We should discuss what to do against pack building and not discussing individual runners.

Someone mention that co-running/following also affect runner’s ranks already in the Q races which have same effect for some runners. If one athlete is out of Final for some seconds, it is unfair if he/she see in results that not just one, but several runners improve their ranks after they were caught by other runners.

Maybe orienteering could apply in Q races some sort of Q method from Ski-jumping or athletics to minimize affect “following” and give more pressure on tactic. In each Q heat we divide runners in pairs or groups (2-4 runners) on the basis of their WRE ranking position. First vs last, etc. Each group: First start better runner after him weaker runner, etc. It is battle just between them who will go in Final. Only winner go to Final and at the end also some lucky losers based on time of all (2nd placed runners in the group). Start interval between runners 2’ and groups 3-5’ (To prevent cooperating between runners from different groups with minimal effect of time length of Q race).

@Pascal
What could happen in the forest? If the better runner will be caught (error) by a weaker runner, he/she will be forced to run away and not to cooperate if he wants to win the battle against him or he/she must take a risk to go in Final as lucky looser. In case of more runners in Q races organizers could make groups of three or more runners and put event larger pressure on better runners. If weaker runner will start to following and batter runner can’t run away he/she will probably decrease the speed and start waiting for weaker runner to go in front (like cycling). In this way both runners risk to not qualify and third runner take a win in this group.

I agree that some solutions must be found for this problem but not to spoil real orienteering.

I think that when it comes to the situation where a runner is catched by another one and when the split times are starting to be almost the same, then we have an obvious cooperation between them, especially when the punching interval is less than 10-15s for over a half of the race.
I think that you simply can’t ignore your rivals when navigating into the same direction and then being influenced is a logical consequence. And it is simply a fact that navigating and running in groups or simply the eye contact with other athletes leads to a significant gain of speed and precision.

I think that the analysis of Henning Spjelkavik is very significant and, absolutely agreeing with jan kocbach, a developement of separation methods is needed to provide a “fair” competition.

Yes: running in packs gives you unfair advantages, whether you run in the lead or behind it. This should be avoided by minimizing the possiblity for grouping in future races.

No: Disqualifying someone without fool-proof evidence is not going to work. No matter how elaborate the statistical analysis is, one cannot rule out false positives. Now, what is worse: Not punishing the guilty, or mistakenly punishing the innocent? In ‘real’ crimes, the answer is quite obvious.

Don’t forget that when looking at the splits, you only get maybe 30 snapshots of the entire race. What happens between those snapshots can only be guessed. The runners might take different route choices, but still be only a couple of seconds apart at the next control.

So, please stop complaining about ‘who-run-with-who-for-how-long-and-possibly-gained-how-much’ and rather focus on how one can minimize grouping in future.

My view is that it is impossible to know WHO had an advantage due to the grouping evidenced, but that with very high probability SOMEBODY had a significant advantage due to this. There is no strict evidence to the fact that a certain runner does not deserve his/her position, but in my opinion there is enough evidence to show that one should utilize / develop methods which minimize grouping for future championships.

This statement suggests that somehow Tsvetkov receives an unfair advantage over WIngsted, lets consider the mechanics of the two packs.

Tsvetkov catches Efimov and leads into every control (except one) to the finish, apparently in this type of pack the puller (Tsvetkov) gets little benefit.

Wingsted begins to catch Lucan and for 5 controls is in the position of chasing Lucan into the flag (by ML’s terms being a ‘chaser’, and gaining advantage) before he overtakes and becomes the ‘puller’ and for the rest of the course gets little benefit.

Now first let me state that I do not believe that any of these athletes have done anything wrong and that they all fully deserve their success, medals and positions.

Second, somehow it has been accepted by many posters here that Tsvetkov has had an unfair advantage over Wingsted in the race. HOW CAN YOU MAKE THAT CLAIM BASED ON THE EVIDENCE.

There are so many holes in the analysis, so many qualifications about what sort of pack creates an advantage, which sort of pack doesn’t. Can you really say that it is a fair way to judge an athlete’s performance?

The quality of the information in the graphic is not high enough that it can be used to make an informed judgement on whether packing could have substantially influenced the results. Further analysis COULD show this but it is not included! Also many people will look at it and take it at face value that people with lots of coloured blocks next to their name have in some way cheated. I don’t think you can expect that most people will go back to the splits themselves to try and work out what has happened.

So the grafic is useful:
1) To qualify the efficency of organizational actions taken to reduce the number und duration of packs (eg. the butterfly did not work as expected and maybe should have been placed later in the course??)
2) To put some pressure on the athletes to really run independent by reminding them that running together with others is evident to the public and other competitors.

The next question is what do you do with that can we have a rule that h-packs are okay but e-packs are not??

Your comments on individual runners also proves my point that the speculation is unfair and is being used to discredit runners well deserved and earned performances, Tsvetkov was clearly leading his pack (apart from one control) in exactly the same situation as WIngsted yet we have several people on here implying that he had an unfair advantage over WIngsted (in an e-pack rather than an h-pack).

I think it is great to discuss whether packs are forming and to use statistics to determine whether the results are being affected, and perhaps follow this through to find a better system for long races but I really strongly disagree with it being used in this way to discredit an athlete’s performance.

Particularly the type of graphic which has been used in this story and for the long qualification is an easily misinterpreted and unfair system of looking at the results, many people may look at this and come up with an unsubstantiated opinion about who may or may not have deserved their results.

All the athletes competed in this race under the same conditions and all deserved their results, perhaps in the future a better condition or system can be used to make a better competition but that will not change the results from this race.

I propose to make a difference between ‘hierarchical-packs’ and ‘even-packs’. In h-packs you can see a constant distribution of roles: one is pulling and the other hanging. The puller doesn’t profit a lot, the hanger does. (That was your question, wasn’t it?)
At this level and especially at the top of the race the more common form are e-packs (due to the start-order): You can have a bad quali, but not a good quali by case -> only good runners at the end of the finals startlist -> encounters form e-packs. e-packs are packs were both are pushing each other. They keep the pace very high and they do not make any mistake, because are both fully orienteering, correcting each other. (e-packs are typical for relays (with forkings))

Looking at the splits I’d say the packs I mentioned were e-packs, the pack you mentioned was an h-pack.

At the moment I don’t have no statistical prove for that. But give me some time…

I would like to ask you: what should Tsevtkov, Hubmann, Wingsted do in the forest when they are catching other runners?
As you are discussing their performances/results, it seems it’s their responsibility to do something in this situation.
Now I´m really looking forward for answers!

I would second everything Sandy says.

And add: the 2006 World Cup Long Distance race in France was pretty atrocious for following, pack-forming and pack-hunting controls… being slow I got passed by a couple of them and they were big. This race also provided the most blatant example of cheating I have seen at this level with team-mates 50m apart conferring on where the control might be. In hindsight I should perhaps have complained. Also in the Relay I got asked where a control was by a competitor.

Moreover, there were some orienteers (top-twenty in the world) talking pretty openly in the team area about getting lost together, talking, following etc.

People run a race on their own as well as they can, but many will gladly take help when it’s there…

It seems some top orienteers don’t like (orienteering in?) technical terrain.

Three-minute start intervals please!!!

The average time difference between Wingsted and Lucan during ‘their’ 42 minutes: 3.76 seconds. the maximum difference at a control was 11 seconds. Wingsted ran from 1. to 3. place, Lucan from 17. to 14.

What does this mean? What do your examples mean? How on earth did Matthias Merz and Baptiste Rollier manage to improve their positions over the same last half of the course when they were running alone??

All i know is that we get pretty pictures and it is a fun way to discredit athletes when they have had outstanding performances.

What I would like to know is:

When a faster runner catches a slower runner and they form a ‘pack’ what is the % increase in the faster runner’s speed (ML: this is a different question to what you answered)

If there is a significant increase in the faster runner’s speed, what is the mechanism for increasing the speed of the faster runner? (increased confidence due to safety of having a ‘helper’? increased motivation from being in a ‘head to head’ racing situation? lesser frequency of mistakes or less time lost when a mistake is made due to assistance?

If a significant influence and effect is proved is it possible to remove this from the sport entirely? (Actually I already know the answer to this – NO)

If a significant influence and effect is proved what can we do about it?…..

12 seconds! Research done by Henning Spjelkavik showed, that at the Swedish Middle-Champs 2007 the time difference between two runners of the same category had two peaks: One in between 0 and 12 seconds behind the former runner. Another around the start intervall behind the former runner. The 12 seconds can also be interpretet as the ‘time of effective influence’. The size of this window is assumed to differ a bit from terrain to terrain but 15 seconds at the EOC might not be to far from reality.

And b.t.w.

The average time difference between Hubmann and Johansson at a control during ‘their’ 32 minutes: 2.05 seconds. The maximum difference between them at a control was 4 seconds. Hubmann ran from 4. to 2.place, Johansson from 11. to 5.place

The average time difference between Tsvetkov and Efimov at a control during ‘their’ 42 minutes: 4.05 seconds. The maximum difference at a control was 7 seconds. Tsvetkov ran from 4. to 1.place, Efimov from 41. to 10.place.