results to upload unfortunately

Relay results might need some slight amending but we're almost 100% sure the top 3 are correct in each class. things didn't go quite to plan today, but we got there in the end

[Paul Frost]

Provisional results now available on the SOA website.

Apologies for late publishing of the results but there wasn’t a good enough signal to upload from the field.

The full results should be available later Sunday evening.

RouteGadget for the Individual
There will not be a RouteGadget for the Relay, as getting the data in the right format is still causing us a problem.

[Spookster]

Great event, great weather, very enjoyable (despite missing a control in the individual and getting myself disqualified). I look forward to running at Tullochroisk again.

But, what went wrong with the relay gaffling? Many teams had runners who were getting disqualified on finishing for apparently having run the wrong gaffle. Although those problems have now been corrected in the results, it also appears that different teams in the same category didn't necessarily run the same distance/courses?

E.g. on Mens Open
SYO1: AAA, BBB, CCC.
EUOC: CCC, CBA, AAA.

So unless BBB was the same course as CBA (which it wasn't), they've run slightly different races. Gaffling isn't supposed to be like that...

[andy]

But, what went wrong with the relay gaffling? Many teams had runners who were getting disqualified on finishing for apparently having run the wrong gaffle.

That was a mix-up in the changing of teams / adding new teams.

There was no record of what map (in its bag by this point) had what gaffle(s) so the person doing the team-assigning just assigned what course they were running (course A,B,C etc) and we (comptuer team) had no record of what runner had run which gaffle. The only thing we had to go on was a combination of what they had punched (!) or what map they had run on. This is why the prizegiving was delayed as SIMan and myself (after my run anyway) were sat in the computer tent fixing it all manually.

As far as the unorthodox gaffle naming scheme goes, apparently the courses / distances run by each team were equal, but the naming scheme was a bit odd. The assured us it was correct but it wasn't the most succint to follow. I can't explain much better than that I'm afraid as I didn't have anything to do with inputting the gaffles into the software, you'd have to ask the planner!

[greywolf]

Much as I enjoyed running the relay, it's only now, geeking through the results, that I realise what a good race it was - 80 teams started, maybe not the close finish of last year, but at the last change there were maybe a dozen teams in contention, from 10 different clubs, involving runners from M16 to W60, and the eventual top 3 were 4th, 9th and 10th respectively...not that anyone would have known at the time...

The Handicap system is excellent - allowing competition between all ages, and between the big and little clubs - so why don't we make the most of it? Next year can we have some commentary, and a bit of atmosphere please? (a few prizes wouldn't go amiss either )

[andy]

Next year can we have some commentary, and a bit of atmosphere please?

There was going to be commentary but some of the kit (amp) didn't quite make it to the event :/