Discussion: Fair play and start intervals

From the IOF competition rules:

26. Fair play
26.1 All persons taking part in an orienteering event shall behave with fairness and honesty. They shall have a sporting attitude and a spirit of friendship. Competitors shall show respect for each other, for officials, journalists, spectators and the inhabitants of the competition area. The competitors shall be as quiet as possible in
the terrain.
26.2 In an individual interval start race, competitors are expected to navigate and run through the terrain independently.
26.3 Except in the case of an accident, obtaining assistance from other runners or providing assistance to other competitors during a competition is forbidden. It is the duty of all competitors to help injured runners.

According to the Swedish O-federation website, www.orientering.se, the gold and silver medalists on the long distance proudly admitted after the race that they had a very good team work, discussing route choices and "pushing" each other to this success. To me that sounds like a blatant violation of the fair play rules.... or am I wrong?

A closely related issue is that with the start intervals. The Swedish national team coach was really upset after the long distance final and threatened to quit his job if IOF won't at least try to avoid "medal trains" in the future. (The start interval was reduced from 3 to 2 minutes a few years ago, with the motivation that it makes the races mrore spectator friendly).

The "following graph" from the women's final:
http://www.matstroeng.nu/vm2005/images/pursuit_lon...
and from the men's final:
http://www.matstroeng.nu/vm2005/images/pursuit_lon...

Any thoughts about these issues among American orienteers?

It's been going on for at least the 30 years I've been following WOCs, but the Swedes never cared because it was usually helping runners that finished behind them (i.e. a runner ended up 10th instead of 20th by following, but not ahead of the Swedes). So now all of a sudden the Swedes are upset.

Reminds me of the last leg of this year's Tio-Mila. The Swedes thought it was great because a Swedish club won. If it had been the other way around, they would have howled in protest.

Sure, the rules are a farce, but it would be nice if people didn't only care about that when they lost. Or, as the Swedes did, when they really stunk up the place.

I thought it was interesting (and suprising) that the courses didn't include any butterflies. Those don't solve the problem, but they might help.

The courses started with short, tricky legs. That probably made it more likely that trains got formed early in the race.

I know the rules are different in relays, but the point is the people in power have not dealt with this because it wasn't their ox being gored.

And if one of the first two had been a Swede, I bet there would be gloating about another medal and not a hint of protest from them.

Anyone need a definition of hypocrisy?

Olle Ka:rner ran with Tero for the last 8 legs. Oh wait, he's Estonian. Weird.

Mattias, American's pretty much hate followers. A big shock for us when we orienteer in Europe is the number of people who ask where the control is. Most don't say anything. I now lie.

My personal American orienteering take on this is that perhaps the rule on following should just be dropped. Before anyone reacts about what a horrible state this would leave the sport in, I will point out there is a much worse scenario, which happens to be the current one--where rules are selectively enforced. Want to follow someone or collaborate with someone in a WOC? No problem. But take a perfectly ordinary, over the counter cold preparation and use it for a perfectly ordinary cold in the way it is used by millions and millions of other people with colds every year, and get caught, and you get disqualified and your relay team loses its medal (Olsvik, 1993 WOC.) Try crafting a moral argument that the one rules transgression is ok while the other is wrong, and you will quickly find yourself in a morass of muddy thinking.

In the 1989 Swedish WOC, a German runner (I think it was Thorsten Lenz) followed Peter Ivars (4th that WOC) for an unprecendented finish for a male German of about 13th or so. The thing that made that remarkable was that much of it was captured on the excellent TV Swedish coverage, with cases where the German was actively trying to communicate to Ivars about where he thought a control might be, etc. And of course you had the split times as additional confirmation. Were any steps taken to DQ the runner, despite the most proof you could ever hope to have of following and collaboration? No.

So is it any surprise that it is still going on today? What is surprising that there are any folks at all who are shocked--shocked!!!--that it happens.

Either enforce the rule or drop it. I'm not suggesting going back to past WOCs and trying to rectify the following that took place earlier and has, up to now, been ignored, but here is a crystal clear opportunity for the IOF to take a stance on the issue--my understanding that a formal protest has been made by the Swedish team--or else to look away once again.

It may be, as Peter says, somewhat or even completely hypocritical for the Swedes to only now stand up and do something about following now that their runners are losing places to followers. On the other hand, what can we say about ourselves, where WOC after WOC after WOC our own runners have with certainty finished lower down in the results list than would otherwise have been the case, because of other runners following? Is it fair to criticize the Swedes for taking action only now, while for years we stood silently by and did nothing to rock the boat and just took it (having other runners finish better than our runners by following), never filing our own protests? Something to think about.

Anyone want to take any bets that any runners are going to be punished for following at this WOC?

Not really on point, but is it true that rules for relays allow following? I took a quick look at the IOF and SOFT rules and don't see it. Not that it really matters what the rules are.

there were also a lot of Swedes who thought that having a non-forked last leg at Tiomila wasn't fair.

In 1992 and 1993, at World Cup and WOC events held in the USA, the US meet crew filed reports of competitors who were observed interacting on the course (running together and talking in one case, asking another competitor for the location on the map in another). In both cases, the IOF meet officials refused to take any action. As organizers, it's easier to file this sort of complaint than in a case where the US is represented by competitors who are well down in the results list -- that might come off as whiny. But even when we filed the complaints as organizers, it did no good.

It look's like Jenny Johansson (Swe) followed Simone last 10 minutes at middle distance. So where is the difference?

More following graphs
here

The Swedish coach can possibly focus alternatively on conditioning some male orienteers into shape to run 8:12 for 3000, 9:05 for 3000 steeplechase, and 14:21 for 5000 m. And, where are those Swedes come Billygoat time?

According to Heli Jukkola's interview on the Finnish media, it was certainly Simone who set the pace after catching up with her at #7. Later Heli had planned a route for the long leg #13-#14 hoping Simone would take a different route, which she did and lost. You can see this also in the pursuit graph. Still, it didn't take long after that leg that Simone was on her heels again. So, at least, Heli made an attempt to run away and was temporarily successful in that.

Maybe accept the fact that following is going to happen, that you can't police it, and fork the hell out of the courses. Make everyone run back through the finish area to pick up their second maps.

Khramov 14:21 for 5000m - that's outstanding!!!

I heard there was a 14:11 / 5000 m for Andrey at some point but could not google it out. If someone can, post a link. Neither could I find a confirmation of the 14:05 stated on Alternativet. Thanks for the graph Jagge—a nice and graphic illustration of the "train" going right past a certain Swedish runner (see also, conditioning).

Yeah, that's a pretty interesting way to show splits combined with the start times. I've never seen it done like that before.

Jeff, you understand biking much better than elite orienteering, so let us have Tour de France all legs with staggered start and have 10 min intervals so no one is benefiting from sitting on some stronger riders wheel - how that proposal would sounds to you?

Yeah, your example is exactly like what I was talking about. Okay, let's talk about the Tour de France. They do have time trials with start intervals somewhat less than 10 minutes apart. This is similar to orienteering starts. The difference being that they are watched every step of the way, which is impractical for us. It has proven to separate the superfit from the rest of the pack.

The other things that chop up the pack are the mega-climbs. Maybe orienteering needs more bottom of the hill to the top of the hill legs to separate the men from the boys (or the women from the girls). If you are still fit enough to follow, then you have earned it.

I think I'll go fiddle with the US Champs courses this weekend and try this idea...

By the way I think it would be fun to have an event that is similar to the team time trial that they have in the Tour. Each club team of 4-6 members starts together with an interval of 2 minutes between teams. Everyone must punch each control, but you can all work together. The team time finishes when the 4th person crosses the finish line. Might be fun.

Looks like Holger had a pretty lonely day out there. Based on the graph and the map, I'd guess he never saw anyone in the woods at all, because the only people he passed (Davidik and Losman) appear to have been making errors when he blew by. There's something wrong with the graph for Pijak, because he didn't really go from 11 to 19 in negative time. And I guess if Tavernaro had been able to hang onto Khramov and Lauenstein for those last few controls, he would have had bronze. That would have been interesting, if the three medalists had arrived in a pack.

That team time trial idea sounds awesome. One of the best things about doing the GHO adventure runs is the chance to Orienteer with friends, finding controls together, suffering climbing hills when your legs explode, that sort of thing. Sounds like a great event during a training camp.

That would have been interesting, if the three medalists had arrived in a pack. Isn't that exactly what happened in 1999? Sorry can't verify—the 1999 WOC results seem to have suffered the same fate as those of the VWC 1997 A-meet, i.e. have been intentionally destroyed—the only WOC since WOCs started to not have results on the web.

Peter, the comparison with this years Tiomila is not fair. Although everyone (including all Swedes) agreed that it didn't look good, there was not a single doubt whether it was against the rules, and the fact that the Norvegian club Halden (which has subscribed on the title for many years) didn't win made the Swedes happier with this "tactical triumph" than they would have been otherwise. Following is a part of relays (especially on unforked legs), but is not intended to take place in individual races!

Of course there is a component of dissatisfaction with his own runners' performances in the Swedish coach's protests, however, that doesn't mean he isn't right. And as far as I have understood it, no one knew before the race that there wouldn't be any butterflies... (I might be wrong on this).

I'm really happy for Khramovs gold (especially as I was lucky enough to make an interview with him last February). He is really worth to be world champion! (The Swiss guy's silver medal is more questionable since he was on place 22 when he saw Khramov the first time.)

In any case, I think it is a sad development for the sport if running is getting ever more important compared to technical skills. And there is no question about who has the best technical skills: Tero. He had by far the lowest "Mistake ratio" in the long distance final as well. I don't want to say that orienteering is only orienteering when it takes place in Scandinavia, but Khramov still has to prove his technical skills (he finished 51st in this years Swedish "Elitserien", whereas his countrymen Novikov crushed all competition).

Finally I want to say that I think it was good that the Swedish team wrote an official protest, there definitely is a need to discuss this problem, even though it was obvious that no one would be disqualified.

Sorry, but I think you've got it wrong. The problem of trains at the WOC (and probably at any other big international race ) has existed for a long time, but the people in power, the Scandinavian countries, haven't done a thing about it except a minimally effective attempt at butterflies.

So now they are affected, and maybe they are pissed. Good. But I won't hold my breath waiting for them to do something. And that's knowing that one of their guys is head of the IOF.

But I sure would like to be surprised.

Regarding the Tio-Mila, I know it was within the rules. What I said was that the Swedes would have "howled in protest" (not actually protested, since there was nothing to protest) if the situation had been reversed. But they wanted a win so badly they were willing to overlook the sad way it was done.

Look, it's the same in U.S culture -- winning is everything. It's just that the ones you admire are the ones that do it with a touch of class.

Regarding the Swedish performances in the Long, I was struck by two things: One was the mistakes -- the frequency, the size, the mental lapses. From the team that has been the best in the world, they sure didn't show it. And the other was the class they showed, finishing as best they could after all hope was long gone and not just walking it in. I've just been watching Tiger Woods struggle to make the cut in the PGA, and he never quits. Your runners didn't either. For them I have admiration.

Slightly related to Spike's comment-

I agree that early section of the men's course probably contributed to the formation of trains. For purely course design reasons, I was disgusted with that section of the course the second I saw it unrolling on my screen. Why so many controls in an area with limited technical interest? Furthermore, I'll admit that I am dismayed with the overuse of controls on Classic courses in general, as the Classic distance event loses character in terms of route choice and rough map reading.

I have no problem with using many controls in the middle distance. It suites the technical character of that event. Unfortunately this Japanese terrain isn't great for the "middle". Still I thought the Middle courses were as good as the terrain allowed, but I had much higher hopes for the Classic courses.

I also believe that short leg control picking has its place in the classic event as important change-of-pace, but only where the terrain is technically complex or at least different. That certainly wasn't the situation here.

The "O" interest of this terrain is in the complex rough map reading and related route choices, perfectly suited for the classic. Yes there were a couple great legs, but there should have been many more. I havn't looked close, but these classic courses may have had better middle character than the actual middle distance courses.

I recognize that this control-heavy course setting has become the international trend, even for the classic distance, and I think that is unfortunate. These Japanese courses were certainly competent and the short legs are well crafted, but I think the courses could have been much more interesting. The course designers were doing no worse than following the current model, and perhaps also following the instructions of higher-up IOF people. I also recognize that these routings, which utilized many controls may have been done to control the climb. They did utilize relatively climb-friendly terrain.

All of my comments are based on the concensus(?) belief that each of the three individual events should have distinct character.

I think the Swiss WOC classic courses got it right in some vaguely similar terrain. Now if they could only learn from the Japanese how to count climb.

I was actually glad to see that that no butterfly loop was used. I dispise wasting controls, and these loops usually have low O-value except for change of direction, and this doesn't strike me as an effective way to unhitch the trains.

I was also not upset by the lack of a spectator control and loop for similar reasons. Still the courses had a series of low-interest short legs before the finish. They were as good as you could do in this section of terrain, but I wish this whole section was scrapped and traded for another good long leg out in the great route choice terrain.

Will classic courses with longer legs help the teamwork situation? Maybe a little, but a non- design changes such as the start interval would probably do more. Mostly Spike gave me an opening to air some design grievances.

I think 2 min start interval is no good. But what do you think of this idea:

What if we have two 40 sec road loops, one after 50% and the other after 75% of the race. Every runner will run two road loops like this:
Bib_nro Rounds
1: 2 + 0
2: 1 + 1
3: 0 + 2
4: 2 + 0
5: 1 + 1
6: 0 + 2
7: 2 + 0
...

So only every third comperitor will have same loop order. There can be only one loop, located in the competition center, or there could be two separate loops if loops are very similar.

When groups are formed in the beginnig, after 50% first road loop will break groups with 0 - 40 - 80 sec differences. And if they find themselves agein, there will be new separation after 75%.

This way we do not have to spoil good classic course by adding huge amount of controls (like with butterflies) and runners do not have to take same controls many times (like with butterflies) and if loop is at competition center it could be spectator friendly. There is disadvantages: too much road running (80 sec?) and ???

I do not know if there is any rule against this system. Do you know if this kind of system has already been used somewhere?

Vladimir - were you looking for this: WOC results 1966-2004

Rather than putting in sections that aren't orienteering, or are low-quality orienteering (butterfly loops), a lot could be accomplished by fixing the start list. Khramov, Lauenstein, and Tavernaro were able to run together, but is that surprising? Two of them won their qualifying heats, and the other was second. In the interest of having the suspense continue until the end, the fastest are started close to each other at the end of the window. If you wanted to maximize the chances of people running together, this would be a pretty effective approach. Mix up the start order, and more often the runner being overtaken won't be able to keep up. I suppose part of the justification for the way it's done now is that those most likely to win are given the same environmental conditions (temperature, tracks in the forest, etc.), and that is a legitimate concern. But there's a tradeoff between that and the formation of packs. I can't see that the Swedish protest (if I understand it) has any merit, though. Unless one of the runners arrived without a map, there's no way to say that someone was not navigating. It's particularly true in a case like this, where it involves the top qualifiers, people who have a demonstrated ability to orienteer well. If the consensus is that packs are a problem, I think the best move is a seeded start list to separate the best competitors. (Of course, there's always the option of running the long final as a goat race. :-)

Peter, you must understand that all Swedes don't have the same opinion. Most Swedes seem to be really unhappy with what the Swedish people in the IOF top have achieved. Just because we have a Swedish leadership in IOF at the moment I think it's good that the Swedes take the lead in protesting against stupid IOF policies.

J-J, I thinkt butterflies are better than "trains" but I agree that they generally are a bad solution. What easily could be done is to increase the start interval, at least to 3 minutes for all in the final (as it was historically) and possibly even more (like 5 min) for the 10 last starting runners, since they are more likely to win medals. Such a measure would considerably decrease the risk of "medal trains".

I aslo agree that I don't think one should blame the individual runners too much (and definitely not demand their disqualification). The new thing in this case, that they (if the info is correct) seem to be proud of having discussed route choices and like team cyclists having shifted the leader effectively to keep the pace, is in any case a pretty small step in the wrong direction from the already long time established standard which (unfortunately) allows trains, although they are agains the fair play rules.

How about this for breaking up trains?.... Each runner has a couple of randomly assigned 'time-outs' on the course. They don't know where they are. When they punch in at a control, it either goes 'beep' or 'bong'. If it goes 'bong', your clock stops and you have to wait for, say, 1-2 minutes, before punching that control again and continuing on your way. How long you wait is up to you, as long as it's in the range. It doesn't need an official to be there, because it's not precisely timed, but if you go over the maximum your clock just starts running again.

Peter, you must understand that all Swedes don't have the same opinion.....

Agreed, for sure.

Interesting that the very unofficial (and perhaps even uncensored) blog on the SOFT webpage has an entry referring to the Swedish (and IOF?) leadership as the "Orienteering Talliban." Not the phrase that you would use if the leadership was enlightened and forward-thinking....

Also interesting is the report on the Australian federation's page regarding Hanny Allston's run:

"Hanny had a plan and she stuck to it.  It was to go as hard as she could until one of the faster later starters caught her and then work with them to maintain her momentum.  She was not caught until well into the race, by Finland’s Paula Haapakoski and they travelled together for a while until they caught Russia’s Tatiana Ryabkina who started two minutes before Hanny.  About the same time another Finn Heli Jukkola and Simone Niggli joined what was now a pack.

 Leaving the 13th control Hanny made a brave decision, not to go on the same route as Simone who went low, but to stay high with the Finns.  As a consequence they reached control 14 ahead of Simone and stayed ahead of her through to about the 17th control.  Simone and one other reached the second last control (where I was sitting taking photographs) about two minutes ahead of Hanny and the pack, which now included Romania’s Zsuzsa Fey (see photo of Zsuzsa Fey, Tatiana Ryabkina, Hanny and Paula Haapakoski coming into the second last control).  The climb out was very steep and the run home arduous.  Hanny managed to beat Haapakoski and Ryabkina to the finish line.  Her result was a just result for her efforts."

 

Interesting to see this discussion of fairness of start times again, remember the discussion just before the US Team Trials? At that time many argued that "this is the way the Scandinavians do it" to justify the method used (having the fastest start last). All it guarantees is a benefit to the later starters.
Given that, it sems to me that being in the best of running condition is hugely beneficial. You can't join the train if don't have the speed.

Here are the older relavant threads I could find:

(Cheating)
(fairness in TT start times)
(US start proc)

The first one in particular addresses following, even though that was not the intention of the thread when jj started it (my fault, I'm afraid). The second one here is the pre-TT one Jeff is referring to. It was interesting to see that Ken had put in links to the TT results on the OCIN site which had been put into something called "splitbrowser", which I presume makes plots like the ones Jagge posted earlier in this thread, but I can't make the stinking Java (run everywhere my ass) thing work.

The difference between splitbrowser and those graphs from WOC is that splitbrowser starts everybody at zero, and it's hard to spot potential following on those graphs.

in splitsbrowser, you get pursuit graphs by choosing "race graph". it works best if you select only a few runners at a time.

Ah, I see - thanks for the hint.

Now we know why Khramov won, it was because of Jamie's injury...:) Read this analysis:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0508/0508158.p...

Why the :), cii00me9? Graeme's analysis seems eminently plausible to me, as did the earlier Nature paper it's based on, and suggests a fundamental problem with short start intervals. Short start intervals combined with high visibility terrain and WOC-standard fields are a recipe for following determining the race. Rather than worrying about the rules for following, better to structure the race so that following is unlikely to determine the medals. That means any of: longer start intervals (maybe with a smaller A final field to fit the starts in a reasonable window); lower-visibility forest; or more use of 'break-up-packs' methods like forced waiting at certain points (eg manned controls) or butterfly loops.

An alternative is to give up worrying about following and run the long race as mass-start. People don't seem to like this but I don't see what the problem is. It's more exciting than the status quo and the same people still win.

A mass start event seems clearly preferable to micr-o to me...

the following question will be very very very very very very very interesting at the world cup final in france next year. Just talked with the mapper this morning and the conclusion seemed to be that two-day start intervals might be necessary...

Has the idea of alternating the men's and women's starts been discussed? This would double the start interval for each group but not increase the overall time competitors are being started. I suppose there are some disadvantages to having both races going on at once. But it seems like a very easy and uncomplicated way to spread the competitors out.

The idea of varying the start interval has been proven effective in cycling where the seeded riders start at the end of a TT. Nobody really cares that much if a few middle of the pack riders pass each other (even if you do observe the drafting rules, catching a rider is an advantage). The important thing is to limit it among the people most likely to win.

Using the qualifiers to seed and then going from a 1-minute interval and progressing to 5 (or more) would add the needed gaps among the top competitors without drastically increasing the start window.

Of course, you'd have to then worry about folks tanking the qualifier so they could start earlier, but I doubt that would become a problem. The risk of missing the final altogether is greater than the small advantage a medal contenter would get from the bottom half of the field.

Add: "According to the Swedish O-federation website, www.orientering.se, the gold and silver medalists on the long distance proudly admitted after the race that they had a very good team work, discussing route choices and "pushing" each other to this success. To me that sounds like a blatant violation of the fair play rules.... or am I wrong?"
*******************************************

Just two brief points to this:
1) I know Marc and I know Andrei. I know Marc does not speak Russian and I know that Andrei speaks no other language than Russian... I sort of wonder how they could discuss route-choices and other things... taking into account we are speaking about a WOC race where you don't stop to gesticulate to somebody else about where to go...

2) I talked to Marc a lot after the race about the thing he said when I interviewed him at the press conference after the race. He said: "It was a very nice team-work we had..." But there's one thing which should be taken into account. English is not Marc's mother tongue! And no matter how good you are in the foreign languages some things simply don't feel the same when you say them. Ex. when I say "shit" in English, I know it means the same as "hovno" in Czech, but in English it does not sound that bad at all... it's just a series of syllables which gives a meaning, but it raises very little feeling about how bad the word is... and the same it was for Marc and his unfortunate 'team-work'... Could he speak in his mother-tongue, which is French, at the press conference, he would never use a word like this in the context given... not to avoid possible penalization, but simply because it would not fit in the context.
And add to this he finished a tough 100-minute race which earned him a 2nd place in the WOC; of course it is easy to imagine in a situation like this you say things without properly thinking about what you say, especially when you say them in a foreign language.

And also, if you studied the results and split times... Andrei was second in the race (just 9 secs behind Schneider) already before he caught up with Marc... and it was after the most technical part of the course, which he ran all by himself... you never know what could have happened it he had had to run the rest of the course all alone, but judging the way he managed the Russian selection-races and the Qualification for Long at the WOC or the Sprint... it's really annoying to hear somebody saying he became the World Champion just because he and Marc got together....

Of course the start-interval is a problem, but it's really stupid to blame the runners for it. How long the organizers and the IOF knew before the race that there was going to be no TV live-coverage from the Long distance? Probably since Japan was awarded the WOC organization... Was it such a big problem to make change to the rules and put the interval back to 3-minutes for this race? I'm sure the some 20 journalists present in the finish area would not mind so much waiting for the race to end some 45 minutes longer. Was it such a big problem to create reasonable butterfly loops on the course regarding the terrain given? I think these are the questions which should be asked instead of blaming two or three runners (out of many) for staying together over some part of the course... For me Andrei is a World Champion same was as any other runners before him. The last thing I would say about his title is that it stinks... By the way... Who was the World Cup winner last year? And to win this, it's not enough to be lucky in just one single race... You have to be good at several races on several terrain types... Indeed Andrei is a true Champion, who deserved the title! On the day he was the best.

Got a bit longer. Sorry. Hope is legible.

Instead of putting all the fast runners at the beginning or at the end, it would be better to start them like this:

F M S F M S ... etc.

Every runner starts 6 minutes apart from other runners of similar speeds (as per qualification times), and even if a Fast runner passes a Medium or Slow runner, chances are they won't be able to keep up for long.

The reason why you can't do it this way in biking is that drag is such a significant advantage.

The disadvantage of this approach is that the first Fast runner might have very different temperature and weather conditions than the last one.

I agree with you Jan that you shouldn't blame the runners but the IOF. The main problem is the rules, prohibiting team work but not stating what should happen when two runners get together. Andrei is definitely a worthy champion (and I don't think many people question that) although he was "only" second in World Cup last year and I think it's very sad that he didn't get the chance to win alone this time (because I'm pretty sure he would have made won anyway). It's all too easy to remember that his other big international victory (on the WC middle distance in England earlier this year) also partly felt like a product of team work and it's therefore not difficult to imagine that people, not knowing about his capacity, might think that he wouldn't have won without the team work. Lauensteins second place is more questonable since he was on 22nd place when Khramov caught him up...

And some clarifications: Emil Wingstedt has publicly denied that he heard any route choice discussion between Lauenstein and Khramov when the passed him although that was exactly what the journalist on www.orientering.se stated in the article referred to. However, Emil said that Lauenstein had told him that the right route choice on the long leg was better...

I anyway don't think one can completely exclude the chance that the runners in some way actually "discussed" route choices but that's not really important. Discussing route choices is anyway only slightly worse than silent team work...

And I don't think you should blame language difficulties for their "team work" "confession". Khramov at least repeated approximately the same thing in Russian later ("my meste rabotali" - "we worked together").

By the way, I found Graeme's analysis very interesting and I hope IOF will read it. What I found a bit amusing was the conclusion about Stevenson's injury although it was quite well motivated.

how about starting the fastest runner first, etc.?

If you know who is the fastest runner, why hold the competition? :p

the hare doesn't always win! ;-)

Of course not, but I believe the point is that starting in ascending or descending order will result in the same problem because the top runners are close enough that whoever is behind will always have an advantage.

And that may make a reasonable case for leaving things the way they are. If hammering the qualifier gives you an advantage, is that such a bad thing? The world's biggest sport from a money/TV standpoint is Formula 1 auto racing. Qualification is a huge part of the race and nobody seems to have a problem with that.

There is a definite disadvantage to being among the first runners on many maps. The first runners force a route through difficult terrain, and subsequent runners can benefit from their efforts/tracks. You don't want to deliberately disadvantage the fastest runners (ie those who have qualified the best) by putting them first - there should be a reward for a good qualification race.

On a different sort of terrain the tactics for qualification races can be quite different. At the WMOC in Italy last year, the terrain held together pretty well and new tracks were not appearing very much - ie not much difference in conditions for starting first or last. Fast runners who made mistakes in qualification, but nevertheless still got to the A-final, started among the slower runners, where they got repeated "boosts" as they regularly passed other orienteers. In contrast, with decent start intervals between the top qualifiers, I'm not aware of major trains having been formed at the top, at least in my class, although the ordering of the last few starters did change. Second place (by a few seconds) in my class went to someone who started in the middle of the startlist (though I don't think his qualification position was part of a grand strategy).

So the tactics for qualification would seem to depend on the terrain and the start interval, and there may be an optimal tactical response whatever the organizers do.

I should be the last person to write this, as Marc's girlfriend I am naturally bias, but I feel that some facts should be stated. cii00me9 what you have said about Marc and his how placement in the long distance is questionable is unsubstantiated. In the first 8 controls of the long distance, Andrey is in 2nd place, and Marc is 24 seconds behind in 5th. Out of the first 8 controls, Marc has a faster split than Andrey on 4 controls, but both are behind the Swiss David Schneider, who had the best start in the field. Control 9, Marc makes a mistake which costs him 1'56", Andrey has now caught up to Marc. From this point on there are 19 controls left. Marc leads (with a faster split) on 14 of these 19 controls. Who is helping who? Marc was trying to get away! In total, there were 29 controls and Marc has a faster split than Andrey on 18 of them. Andrey is certainly faster in the finish shoot.
Marc has clearly shown his abilities this year. In Round 1 of the World cup races, Marc placed 4th, 2'30 behind the leader in the long distance event. In the Swiss qualification races he won three out of four races, and won the long distance race with over 6 minutes. In the long distance qualification he won his heat with little over a minute with some big names in his heat, and in the relay he brought the Swiss team from 5th into 1st on the second leg. Andrey certainly earned and deserves his gold, nobody questions his abilities, but Marc is a new name, and so, therefore, unjustified accusations are being made. What a shame.
It bothers me that nothing is said about the women's race and the packs that formed there and how that influenced the results. Had a "famous" name been in second place instead of Marc, would these accusations be taking place, probably not. Of course I think the time intervals and structure of the race need to be discussed and also changed, but we need to stop blaming the athletes or questioning their abilities!

I completely agree with you and I don't think anyone but IOF should be blamed. It's however obvious that people find it less glorious to be in a pack if you where the one caught up even if you are leading it most of the time. And it's definitely Andrey and not Marc who has a record of "pack running". By the way, I don't think that Marc is a new name. He was established among the top runners already long before this years WOC.

And I would like to add that I'm very proud that I was able to follow Marc for half a middle distance race a couple years ago. It was almost my best middle distance result then (my best one I've achieved running totally alone). Marc totally deserves his medal. Finally, he has been able to show us his full potential this year. If you'd followed his orienteering career in the last couple years, you'd have known that he was going to be one of the best orienteers soon. And now he is... Congratulations Marc, you're the best!!!

what the ... (And it's definitely Andrey and not Marc who has a record of "pack running"), just leave the athletes alone, they both deserve what they got and don't have to proof a damn thing, because they are the best at what they do (see qual. results), so just accept it!

OK, I'm sorry for "record of pack running". That was meant as some kind of excuse for Marc and not as an accusation of Khramov even if it sounded like one. What I meant was that he (Khramov) has been involved in several of the cases which has led to a vivid discussion of this topic in Sweden. Maybe it's coincidentally, maybe the Swedes hate Khramov (I don't. he is one of my idols and I even did my best to promote him spending a lot of my free time to publish an interview with him last February)... I can't tell the reason for sure. Those cases are: 1. EOC in Denmark, long distance final (Dalin-Chramov), 2. World Cup in England 2005 middle distance (Khramov-Haldin) and 3. This year's WOC final long distance (Khramov-Lauenstein).

Jan Skricka you wrote:

"By the way... Who was the World Cup winner last year? And to win this, it's not enough to be lucky in just one single race... You have to be good at several races on several terrain types... Indeed Andrei is a true Champion, who deserved the title!"

For the record, it was Holger Hott Johansen who won the World Cup last year. Incidentally he was also the bronze medallist in the WOC Long, and was one of the few runners who ran the entire way alone.

Andrey and Marc were both 1st in their qualification races. What better evidence could exist to indicate that these two are incredible orienteers and completely worthy of their respective placings in the final!

The current scheme (best start last, 2 minute intervals) clearly leads to train formation, especially in the Long. This is evident throughout the results list. If the IOF wants to do something about following, then they should. However, the athletes should not be blamed. Should an orienteer intentionally take a bad route choice, or slow down to avoid "following" - no way.

The current qualification/final scheme encourages a runner to do well in the qual to get a good start position in the final. This "seeding" issue is common in all sorts of different sports (car racing, skiing, tennis, etc.). Marc and Andrey reaped the rewards of winning their respective heats - i.e., they got to start amongst the fastest orienteers at the tail end of the group. That Holger came into 3rd place running independently is also very impressive - he was at a bit of disadvantage though, having finished "only" 6th in his qual.

[Just to clarify ... the quotations around the "only" are there because 6th is still a damn good result.]

I know now I made the mistake. I was a bit hot-headed when I was writing my contribution and did not even think about checking the facts which I should have.

It's strange I did not remember it, I was at the Final WC awards ceremony in Dresden and saw Holger being crowned the WC 2004 winner.

But what I wrote was definitely not aimed against Holger.

Sorry again.

For the Alpine World Cup races the better the seed (higher the World Cup ranked) gets to pick their start number. So, they get to chose to go early or late in the A wave, thinking about conditions and the like. So, the leading Austrian picks his start, then Bode Miller picks his (can't stand this guy, left over from watching Point Break often) and eventually all the start draws are selected. Would that help runners who want to get away from the trains, or would they all cluster at the end as they are now?

Why is it so interesting what results runners have from before? The rules are the same no matter how good you are.

Taking away all responsibility from the runners is like saying it is allowed to steal your neighbour's TV as soon as he forgets to lock his door.

3 min start intervals and forking methods, together with high ethical integrity from the runners should be sufficient for keeping the sport as we want it: The lone man against the elements.

If we want other tactical elements then we can create a new discipline (chasing start, mass start or whatever).

Well spoken Holger! The runners of course have a responsibility to respect the rules. That was also the reason for the Swedish protest (Why was there no norwegian protest?). However, as long as it is not stated in the rules what should happen when two runners get together, it is extremely difficult to draw the border between what is OK and what is not. As long as it can't be prooved that they actually discussed route choices, (which will be difficult after Emil Wingstedts denial) I therefore don't think one should blame the runners too much in this particular case. The phenomenon is at least not new. Check for example the "team work" between Mamleev and Omelchenko in the WOC 2003 long final.

This problem is in any way huge for our sport and IOF has to do something about it very soon!

For me the top three orienteers are TeroG, HHJ and Valentin N. Of these only TG won gold. Perhaps the start interval (plus forking) needs to be chosen depending on the expected margin of victory so as not to overly affect the medal positions. Of course, this would lead to a 7 minute interval in WCFinal middle distance in France and 10-15 in the Classic, where following WILL occur.

As long as the orienteers concerned are willing to try alternate route choices to gain an advantage and drop the other runner I think this suffices. I will "use" other orienteers to give bearings out of controls, and also to evaluate runnability in rough or green terrain, and think this is unavoidable.

For the sport as a whole there is a major problem - what happens if a runner waits at the first control for the next orienteer to pass and then follows the rest of the course. I can't see the medal contenders doing this, but I am aware of something not too far removed happening in Sweden'04 with a "bad" orienteer following a mid-pack orienteer essentially with map in pocket.
If this happens to knock me out of a spot in a Final next year this would not only seriously piss me off but also deprive me of substantial Sports Council funding (ahh if only).
It is not just medal hopefuls that are affected by following.

Well well, all the discussion about the long distance race at the WOC seems to take no end. There are some rumors, that some runners violated IOFs fair play rule and cheated by cooperating together. What a shame that now a days no one can trust any one anymore. Furthermore the IOF tends to promote such cooperation with their race setting.

As a matter of fact, I am quite in the center of this never ending discussion, as I am one of those competitor blamed to have run together, in a pack, collaborating. On top of the fact, in my deliria after the race, I mentioned that Andrei and I had a good team work. Wow, I couldn’t have said anything better to put oil in the fire.
Now is the question, should I feel ashamed about my performance and my result. Was I competing in a non fair play manner?

Absolutely not!
First of all, the use of the term "teamwork" was a very unfortunate description of the interactions between Andrey and I in the forest. We certainly didn’t work actively together to be faster, telling each other where the controls are, discussing the pros and cons of the routes we where going to take or cheering each other on to keep up. But, I honestly can’t deny, that there was an interaction… I wonder if I have to explain this situation, because I am sure that any orienteer as lived it already. When you are running with some one running your speed, you are motivated to go even faster, to break away. And if you are running into a technical control, and you know that the person with you is going for the same control, it gives you more confidence. This is what I called by mistake a "teamwork". I blame myself immensely to have used those words, but I don’t blame myself for an inch how I ran in the forest. And same goes for Andrei and Michele. Having been unfortunately a long time with them in the forest, no one else can judge it better than me, that the two of them are ranked at this competition at their right place.

I wonder if people find it astonishing, that I feel offended by anyone characterizing my result “questionable”. Interestingly, no one has confronted me directly with this question. There has only been press releases coming up with this, and, as you know, a protest. Also interestingly, everyone supporting this protest told me it is by no mean against me personally, but against the race organization which had only two minute intervals and no butterflies. Well, I was than quite surprised to read the protest. I believe it couldn’t express clearer that the three of us cheated in the forest and we need to be punished for this! And what really baffles me, is that there is no single line putting in question way the competition was held.

If you want my opinion, this was a very unfortunate way of putting on a long distance race. There should be 3 min intervals and especially some butterflies. The idea with the qualification races and trying to put people of the same strength together is a good thing. Many runners have the ability to follow the fastest. The physical difference between runners a quite small, especially in the men’s class. I am sure, that if we try to split up the “best” runners with “slower” runners, we will make only bigger groups in the forest.

Please, for the good of sport and the respect for the athletes. Don’t expect that the same runners to always better than others. Please, stay open-minded to people's ability.
And oh, please forgive me for doing this 1min 54sec error on control # 9, dropping than to the 22nd place and getting passed by Andrei Khramov who I caught up to again. It was the biggest mistake I have made all season, in training and races, and it was a disappointment to the progress I am trying to make.

And now, if you have lots of time and energy for the good of orienteering, put pressure to the IOF that we need butterflies in our races. 2 or 3 of them would even be better. Personally, I must admit I have other things to deal with. If in the WC in Italy a pack of runners finish together and beat me, I was just slower than them! The scenario would kick me into training better and harder. I hope that in the future we athletes can concentrate on getting faster and improving our performance, rather than dealing with such problems.

Cheers to everyone, Marc

Marc, I don't think you should feel ashamed and I think it's perfecly clear what kind of interaction you and Andrei had in the forest (one I believe most orienteers have experienced). The problems are the rules (there should be some guideline about how to act when getting together in the forest) and the format of the event (2 min start interval...etc.) not the runners' moral.

It might have been me writing "questionable", but it was in the context: "MORE questionable than Chramov's 1st place, since Chramov was the one catching you up" and I didn't mean anything more than that.

Regarding pressure on the IOF, don't forget that your voice is like 50 of ours (we ordinary hobby orienteers) and you are one of those directly affected by their decisions.

And finally two questions (if you read here again):
1. What is your, respectively the common Swiss opinion regarding the IOF decision to add Micro-O to the WOC middle distance?
2. How is the training in Ouagadougou? ;-)

For everyone who posted on this thread:

Here are my personal meta-conclusions. I'm an arrogant bastard, so please don't try to discuss them with me. (Unless maybe there's beer involved.)

1) Don't believe everything you hear, especially from the media.
2) Don't make all kinds of assumptions / judgements until you have heard the story directly from the people involved.
3) Try to identify your own preconceived notions. Don't post discussions based on assuptions and prejudice. It's a waste of personal time, network bandwith, hard-drive space etc. :)

I hope any further post will discuss the general problems related to cluster formation, and not make subjective and judgmental references to particular races and runners.