Comments on: World Cup Knock-Out Sprint Czech Republic 2018: Maps and Results

By: Jan Kocbach

Jan Kocbach — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 21:32:21 +0000

Thanks a lot for your comments, Jan – it is always very nice to read the course-setters point of view. Only the organizators know about all the constraints set on the course by many, many different items. But I am a bit surprised that it seems (from what you write) like the IOF was not more involved in the forking methods used – and how these methods were applied, as this was probably the most important test before they have to make a choice about the format in the future. And as they are the ones who should push for the TV-friendliness more than you as a course-setter (the issues I see with the courses are mostly about TV-friendliness, for the runners I think they worked quite well – setting courses for a KO-sprint is not easy!).

BTW: I am happy you didn’t use the unforked course, it is very important to get these experiences with forked courses to form the discipline in the future. Lots of learning here. And nice to see that your conclusion is the same as mine, an easier form of self-choice.

By: Jan Flašar

Jan Flašar — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 21:21:54 +0000

Thank you for all those reactions! As a course setter, I have recieved many valuable feedbacks, so just a short comment:
We just didn´t want to use the unforked course, because we think it can downgrade the orienteering to a pure running competition. On the other hand, we didn´t want to use a selfchoice method in the final, because of its fairness. We discussed using the unforked course and finally we chose the butterfly.
I´ve had some feedback from runners and they liked the courses often, even the butterfly. However, they said it was very hard to select the right forking during the selfchoice (SF) and they commented the butterfly as “little bit unfair”. People from TV liked the selfchoice, but not much the butterfly. However, they had invented that nice graphical white/black dot system for the butterfly in the final and I think it was quite usable and understandtable.
So generaly, I think and I hope, that KO sprint in our way was not a failure, but there are of course some things to approve. Perhaps, the easier form of selfchoice in all rounds? But, please, no unforked courses in the future :)

By: Graeme Ackland

Graeme Ackland — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 12:54:55 +0000

We do seem to be overcomplicating things. One thing thats being ignored is how complicated this KO-sprint is to organise. It means very few orienteers will ever get to try it, and nobody will care because they don’t understand the challenges.

We’ve been running a straightforward “first to finish-easy to understand-TV friendly” format for years – the prologue + chase. Experience is that people can catch maybe 10-15 sec “just by following”, at which point they’re in major oxygen debt and “TV-friendly” things (mistakes) start to happen. There are many ways to introduce forking, but its not really needed.

Plus all countries can have runners in the final. All sports are more TV-friendly when you have someone to support.

By: Bernt O Myrvold

Bernt O Myrvold — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 03:48:09 +0000

Maybe it is time to resuscitate Micr-O again? It proved to work well and be understandable for TV. It should be easy to make all the forkings equal. I also think many of us like the idea that your navigation should a part of deciding the winner.

By the way – penalty loops does not work for the sprint so mispunching equals disqualification.