Comments on: What is best for Orienteering: Split the WOC or Not?

By: Ivar Lundanes

Ivar Lundanes — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 10:20:33 +0000

I’m not necessarily against a splitted WOC. I’m not necessarily against mass start races either, but I think it’s a horrible idea to suggest unfair forking. There is no way to guarantee “equally forking” and it would be a disaster if unfair forking decides the medals. If we want a masstart race, then the forking must be fair, for example using the model of Blodslitet, with several forked loops first and then a unforked in the end. (Sidenote: If orienteering ever goes Olympic, this would be the best format in my opinion. Not a sprint and most difinitely not a sprint relay.)

I also think it’s a bad idea to add a lot of new diciplines. On of the reasons to split up is to make it easier(/cheaper) and therefore making tons of new distances will not solve that problem. My suggestion for a split WOC:

Urban:
Day 1 – Sprint Q (3 athletes per nation)
Day 2 – Sprint F (45 in final, as today)
Day 3 – Sprint Relay (as today)

If 3 races, 2 medal events are not enough: add a 60 minute mass start with fair forking.

Forest:
Day 1 – Mass start event (Blodslitet model, WT: ~75min) 3 athletes per nation)
Day 2 – Rest day
Day 3 – Middle distance (as today: WT, ~90 min, with todays system of qualification)
Day 4 – Relay (as today, 3 legs ~35-40 minutes)
Day 5 – Rest day
Day 6 – Long distance (as today: WT ~90 min, with todays system of qualification)

This way the masstart event will make sure all nations have 3 spots for at least one individual race and it will make it will give more runners from smaller countries a possibility to run in the forest at WOC and therefore also make sure as many teams as possible will have (atleast) 3 runners there so they can participate in the relay. If it’s okay to add one day I would’ve added a middle Q where all nations could have 3 runners. Then the programme would be: Masstart-rest day-Middle Q-Middle F-Rest day-Relay-Long. But then we’re back to 5 races in 7 days, which probably is too tough?

By: Knut Wiig Mathisen

Knut Wiig Mathisen — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:13:01 +0000

I would like WOC to determine the best athletes of a great sport, and to help market the sport as healthy, useful (navigational skills, many people get lost in cities and everywhere else every day), challenging yet feasible for all and fun. Through web, web-TV, GPS-tracking etc our sport can be large and well-known enough to reach most potential participants, even without international TV-broadcasting and Olympic status.
I would like to organize urban-o and forest-o championships on alternating years.
In all disciplines, we must ensure that all nations can take part with at least three runners, development of elite-orienteering in middle-large nations today severely suffers from the lack of reasonable goals. For Belgian male juniors, the step from the six spots in all disciplines at JWOC to one or two spots at WOC competing with e.g. Yannick Michels, is simply discouraging and they quit and give up at 20 years!
Still, it is important that the best runners take part, too. I suggest four spots for the top nations with e.g.,, at least four runners in the red group, and three for everybody else. This requires forest qualification. Or may be not? The total number of runners will still be say (4*6+3*25+31)=130.

I suggest this a set-up of the forest WOC, (largely inspired from biathlon):
Day 1 (a Saturday): Middle individual start. 5/4 km-25 min, three start groups best ranked runners start last, drawn start among 30 last runners, then among the 50 next and then among the remaining 50. Start interval 1:45, a bit less than 2 min should be OK since the length is slightly shortened. The length is shortened to make sure the best runners can and want to run all disciplines. Total starting time ca 225 minutes. Medal event.
Day 2 (Sunday) Middle chase start, but 15 sec between runners after 20 minutes, estimated start time 30 minutes. Some controls forked so that runners run slightly different courses, but all alternatives equally difficult and less than 10 seconds difference in time for optimal execution. 7.5/6 km-Winning time 35 minutes. Medal event.
Day 3 (Monday) Rest day
Day 4 Qualification race, but 40 best runners in Middle events are pre-qualified and may skip this. 7.5/6 km – 35 minutes
Day 5 Long distance individual. 15/12 km –winning time 75 minutes. Medal event.
Day 6 Rest day
Day 7 Relay 5/4 km 22.5 min, 4 legs, total competition time 90 min. Medal event.
Day 8 Mass start; maximum 90 runners, a few prequalified before WOC, the rest qualified based on results from this year’s WOC 20/16 km running distance – winning time 95 minutes. Some controls forked so that runners run slightly different courses, but all alternatives equally difficult and less than 10 seconds difference in time for optimal execution. No forking in last part of race, but runners don’t know when forking is over. Medal event.

Urban WOC
Day 1 (Thursday)
Sprint individual part 1 – interval start 1 min interval, 130 participants based onsame principle as middle interval event in forest WOC. 3.5/3 km running distance 10-12 minutes winning time
Sprint individual part 2 – interval start reverse starting order based on first part results (like ski jumping or slalom and giant slalom in alpine skiing). Only best 30 runners from part 1 allowed to start, rest is placed according to part 1 result. 3.5/3 km running distance 10-12 minutes winning time. Runner with best total time becomes world champion.
Day 2 Rest day
Day 3 Mixed sprint relay (as today). Medal event.
Day 4 Urban mass start. 7.5/6 km running distance 26 minutes winning time. Some controls forked so that runners run slightly different courses, but all alternatives equally difficult and less than 3 seconds difference in time for optimal execution. No forking in last part of race, but runners don’t know when forking is over. Maximum 60 runners, a few prequalified before WOC, the rest qualified based on results from this year’s WOC. Medal event.
Length of forest WOC 8 days and five medal events, same as today’s combined WOC.
Length of Urban WOC 4 days, and three medal events.

By: Jan Kocbach

Jan Kocbach — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:28:57 +0000

@Anders: Splitting WOC is about cost reduction – I am sure Tom Hollowell and the rest of the IOF also works hard on increasing the revenues. And if splitting the WOC means reduced opportunities for increase revenues, that’s something that must be taken into account…

By: Anders

Anders — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:21:08 +0000

“As I see it, the discussion about splitting WOC is more about cost reduction”

Maybe one of the big topics should be about how we can increase reveues.

Cutting cost _sounds_ nice, but it is a one-way-ticket to zero cost.

Imagine what that would be like!

Increasing revenues is very different from reducing costs. The former is more difficult that the latter. I sent a suggestion to Tom Hollowell some weeks ago. Don’t know if he has considered it (or maybe is doing it already:)