Discussion: Vote on Splitting WOC

24 for splitting, 9 against, 3 abstained

How did we vote?

I assume for, that was the instructions from the Board.

Yes, that's how we voted.

So the team was mostly against as not enough information about the new set up and start spot allocation/ numbers was given. Too many unknowns :/

I supported the final decision.

So did I, and I expressed my feelings to the board.

Alison,

This was a vote for the concept in principle with further detail to be worked over the coming year with further consultation with the various national federations. Those details will then be brought to next year's General Assembly in Sweden where the final proposal will again be put to the vote.

I was initially concerned about the lack of detail as well but having attended the meetings yesterday and the evening before I understand and am comfortable with what we were voting for. The IOF didn't want to bring forward a WOC program with complete detail next year only to have it rejected. This way they can get a feel if it will be accepted and if the vote were no they would have time to work on a different proposal.

I think PWT crew can finally be proud of what they were starting. It should be written somewhere on the IOF site what was their vision as PWT site is no active anymore. Also I would be glad if IOF give some credit to them and make a few interviews with key persons at that time.

So they don't really know what they want or what is best for orienteering. Just want something where they can say they have a larger number of countries participating.

Robin, what we were told at the meeting was that they want two things:
1. an economically and otherwise sustainable WOC program model (the current program is too difficult to host and not profitable) and
2. WOC hosted outside of Europe which under the current model isn't going to happen. This second point is really about presenting a truly global sport to the IOC for the purposes of the olympic vision.

The split WOC allows cities / regions with large 'major events' budgets but without interesting forest terrain to host WOC and inject money into the system. This money would then support the forest WOC as needed.

+1 Jeff

Why does WOC need to be profitable? Surely it should be zero balanced

I probably should have used the word sustainable in my earlier post instead of profitable...

Nonetheless I see a few advantages to a profitable WOC model.
1. Profits from WOC would allow the IOF a larger budget which allows them to do more to support orienteering worldwide.
2. A profitable WOC is more enticing to host for local clubs and national federations who would, presumably, get a share of those profits.

WOC has to make an operating profit of at least 61000 euro just to cover the "sanctioning fees". That's about $300 per participant... Once you start paying transatlantic flight for IOF officials its not viable without 'major events' budgets.

Our experience suggests big cities are not an easy target. WOC is a big deal for a remote regions like Moray and Highland: they were hugely supportive, and so were the national tourist bodies. There's absolutely no interest in / money available for increasing the number of tourists in Edinburgh at this time of year.

Our sponsors have an agenda - to increase tourism. For RaceTheCastles, I was told that to get funding I needed the event away from Edinburgh/Glasgow, and outside the summer season. Balmoral+October = $25000. Ker-ching!
That's $30 government money per participant. Our survey suggested people on average spent ten times that with local businesses. Everybody wins :)

I make a "profit" when I sell a compass at an event. It runs my car and puts bread on my table. Our view of profit depends on whether we think it is properly earned.

So could a profit be made without a major supporting event like the Scottish 6 days or could WOC be run without a big loss without such an event or host bodies contributing significant funds.

Is the split WOC sprint going to be urban WOC or was it specifically called a sprint WOC?

Just wondering what people think would make a good third middle urban/sprint medal event. I like the idea of a race similar to the London City race in the 45 minute winning time range. But that is more 'urban' than 'sprint'.

New third event? Parkour-O on a sprint map where nothing is impassable.

Hammer, the proposal used the terms 'WOC' and 'Sprint WOC'. We were told that the wording is temporary and that the terms for the two events presented next year may be different pending fleshing out the final proposal.

for those interested, a split woc has its advantages coming from an athletes perspective.
- preparing for WOC properly takes time and money. the rich countries out there are spending several training camps in the lead up to WOC, which equals months of training. the danish team spent 3 weeks this july in scotland alone. if you're not a full time orienteer (and there's only a handful of them anyway), you can't afford to allocate this much time to this years and next years races at the same time, and neither can your national federations budget if you aren't sweden/norway/finland/suisse. splitting woc alleviates this aspect, giving an extra year for people to prepare for the forest races, which need that time spent in the relevant terrains.

assuming that they do remove the current system of relegation, split woc alleviates the pressure of losing places in the start list for smaller nations. having the relegation system (in my opinion) was the worst thing for smaller nations, and with that gone talented runners don't have to wait for the success of single athletes for their chance to compete at woc.

As far as the financial viability (or lack thereof) of WOC in its current form is concerned, we did some initial scoping of what it would take to host a WOC in Australia a few years ago, and concluded that, while we had the technical capacity to do it, we would need to find probably several hundred thousand euros in external money (either government or sponsorship) to make the financial numbers work. The IOF sanctioning fee (which IOF is heavily dependent on for its own income) is only a relatively small part of this picture.

I would imagine that most middle-sized or smaller orienteering countries would be in a similar position. I'd be interested to know how the Italians did it - my guess is that they got a fair bit of money from regional governments (they certainly did their bit to maximise their chances of this by spreading events across as many provinces as possible). Estonia and Latvia are both using a WMOC to (in effect) cross-subsidise a WOC.

Hey Blair, how about a Sprint WOC in AUS? Syd Uni, Macq Uni, UNSW, Cockatoo Island and an Ultra Sprint thrown in for extra fun.

last month IOF had some discussion on the split WOC format.
See here: http://orienteering.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12...

Here are the details

Middle distance qualification
-3 competitors per nation
- reigning World Champion, World Cup Champion, Regional Champions have
additional place in the qualification
-FOC supports 3 heats
-Council believes 1 competitor / nation should qualify for the final if one fulfils certain quality criteria
-One option under consideration is for 15 automatic qualifiers per heat, plus 1
competitor per nation not otherwise qualified providing they were within 100% of the heat winner. Other options may be considered.


Long distance qualification
-Nation based qualification quota system supported by Council
-Favoured solution by Council appears to be using combination of past WOC results and World Ranking List and possibly selected World Cup races (long distance)
-FOC’s quality objective is to exclude competitors who can’t finish in a reasonable
time


Additional Sprint WOC format
-Council has two possible formats shortlisted:
-knockout sprint and an urban middle distance
-Council asks for a deep analysis of the two preferred options to determine best solution for additional format e.g. technical issues, organisational issues, broadcast potential, media attractiveness, spectator attractiveness competitor attractiveness

So based on those last points, can we assume they'll only let in spectators and competitors if they are easy to look at?

WOC will never leave Scandinavia with that criteria...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I mean, there's someone who thinks tRicky is somewhat dishy...

No matter how I respond to this, some one somewhere will be doing this:

I would call this an emergent thread hijack... and an exemplary one at that.