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Comment on WOC Qual removal: Good or bad for the sport?

Jan Kocbach March 10, 2013 Orienteering News 16 Comments

Another nail in the coffin for traditional forest orienteering? How does it influence runners from your country? March 15th is D-day to influence the WOC Qualification scheme which is set to be put in place already from WOC 2014. A decision which might have significant impact on the future of the sport.

– Elite commitment to orienteering will be significantly decreased when getting a place in the team for middle or long becomes so difficult (NZL WOC athlete)

From WOC 2014, it is suggested to remove the qualification races for long and middle distance from the WOC – instead nations will be given a certain number of start places in the finals based on earlier WOC results. For many “smaller” orienteering nations, the number of runners allowed to run individual forest orienteering (i.e. middle or long) at WOC level will be significantly reduced if the qualification races are removed.

Of more than 50 countries participating in the last two World Championships, only 8 countries will be allowed to send three runners for middle and long according to the suggested model (note that there will be some additional personal places for winners of regional championships). For many countries the number of allowed starters in long and middle will go from three in 2013 to only one in 2014. See how this will affect each country according to simulations based on 2011/2012 WOC results at the bottom of this article.

Sprint focus

In reality, this means that in “smaller” orienteering nations, the chances for an individual to be allowed to start in an individual forest race in WOC is reduced significantly. On the other hand, there is still room for three sprinters for each country in WOC, as the sprint qualification is not removed. On top of this, the new mixed sprint relay is introduced – further increasing focus on sprint. This means that orienteers in smaller countries are forced towards specializing in sprint orienteering if they want to compete at the highest (WOC) level.

With quotas ready already a year before a given WOC, the decision to focus on urban orienteering instead of forest orienteering can be made early by the athletes. It is difficult to see this as a recipe to make the difference between the big nations and the developing nations in traditional forest orienteering get smaller – it will rather increase. Also, according to the suggested model, sprint results will not influence the quotas in long/middle, and thus good sprint results for developing nations will not pave the way for larger quotas in long/middle. Another nail in the coffin for traditional forest orienteering?

Advantages

The good thing about removing qualification races is that the top runners can now in theory run all races – as they don’t have to compete in the qualification races (but the best actually did already as long as the program was set up in a way facilitating this). The runners from smaller nations who are allowed to compete will have the benefit that they go directly to the final (as there is no qualification). Also, it reduces costs for the WOC organizers, and also makes it easier for the WOC organizers as they don’t have to organize that many events. Lastly, there is now room for the sprint relay as an additional race.

However, is this the best recipe to make orienteering grow?

Background (from the IOF)

Following the 2012 IOF General Assembly’s decision to remove the qualification races for the Middle and Long finals of the World Orienteering Championships (WOC) 2014 and onwards, the IOF Council has presented its proposal for how to handle the question of how many runners a nation can have on the starting line. The proposal was sent to the IOF member federations for hearing.

The deadline for the federations’ replies is March 15th 2013, after which the proposal will be finalized and put on the Council’s table in late April.

More background material here including the complete WOC Qualification model proposal.

Alternative approach (not included in the model from the IOF)

The question is of course: Is there a solution in which we can keep the advantages, but remove the unfortunate consequences for forest orienteering?

One possible approach is to do like cross country skiing and many other sports: Introduce an extra qualification race. For example a middle distance race on the day before the WOC (i.e. typically Friday) – or on another day later in the championships. This would be for all non-qualified runners, i.e. countries who have a quota of two can have one starter and countries with a quota of one can have two starters. The best N runners (for example Top 10-15) would qualify for the middle final. This would be a “low key” event, with small start field, less media friendly etc., with little work for the organizers compared to today’s qualification races (in line with a normal WRE race).

Runners from the smaller nations would still have a reason to focus on forest orienteering, as they could race a forest orienteering race on highest level. There are disadvantages also with this model, but in my opinion the advantages are bigger than the disadvantages. According to my information, some federations are considering to suggest this alternative approach when giving their reply to the IOF. I am still waiting for a response from the author of the WOC qualification model proposal regarding this alternative approach.

What does the IOF proposal really mean?

As you can except, it means next to nothing for the big orienteering nations. O-Zeugs has simulated what would have been the number of starters in middle/long in WOC 2013 from each country if the suggested rules for qualification would have been effective already from 2013 (based on WOC results from the two previous years). To illustrate the consequences of the suggested rules, these simulated numbers are applied to the start fields from WOC 2012 qualification races for long/middle. The runners who are outside the simulated 2013-quota for each nation are removed (for illustration purposes the athlete with poorest qualification result is removed). Note that actual quota’s for 2014 will not be ready until after WOC 2013 – and as of now this is only a proposal. Also, there might be errors in the calculations below – please consider this only as a possible illustration of consequences.

PS! There is a lot to discuss about how the system for allocating start places between the countries works, but I would rather keep that out of the discussion for now. This comment is on a higher level – regarding how the complete removal of qualification for long/middle influences the sport and the chances for “smaller” orienteering nations in forest orienteering in the future.

SUI