World Cup!

[harry]

The next round of the World Cup kick off tomorrow afternoon at the Norwegian O festivalen! British Orienteering are proud to have earnt 16 start slots (8+8) to all 2008 World Cup rounds thanks to our good positions as 5th (Men) and 6th (Women) nation in the World Rankings (http://www.britishorienteering.org.uk/t ... events.php).

So good luck to the 4 British athletes who will be fighting for medals and World Cup points in Sørmarka tomorrow: Jon Duncan, Scott Fraser, Graham Gristwood, Pippa Whitehouse. It kicks off about 1pm UK time, live results will appear online: http://app.o-festivalen.com/wp/resultat ... h_lang/en/

Also good luck to World Cup silver medallist Matt Crane who will compete in H21E1 for South Yorkshire Orienteers and to all the other British orienteers sampling the challenging terrain at O-festivalen.

[andy]

there are slots available to run and one of the best British orienteers is going and not running in the World Cup? ok...

[Olsoran]

Weather looking good for a cracking weekend.

Webcam and arena speaker access from here>>>

http://app.o-festivalen.com/wp/resultat ... h_lang/en/

[harry]

It's kicked off Test Løper and his sister Test Løper 2 both from Norway have set the bar at 56 minutes for the Men and 59 for the Women, but something tells me it's going to get a lot faster...

[pmats]

Very nicely put Harry !

I would have loved to have seen the conversation between the selectors and Matt (and maybe others).

[rocky]

apparently peely is "setting the bar quite high".

not sure where the WC course went but the area I was in was fantastic, varied, rough, fast, detailed, vague and all in 4.5k. And the thunderstorm managed to find the gap between the World Cup and Open races.

at least Matt (and Dan) got onto Elite 1, Nick M and I had to slug it out on Elite 2. Gutted to miss out on the Chasing start fun tomorrow (only for WC and Elite 1), but 13k of the aforementioned terrain as a solo effort could be a fantastic o experience.

gossip in the field is that JD is running last leg in the relay for Kristiansand OK - he looked a bit shell-shocked at the prospect.

[SJ]

will the small number of athletes going this year mean we have less allocated places in future or are there enough other accessible world ranking events for our athletes to get good WR placings without doing the world cup races?

[harry]

Who knows? I think some people are campaigning to IOF to get WOC changed back to biannual so the World Cup could change again if that goes through. The World Cup programme for next year looks nice with the races spaced further apart and the WOC programme more favourable to people wanting to run several distances.

The GB team management have dramatically changed policy on the World Cups this year. Last year the place allocations were mostly used, by a wide range of athletes, with athletes paying their own way. I wasn't aware of this change in policy but I have been outside the squad this year & I'm sure it must have been communicated/ made clear to members of the squad before they made season plans / flight bookings. ?!

[Gross]

The GB team management have dramatically changed policy on the World Cups this year. Last year the place allocations were mostly used, by a wide range of athletes, with athletes paying their own way. I wasn't aware of this change in policy but I have been outside the squad this year & I'm sure it must have been communicated/ made clear to members of the squad before they made season plans / flight bookings. ?!

From another topic I saw....

"or DP is a great communicator and already had discussions with all elite regarding where they stood in the pecking order, and what they would need to do to change that, and in return each athlete had indicated honestly their aspirations."

[graeme]

The GB team management have dramatically changed policy on the World Cups this year.

I'm an outsider to all this, but even I could see the WC selection policy was badly broken last year. Many people, and not just the WOC regulars who might have higher priorities, simply didn't value their selections and turned them down. The numbers were large enough that one doesn't need to blame/excuse particular individuals to see the trend.

With annual WOCs the WC is the second-rate competition, and I can see that giving the second-string people a chance there is a nice idea . But unless the athletes show pride in being selected for the national team, by making every effort to turn out, the selectors are right to make selection more of an honour by increasing its rarity. The message is clear - if you get a chance, take it, because it may not come round again.

It notable that the organisers didn't rate Nick and Murray good enough for E1, even though they would have got a WC spot on last year's selection policy.

... of course, all credit to all the non-selected for putting themselves on the line on the equally tough open E classes.


PS What happened to Thierry in the butterflys?

[distracted]

PS What happened to Thierry in the butterflys?

He missed one of the "wings" - good to know he's human...

I think the proposal for the World Champs to go back to biennial is a good one - having it every year devalues the title of World Champion. Also, as has been pointed out, it reduces the status of the other international events that are held as the priority for runners/nations is WOC over and above anything else.

[harry]

It wasn't the case for everyone but I know for some of us we were put on the list for a particular World Cup last year when we had already clearly stated that we were not available, and then marked as having "withdrawn".

The international programme for next year looks much more suitable for running the full World Cup programme as well as having a realistic possibility of racing other events such as Jukola or World Games. This year it was virtually impossible to run all the World Cups AND Jukola AND prepare optimally for the World Champs. Next year, for those who can arrange a flexible enough work situation, it could be possible.

Hopefully the powers that be will make things easier time-wise by having the selection races in relevant terrain so it it ties in with a training opportunity. There must be some races in Central Europe at about the right time that would work well.

[DIDSCO]

I think the WOC week with Sprint,Middle,Long,Relay, + qualifiers is well past it's sell by date. The distances should be spit up, with sprint and middle one year, then the long and relay the next. It's a joke that WOC has 4 different disciplines and that a National team must select all runners from a pool of max 7. It's also a shame that many of the best runners can't run all disciplines, often races where they would be clear medal contenders. WOC should be about finding the Worlds best in each event, and the moment it doesn't do that.

[Gross]

As was argued by many of the elite before the decision was made... including most of the GB team if I remember correctly. Also seem to remember that BOF supported the annual concept.... might be wrong though:)