Discussion: Unofficial results - M21E Long Distance

With #3 being misplaced, the organiser had no choice but to cancel the course. It was certainly unfortunate, but these things can happen from time to time.

However, if you remove legs 2-3 and 3-4 from the splits, these are the times of the remaining legs. This is for information only and is not intended to suggest how the results should be published.

Place* Name Time
1 Grant Bluett 1:19:53
2 Simon Uppill 1:20:09
3 Rob Preston 1:22:18
4 Evan Barr 1:28:11
5 Bruce Arthur 1:28:49
6 Craig Dufty 1:29:59
7 Lachlan Hallett 1:34:14
8 Murray Scown 1:35:45
9 Steven Todkill 1:35:45
10 Rob Jessop 1:37:57
11 Blair Trewin 1:41:12
12 Glenn Meyer 1:42:29
13 Steve Fletcher 1:43:20
14 Ben Corry 1:44:08
15 John Nieuwenhoven 1:49:18
16 John Toomey 1:49:38
17 Jim Russell 1:56:31
18 Graham Braid 2:09:24
19 Ricky Thackray 2:12:37
20 Paul Williams 2:17:10
21 Shane Lewis 2:27:20

My observation was that both the organisers and competitors handled their responses well given the situation.

Credit should go to Jim Russell for thinking through the situation and informing the organisers in time to save the M20E race (including JWOC selection trial). This meant an extra 2km side trip on top of the 15km course!

Thanks for this list Bruce, I was quite interested to know how I went despite the cancellation. Well done also to Jimbo.

All the splits are on AP as well (thanks Juffy).

For those who didn't actually punch #3, I've fabricated a split halfway between your #2 and #4 punches.

Yeah, good on Jim for sacrificing his run. Pity the course had to be thrown out, it looked like fun.

I'd nearly always want to void a course where a control has been misplaced (non-trivially), but the OFA rules are pretty slack:

Voiding courses is a last resort, to be used only when the results no longer reflect the competition. For a course to be voided, it is necessary that a significant number of competitors (that is, more than a third of the field) have been significantly disadvantaged (that is, the competitor‘s elapsed time is no longer a good measure of their performance); whether by an organisational or planning error; or by a factor outside the powers of the organiser to control. As a general rule, only when the results board bears no resemblance to the race should the competition be voided. It is not relevant whether one of those competitors affected was a potential winner.

Gee I still didn't improve.

I did - 18th would've been my best effort for the weekend.

Well done to all competitors involved. Everyone seemed to take the error in the right spirit - after all the setter & controller are volunteers doing their best. What good would exploding at them have done?

One point to learn from their mistake though - if you change a course when setting get rid of ALL of your old maps. For those that didn't hear, the control was in its original location, not the revised location.

Big thanks to Uncle Jim and Tooms for saving the M20E race. As the first one through the control, I wasn't sure what I could do and I certainly did not want to take it upon myself to move the control. I did actually find it (in the wrong spot) after searching the entire spur. My GPS trace looks like a bowl of spaghetti around #3.

after all the setter & controller are volunteers doing their best. What good would exploding at them have done?

Dead right. Much better to take out your frustration on a cylindrical mono-ended trash receptacle.

The bin had it coming.

Nothing a bit of growing up can't fix!

Did he take his bat and ball and go home?

My GPS trace looks like a bowl of spaghetti around #3

Are you going to put it on the Gadget, so all of us can see :)

Fair play to all the elites - not sure I would have continued on on such a long course after finding 3 misplaced. However I grew up with that old rule (void for any mistake) and certainly had many experiences of organisers not cancelling courses when things were dodgy.

However, I like the new rule. It does seem a pity to have a course like this thrown out when as Tooms said "that (a) only 6 elites lost time at that control (b) all completed the entire course"; and that the time losses appear to be mostly quite small (1-2 minutes). Arguably the new rule could have allowed this event to stand - very unfair to Jimbo and Tooms, but a lot of sweat and tears were shed that day by the runners for no result except personal satisfaction. But I guess thats what we are all doing it for anyway.

There for all to see now. Not much of that spur was left unexplored.

It appears that I missed the rock surface initially but my first relocate put me right on it.

@ O-ing - who cried?

EDIT - OK so there were substantial time losses and I agree the organizers had little choice. I'm even more impressed that the whole field went on with the whole course

you change a course when setting get rid of ALL of your old maps

The problem was not using an old map to locate the control flag but that the stake was still at the old location and we, the setter and Controller, did not take enough care to recheck the site against the features. A loss of concentration late in the day was the final reason.

What we *should* have done was when we decided to change the location of the control we should have moved the stake to the correct spot whereas we just checked the site

The reason we moved it was due to it being on a cliff that was too close to another cliff used on a different course

I did canvas the idea of leaving the course to stand and see if anyone protested but decided that it was unfair to do that and I am sure any protest would have been upheld.

The options you had were either to remove those legs or to cancel the course - and because some people had completely different experiences of the same course (Jim's being at one extreme, while others never even knew the control had been wrong until they finished), cancelling was by far the fairest option. The wording of the OA rules is intended to discourage voiding of a course as a knee-jerk reaction, when it may be possible to find alternate resolution(s).

I'm impressed everyone finished the course and was in pretty good spirits at the end too. I certainly raced to the finish because I didn't know the full story so why risk the result standing.
Would have liked to joined Grant and Simon in the re-start though!