Discussion: They Should Have Been Given New Start Times

Many years ago the USOF hosted a World Cup Orienteering event at Fahnstock State Park in New York . During the Womens' race a Swedish athlete arrived at a 'water control', was handed a cup of water and her number and time were noted by an official and radioed back to the finish area. When she completed the race her control card was checked. She was DQ'd; she had not punched at the water control.

The Swedish team put in what they probably thought was a 'Hail Mary' protest saying the important thing is that athletes must visit all controls in the right order, that the young lady had been seen at the control and she had not gained any advantage by not punching.

I was part of the jury that considered the protest. Probably to everyone's surprise the protest was upheld and the Swede was instated in to the results. That caused a lot of head shaking in IOF circles back in Europe where such things mattered and I certainly heard about it the next time I went to an IOF Council meeting. Despite the lack of specific wording at the time the prevailing feeling was that the athlete must have a punch on the card to prove she had visited the control.

My feeling was and still remains that any sport should be about the athletes first and foremost. Officials should be part of the event to help ensure that a fair contest takes place. That is what we did at Fahnstock.

Thus it is with some concern that I learn Wil and Katarina Smith were not allowed to have official start times or finish results at the WRE hosted by OCIN last weekend. I understand a late travel connection caused them to miss their assigned start times. They did run unofficially and posted typically good results but are listed in the results as DNS.

According to the WRE process they had been assigned their start times by a fair but arbitrary process. Wil's was the first time that afternoon.

Probably the WRE rules do not allow any flexibility on the point of a missed start time. If so that would be a shame. I understand the Smiths missed their start due to circumstances beyond their control. They would not have purposely gained an advantage by being re-assigned to later times. Fairness and an 'athletes first' attitude should have allowed them in to the race.

I do not know if they protested the result but if I had been on the jury and they had done so I know what my vote would have been. Athletes First!

How ironic would it have been after all the discussion on Attack Point about needing the participation of 'ranking women' to make the Cincinnati event official that disallowing Katarina meant no women were able to earn WRE points!

Orienteering has a very rigid set of rules governing start times. However start time is largely irrelevant for an individual time trial through forest or bush. In 2002 IOF called for submissions on a review of the rules. As part of that I submitted the following (IOF didn't change the rule):

(4) Delete "through their own fault" and the sentence "They shall be timed as if they had started at their original start time." from Rule 22.9, and Delete Rule 22.10. Instead add the following sentence to 22.9 "A standard penalty (5% of the ideal winning time for that course) will apply to late starts, which can be waived when results are compiled at the organiser's discretion".
"22.9 Competitors who are late for their start time through their own fault shall be permitted to start. The organiser will determine at which time they may start, considering the possible influence on other competitors. They shall be timed as if they had started at their original start time."
"22.10 Competitors who are late for their start time through the fault of the organiser shall be given a new start time".
* Nobody turns up late on purpose, and we should do everything we can to make the start run smoothly. Everybody wants to be in time for their start, to calm themselves, to prepare properly and to concentrate on and enjoy the orienteering. We should also do what we can to give a legitimate run to those unfortunate to be late. Often there is a valid reason, particularly when there are multiple starts a long way apart - people don't do it as a personal attack on the organiser.
* We do not need late starts pressurising the start officials: let them wait and be sent off at a proper gap in the start list, where they will not interfere with seedings etc. A late starter can potentially start close enough to somebody so that one or both benefit, or more likely, both suffer. The competition is then unfair ? this rule fails the test of fairness.
* Why aren't start times changed? - Can anybody come up with a reason that improves the competition? On the contrary the imposition of this rule ruins at least one person's day, if not more, and cheapens the result for everybody.
* Rule 22.10 is impractical. An unintended consequence could be that an argument would break out on the start line about whose fault it is. The start officials have enough to do without being pestered by a panicking orienteer who wants to start immediately. Much better all around to calm everybody by rescheduling the late arrival into pre-prepared reserve starts.
* As before, it is inappropriate for these rules to be set up to apportion blame.
* The argument of "Oh it will stuff the computer" does not work either - computers are a tool and a service not the arbiter of how things shall be done. The advent of Sportident now makes this argument completely redundant. All that is needed is a Start Unit in the late start lane.
* The least we can do for people is time them properly: the penalty (5% of the ideal winning time) should be enough to deter re-occurrence. This gets to the essence of the orienteering experience. It is a timed sport. By not timing people we are devaluing the experience both for the competitor and for the sport itself. What if a late start runs a sensational time? What if it's the one time when everything falls into place and no mistakes are made? Orienteering is a frustrating experience enough without adding to it. One of the purposes of an event (the reason we put it on in the first place) is to find the fastest competitors in each class on the day. In circumstances where many people turn up late, for whatever reason, we have not achieved that purpose.
* The inclusion of the proposed possible waiver by the organiser is for those organisers who recognise that the circumstances warrant a more lenient approach, for example when there are two starts a long way apart and the directions could be interpreted as confusing.

As the Event Director and Course Setter (and also an IOF licensed controller), I would certainly have liked to have given Wil and Katarina new start times. But, IOF rules as they currently stand do not permit it.

Wil and Katarina asked to be allowed to run their courses as "non-competitive" because they did not want runs based on their original assigned start times used in their rankings (quite understandable).

Fortunately, there were 4 ranked women in addition to Katarina, and they all made their start times.

I would agree that the WRE rules need to allow the organizer more flexibility. For orienteers in North America in particular, orienteering is not their entire life. They have jobs and families, and travelling to a weekend competition needs to be based on a reasonable expectation of public transportation functioning somewhat close to on-time. If this was a World Championship, perhaps you could expect competitors to schedule flights 2 or 3 or more days early to insure an on-time arrival. But for a WRE, that is just too much to ask.

I hope that the IOF will consider a more flexible rule for the future.

I'm basically ignorant of the IOF rules for WREs, so I'm sure what I've written below has no chance of ever getting past IOF, but here it is anyway:

Is an organizer of a WRE (or perhaps the national governing body) allowed to amend or add rules to cover specific circumstances? For example, in OCIN's case, the WRE was the first event of a three-day schedule, and it was on a normal work day for most people, meaning people would be expected to be in transit coming to the event.

Clearly the rule is intended to prevent someone from intentionally achieving a later start time, which presumably is advantageous due to elephant tracks or whatever. I'd tend to think elephant tracks are less useful than actually running with and seeing other competitors, so I'd tend to discount any advantage from starting late.

Perhaps the people who missed starts could have another start time drawing to assign late start times.

One possible way to handle a late WRE start might be to time it and apply the IOF calculations as written, but then to discount the points 5%. This seems very difficult to implement because it requires IOF concurrence.

The one case where I think late starts should be encouraged is when the late start will give the WRE enough ranked runners to be valid. There should be every advantage given to the WREs to get the runners ranked---Otherwise competitors will find WREs with low numbers of ranked runners to be too risky to spend scarce travel funds on. This devalues both the organizer's and controller's work, the national body's interests, and the IOF's position as a governing body.

If this was a World Championship in some place that rhymed with zoo brain, you could expect organizers to schedule buses 2 or 3 or more hours early to insure competitors would make their starts. But that would be presumptuous. And I digress.

On the subject of the Pig--I have to say-what a great meet! OCIN really knows how to do it. Thanks!