Comments on: WOC 2017 Sprint Qual: Quick Look at Courses

By: AC

AC — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 14:13:19 +0000

I strongly doubt that any athlete, from anywhere would prefer an easy course over a challenging one when at the World Championships.

They wouldn’t be at WOC if they wanted easy.

By: Just a thought :)

Just a thought :) — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 14:05:44 +0000

Just a bit of a different perspective, in some of the smaller orienteering countries like those in North America it is almost more fair to have a sprint that’s a bit easier/park oriented because we don’t have technical european terrain. It evens the playing fields when we can train much more for running than orienteering

By: Adrian Uppill

Adrian Uppill — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 08:49:04 +0000

I agree entirely.

By: AC

AC — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 06:41:00 +0000

Why are there qualification races at all if the expectation to be “not too challenging”? If the purpose is just to ensure all the top runners get into the final, couldn’t we just skip it altogether? Maybe run a 5000m on a track instead?

Shouldn’t athletes be coming to WOC expecting the highest standard of challenge, why is the qualification held to a significantly lower standard? I would be especially disappointed if I were from one of the smaller nations that had to travel a long, long way and spend their own money to come there and compete in a dull, 12-minute sprint.