Discussion: Relay Champs

Does anyone have further details about the proposed relay champs (as mentioned here) in HVO on Nov 2-3 weekend?

Details will be in the next ONA, and online by the time that is published, things are not quite finalized yet.

Its not planned to be relay champs right now. The format is going to be a 5 man relay, with a 3man masters, and junior category. We want to do a relay that is going to be fun an exciting from a spectators point of view, instead of the relay laid out in the rules.

We are also planning a sprint qual/final on the day before, and a middle on the day after.

Thanks. Any details on which map(s) will be used?

Its still dependent on exactly where we can get permission to setup start/finish/arena, but we are looking at Surebridge for the relay, and Polebrook for the middle.

sounds fun.. waiting for more details- of course -when available ..maybe a NA relay champs ??

Is this going to be an A-meet? Will you apply for sanctioning?

Nick: we have not talked with either Orienteering Canada or OUSA about North American relay champs but if there was enough interest I'm sure we would consider it.

Boris: The middle distance on Sunday will likely be an A-meet. We're not sure about the other days because of the novel formats. The quality will be the same regardless of whether or not it's sanctioned so dont worry about that.

We want to do a relay that is going to be fun an exciting from a spectators point of view, instead of the relay laid out in the rules.

That's exactly how the "relay laid out in the rules" started, and then made its way into the rules.

Sounds awesome!

Will there be a night leg?

We'd like to change the rules to reflect a more up-to-date exciting relay format, but need a subcommittee willing to put in the work. It was one of the things I tried to get comments on last year with no success, so it's still on the to do list. Any volunteers?

Is there any consensus on what constitutes a "more up-to-date exciting relay format" would look like? Ditto with "... to be fun and exciting from a spectator's point of view".

No. That's why somebody has to come up with it.

Kudos to Ed, Jeff, and whoever else is involved for trying something new!

At this point the main team is Erin, Barb, Ed, and myself with significant help from Guy and others in HVO. We want to make this a big thing so if anyone is at all interested in helping make this happen in any capacity big or small please let us know.

It could be as simple as helping promote the event on the other side of the continent.

Having some idea of what constitutes a better relay format (choose your metric) is an obvious prerequisite for writing rules to describe that superior format. Perhaps before we start making committees to update rules, we should find a format that is better by consensus or at least by majority. It sounds like this effort by the HVO et al group is a step in the right direction.

I thought the committee would be charged with thinking about / deciding the larger issues, and then work out the rules.

We'd like to change the rules to reflect a more up-to-date exciting relay format, but need a subcommittee willing to put in the work. It was one of the things I tried to get comments on last year with no success, so it's still on the to do list. Any volunteers?


I volunteer to organize and chair the subcommittee. Absent any objections, our committee has convened, discussed the issue, and, immediately before disbanding, has promulgated the following rule change suggestion --

"The OUSA relay championship format is up to the organizers, so long that it is reasonable and communicated to prospective entrants well in advance".

"Reasonable" being defined both in terms of prestige/profit motive of the organizers, and success measured based on registrations for the race vs historical norms.

In the unlikely event of arising doubt or competing bids, the Sanctioning Committee has final say on adjudicating "reasonable".

There. Done. HTH

Actually that's what the rules currently state. More or less.

Watching Jukola the other day renewed my view that it is the big 'all ages' orienteering relays that are really the best high visibility TV friendly (better if post produced) format of our sport. Would be very cool if North America had one of these types of relays every year.

This topic gets brought up every few years and I remember one discussion suggesting only one category and teams of 5 or 6. Each team could have a requirement of two team members that are either: i) female, ii) under 18 age or iii) over 50 years old. That would probably needed to keep the average Nor-Am participant happy but opening the relay up to any 5 or 6 runners you want might be a great way to go as well. If it is good enough for Jukola...

Starting at night would be ideal. Same weekend as a mass start long race would be attractive too.

IMHO It doesn't and probably shouldn't be a champs event. keep the rules simple (in the spirit of races like the Billygoat). Once it becomes a champs event the organizational and participation fun factor drops big time.

IMO, the existing OUSA Relay Champs rules (de facto) have done a pretty good job at allowing for fun, competitive races for many years, between clubs with a fairly diverse mix of participants that vary by club - especially given the challenge of working with the relatively thin population of USA A-Event traveling participants...

We can certainly have more/other relays, and even a different relay format be blessed as the Champs if need be, but let's not forgot the number of discussions & tradeoff balancing acts that have created the 'system' we have today...

The sort of relay that we have now was able to evolve due to the previous set of rules being totally ignored for many years. This flexibility allowed for a number of different ideas to be tried (most of which were good, some of which were not as good and were dropped). I was against codifying what we had, in order to allow the evolution to continue. But, the rules were tossed aside before when someone had an idea that didn't fit them, and if someone has another idea that doesn't fit the rules that we have now, that could happen again.

i like Hammer's proposal ( or suggestion ). analogy with Jukola will fit fine for several clubs here in Canada .- call it NorAm relay if you want..

Interested in the current format. Around here (with slim numbers, certainly not enough for age-class competition between clubs) we run a 3-leg relay with no restrictions on one leg, and class restrictions on the other two. And there's a second relay category with tighter restrictions to allow the younger kids to take part too.

I like the current US relay champs system, but I would love to see a single class, rather than the contrived 4-point, 8-point, and 12-point categories - something more along the lines of what Hammer is proposing. If there really is interest in overhauling the relay champs rules and a committee is being formed, I'd be happy to serve on it.

Relays are more exciting with more teams. This is why I'm a fan of one category and yes the US 4
Point system works well. I've enjoyed running in many US relay champs. I still think there is an opp to attract Euro clubs to something bigger though.

As far as NAOC relay is concerned I personally would like that to build off of last year's success. Now that mixed sprint relay is a WOC discipline why not just have one NAOC sprint relay? Instead of each country having 2 teams of 3 runners x 4 categories instead let each country enter 6 mixed teams of 2 men and 2 women. Three of those teams must be all junior teams. Junior team position is ranked for the FC Cup by junior team ranking in results only but all teams (jr or sr) are used for points for the BK Cup. Now we have 12 teams racing head to head.

Apologies for going off topic more but To develop NA relay orienteering more id also like to see more individual Farsta races. Though please call it something different for marketing purposes (O-Cross). I know this impacts ranking but NA athletes need more experience for relays.

The Scandinavia clubs really love their relays, and it is one partof their great social "glue" which keeps the members together.
I like the present format, certainly vs a format of just having "open" teams.
But I would advocate for smaller teams than the 4 as it is now, 3 or 2 spread the faster competitors among more teams.

More teams make it exciting, and fewer competitors on each team means more teams are likely to be competitive, so closer and exciting races.
Hammers O- Cross idea has been used for the last few years in the Speedy Goat relays.

+1 Hammer's NAOC relay suggestion... 2014?

Just a note on the relay in Harriman. We thought about a night leg. That might be integrated later. The middle race is not an individual race and there probably won't be I divi dual awards. It will be scored like a track meet and the club that scores the most points across the age categories wins. Only 3 people from a club can score points in a given age category but 4th and down runners can push people out of points. If everyone is into getting something big going step up and help us out. We need as many people as we can get to kick this thing off and creat an awesome arena.
Things like cool food to sell
Fun activities for spectators to engage in
Clubs getting together and traveling to the event
Club tents and banners
Sponsors etc

The more help the cooler it will be. More to come soon.

Well said Erin. +1

For NAOC 2014 with definitely want to build on the success of the 2012 NAOC relay. We've had a lot of talk on how to do that, and any thoughts like Hammer's are more than welcome. We've got an awesome location. We need an awesome format.