Discussion: Classic!

Awesome descriptions. Almost sorry we missed it - HA!

Case was wonderful today, and no problem with start time.

Let's hope tomorrow's start procedure will have learned from today's.

by the time of my "real" start ~ 10 later ( so much for timing warm-up run) my nerves calmed down, and navigation was fine from the start, but 1:15000 map printing was a serious issue for the small rock features. I will ponit to feet: that shell not be allowed, map needs to be readable to all competitors without help of magnifying glass. HVO (Neil and me) trashed entire print set of maps (~$300) before team trials at Blue Mountain because of similar printing problem.

cue Hammer - what about those cheaters being late for their start time? Is the energy wasted on arguments enough of a disadvantage? Obviously they will have to be timed from their original start time, or maybe banned for a year? Is what time you start really more important than the course, the map and the terrain?

There´s no such thing as a new start time in O meets in Sweden. If you miss your start time - too bad - the clock is already running...

If you arrive while the start procedure is still going (within you 3-4 minutes) you just jump into your proper chute and go on from there (happens to me all the time - a little too often). Of course you have to go through whatever procedures there are for getting properly "checked in" and that seems to have been the problem here.

Only time you could get a new start time is if there was a fault by the organizers - but that usually doesn´t only concern one single runner.

PG is quite understated in recounting the scene. The start guard was loud, rude and unreasonable. It wasn't apparent to me from the meet info that you had to be there 4 minutes early, but there was no clock near the start, no one announcing the time. The start guard was using his smartphone to call people up, but when I tried to peek at it to see what time it was, he pulled it back. He was calling people up by name, but not by time, so it was hard to know when to be there if you didn't know who was starting 1 minute ahead. Then, there were only 3 call up lines. Since he was sending people through at T-4, everybody was starting 1 minute early. The people who were barred from starting at their assigned times all arrived before they should have been advanced, and were prevented from joining the same time people who were in the next call up line. And he gets so wound up guarding the start and trying to assign new times, that he stops sending people through, leading to a few of us engaging in self starting when our beep came up.

Some of us are better than others at blocking out the rancor and bad behavior. Rhonda was pretty rattled by it.

Sounds like the case of someone who had their lunch money stolen a few too many times in school and now loves to be able to tell others what to do...

And a review of the official meet info yields: "3 minutes prior to your start time you will be called up . . . "

A unprepared start team can affect one's entire run (hint, hint: last year's sprint champs)

@O-ing: my argument was that I found it strange that organizers picked GPS watches to enforce and not to enforce start times following the approach outlined by Bubo above.

It's hard to enforce strict start times when it's going to be the meet crew, rather than the competitors, who are causing the problem. Perhaps they anticipated their own strengths and weaknesses when deciding what to enforce? In retrospect, it's a damn good thing that they did use start punches, because it sounds like otherwise the results may have been basically unrecoverable.

>It's hard to enforce strict start times when it's going to be the meet crew, rather than the competitors, who are causing the problem.

Agreed. My comment was when the competitor is at fault.

Whose fault? That doesn’t belong as a discussion on the start line. We shouldn’t be seeking to apportion blame; we should be concentrating on having the start run smoothly. The issue can be sorted out later. With an electronic start punch that becomes very easy to do.

The important consequence for a top level competition is that the seedings get thrown out of whack. 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. 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.

Those of us who have turned up late for a start would strongly contest the idea that there is any advantage to be had. Your mental state is altered, you tend to rush things, your preparation is out the window.

It comes back to the “cheaters” tag. I don’t buy it. I don’t know anybody that has or would turn up late for their start on purpose; maybe there is a small minority as in every human endeavor. But why tag everybody who turns up late as a cheat? Often there is a legitimate reason or reasons (childcare being a major one) and quite often there are contributory factors in the event organization (for example poor signposting to the event, poor parking arrangements, poor signposting or distance/climb measurement to the start, not enough toilets etc).

We should do what we can to give a legitimate run to those unfortunate to be late. People have paid their entries and travelled a long way to get to our events; our obligation as organisers should include timing everybody properly.

Especially the two people who turned up late today after driving for several hours to get here, and took hours and hours on the Orange, delaying control pickup and frustrating a bunch of nice organiser folks.

When course closing time arrives, there's no reason to delay picking up controls.

@O-ing re: Whose fault?
If it doesn't belong as a discussion then tell that to IOF.

IOF rule 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.

IOF rule 22.10 Competitors who are late for their start time through the fault of the organiser shall be given a new start time, considering the possible influence on other competitors.

Oh and I don't think I ever tagged every person that is late for their start as being a cheater. If I did it wasn't intended. But I know of several cases where a person has deliberately missed their start when a start unit is being used. Not many no but it happens.

In this particular case, it was annoying because the competitors had shown up before the scheduled time per the meet instructions (3 minutes before time). The starter had imposed his own 4 minute rule, and there was no clock available to see what time he thought it was anyway. The competitors who showed up with say, 3:30 to go before their start time were not permitted to join the people with their same start times who were lolling about at the next call up line, and they were berated for being "late".

Hammer - I'm well aware of the IOF rules. Those are for the World Championships; the ones I went to we were bussed there, so you had to be on the right bus. That's all very clear.
Yes, most National bodies seem to have trickled that rule down to every "A" meet. In many cases, not just at this event, that is causing problems. It pits Organiser vs Competitor, sets up arguments to be had at the start and leads to people being called cheats. Not fun at all.

OK

I've never run at a National Standard Competition outside the US where my start time hasn't been set in stone.

Saying that, all the people mentioned above arriving in the nick of time would have been allowed to start anywhere else I've run.

Not having a start clock available is really stupid.

They should have hired that kid from this year's WOC spectator races in France. His sole task appeared to be to yell out the time every minute, in both French and English. Maybe he was also flipping necessary number(s) on a flipboard clock. I guess the French wouldn't have been necessary but at least everyone would have known what time was being called up.

I suppose some of this discussion is based on the assumption that people arriving late were actually "cheaters" (i.e. taking the opportunity to maybe follow someone with a later start time?)

With a start punch I can understand if the suspicion would arise. Having designated start times that stand even if you´re late there would be no (or almost no) risk of being accused of cheating for starting later since your time is already running. The logistical problem here seemed to be to actually process people through the start gate, which of course is critical for everyone to actually get to the start line in time.

I can understand the need for handing out new start times in special cases (as stated in the IOF rules) so as not to interfer with other runners and/or the outcome of the race. But in general that would be - in my opinion - a bit of an "overkill" for other than the Elite categories...

Actually I also heard of several cases last spring when people arriving late to their start times at the Swedish Championships (Sprint) were actually refused to start at all! Tough, but probably according to the rules (?).

In the generally friendly atmosphere that we have in orienteering I can also see the need for a little common sense - letting people start early or late due to logistical problems such as child care or travel.

I realize it´s a thin line to be treading since there are no set rules for common sense...

Not only did BOK use start boxes, but accomodated start time preferences/requests.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh the humannnnnnnity!

:-D

I have to agree with Greg about poor choice of scale for Day 1 map (on Red)—it was barely readable on the go.
I did not experience myself this horror at start line. I did notice that the clock was missing, so I had to check, a couple of times, with officials what minute they called, but since I arrived a few minutes early that was not a problem.
Overall, the meet was ok, IMO. The courses were ok, a bit monotonous (middle-lengths legs with running straight). The map/terrain allowed more variety, with route choice.
I found a few spots where the map was wrong (#6 day 2, #5 day 1), but overall the map quality exceeded my expectations. It was a remarkable effort, and, I think, a successful one, to adequately map complex rocky features. You really have to put it in perspective: in the South-East it is probably the first such map, at least I have not seen any other, and normally what you see is pure garbage.

About the maps: 1:15,000 would have been good if it were offset-printed, subject to the following caveat. The rock mapping was nowhere close to ISOM, with excessive and incorrect use of the rock pillar symbol, sometimes poor detail selection (which boulder or cliff to show in a stony area), and so on. Even at 1:10, the rock detail was tough to make sense of because it was poorly mapped. I really noticed this on day 2 as I strolled back through the terrain.

Were the maps very good? No. Were they adequate to find the controls? Yes. Were they good enough to hold a big competition? Just. Were they lots of fun? Yes.

A couple of long legs would have been great.

I didn't have to run on the 1:15, but I agree with ndobbs about the rock mapping and the map in general. I thought the majority of stony ground that was mapped was well below threshold, and shouldn't be on the map, much less used for controls. That said, at least they were in the right place. It was really fun terrain.

I was the guy on the start line both days. We had a few really rough moments around the time Greg and Peter were starting on Saturday, with several late competitors within a few minutes of each other and some walk-ins waiting on the side. I apologize for the inconvenience to competitors and for my temporary loss of cool.

I also apologize for the 4-minute call up instead of 3 minutes. It should have been 3 minutes but early on Saturday one of the officials behind me said we were behind time and I incorrectly recalculated that I needed to call up 4 minutes ahead. Don't ask me why - I'm a math major :-)

The clock we originally had at the start was taken to the finish as it was said to be needed more there. Not true, but it was unfortunately left in my truck instead of coming back to the start. We made sure it was at the start on Sunday.

Calling out start times as well as names helped folks a lot. We did that much better on Sunday.

When I did have to assign a new start time I tried to make sure that the person was not starting immediately before or after someone in the same class. This applied to folks requesting earlier starts or folks switching courses as well as folks who were late or walk-in. I think we accomplished that goal.

If you were late but still in time to go to the clue sheet area immediately behind me AND your slot had not already been given to someone else, you could usually proceed. If your group was already at map pickup I assigned a new time.

I hope that the rest of the start experience for all the other competitors makes up for the few really bad moments around the time Peter and Greg were starting on Saturday. I've seen starts run at several A-meets, but this was my first time sitting in the hot seat myself. We learned a lot Saturday and I hope that was reflected in a smother experience Sunday.

Y'all come back to beautiful sunny NC and we'll make sure these problems don't happen next time.

Ian --

Thanks for the story. I know on Sunday it all seemed to be working just fine when I was there.

I'd been thinking of not going. Very glad I went. Whoever arranged the weather gets a special thinks.

I can't take credit for the weather. It was sure better than all the rainy vetting weekends.

I do especially want to thank the small core group of volunteers who spent untold hours setting up the whole event as well as the many other folk who volunteered on the weekend, including those competitors who pitched in for control pickup and other tasks.