Discussion: Change in rules for World Cup 2007!

Ha, fooled you...

So the IOF Foot-O Committee was supposed to meet on Friday to discuss their scheme, originally floated in July, and the subject of many complaints.

And Sunday the IOF issues a press release summarizing the rules for 2007 and they are exactly the same as what is in the July proposal.

So either the FOC has confirmed the status quo, or the IOF doesn't know what its own committees are doing. Why am I not surprised?

Anyone know what the FOC actually did?

Where's that press release, Peter? I don't see it on the IOF webpage.

Look on the World Cup page. Release

I’ve hoped that FOC or IOF would at least explain why COF proposal is not exactable. It is important information for a very large number of federations which have even worse situation than COF.

In those kinds of transparency looks like that small federations are really just a number. It hard to believe that they don’t have time to prepare explanation but they have time to prepare Press release,…..…..What is more important for small federations?

Small federations pays membership to IOF because they want to have legal opportunity to develop sport not just to be part as a number when they need it. Maybe IOF really need somebody who will care about development not just to seek those potential countries to increase membership to number 75.

Word from Frauke is that the FOC has sent the case on to the Council (I don't presume to understand the bureaucracy of the IOF so anyway...) who will discuss it at their meeting in November. No idea why it wasn't discussed at the FOC meeting as promised. Hopefully more information about that later this week.

Here's another item for anyone trying to understand the IOF bureaucracy --

The Swiss had an event a couple of weeks ago, the PostFinance Sprint. It was actually two days, a middle distance on the first day (Friday, Sept 29) in pre-alpine terrain, with the top 25 men and women qualifying for the sprint in Bern the next day (Saturday, Sept 30).

The web page and all the literature for the event said that the first day, the middle distance, would be a WRE day.

The IOF web site said that WRE day was Saturday, the sprint. So when the WRE points were calculated, they did them for the sprint.

Apparently the event was originally scheduled for Saturday and Sunday and the WRE application was for the middle on Saturday. And when the dates were changed at some point, this wasn't picked up.

So anyway, the points were calculated for Saturday's sprint. I sent in a complaint to the FOC because Sandra had done real well on Friday and I wanted her to get the points for it.

I have no idea what went on behind the scenes, but now the IOF has sanctioned both Swiss events as WREs -- "Added official results for SUI 29/09 (extra event sanctioned by IOF due to exceptional circumstances)." So Sandra and Viktoria (and a bunch of Swiss) get points for both days.

Somehow I can't imagine this happening, and happening so quickly, if the country involved was not one of the inner circle.

The IOF now have a brief news release advising that the rules may change, and to expect an update in November.

Somewhere, I don't remember now I read that could be also problem with citizenships and how could we really know that all athletes are representing his country; WRE ID.

In spring when we decided to have clear history we even sent to IOF a few changes as under WRE ID; SLO, where also some runners from other countries. We did it because of the development reason as we want to see changing of total sum of WRE points at each end of year. BUT, now I can’t find this option? I think I just thought that this option exists.

Now, we still have one runner in our database wrong, but as IOF press release is out (bad tactic or ignorance), I just ask myself why bother IOF with this. We are still so deep down on table that these not change anything for us or for others. Probably this is just a small problem but as they decided to use it, I would also like to know what the RULES are.

Could somebody at IOF 100% check all ID’s? Probably only federations could “stay” under their own runners. Small federation probably will not get anything out of this and for us is probably more economical to watch WOC, WC at home with real player and look fight between the big federation for additional lots than invest money in this kind of a system to go up. Looks like IOF arena project is also designed for small federations in a long run.

If we want to earn 2 runners at this table we will probably wait for next 15 years as we are very small country and this is like with Canada or America in opposite way. You runners can’t travel so far for WRE points but we can’t have so much ELITE runners as others. IOF see that this is development for us. I think that if they already find a way to collect money for prizes they should also find money or % of this money that will go to small federations for development reasons.

Now, with every runner who could afford to go to WOC or WC we get some info, some hope for others and some more willingness to force development. In new system I think that nobody will have wish to travel alone and nobody want to skip relay if you collect the money for WOC on your own. I think that this 3+3 standard, we want to have it as a member of IOF as our wild card for day when we will find money to send runners to WOC, WC or it is just close enough. It seems that IOF don’t have enough money for all. I could agreed with this system only if IOF give us money insted of lots.

So simple and it is so hard to understand.

You can read the suggestion that the Foot-O Commission has sent to the IOF at this link under October postings (last posting from Frauke). It seems that the FOC hasn't understood the problem if they think that this will solve it.

Note that they are recommending that each region get three more WREs each year, in addition to the earlier idea of giving some extra slots to low-slot countries with runners ranked in the top 150, as their response to the protests from CAN, USA, NZL and the orienteers at the French World Cups. These would become part of the special 2007 rules, it seems.

The US and Canada may want to think about where to hold these extra WREs next year.

Frauke's post doesn't say anything about requiring regional WREs to be part of a regional championship, and actually states that it is up to us to decide how to distribute them: "to be distributed between the member Federations in a manner to be decided by the region." That means that we don't have to have NAOC every year in order to take advantage of our extra 3 regional WREs, but I would be very excited if we could make it happen every year.

One of the things that is limiting the development of elite Orienteering in North America, is the lack of exposure to good competition. NAOC is the best opportunity to create the highest possible level of competition at a meet, and so holding it yearly would be a great benefit for Orienteering in NA. How would one go about suggesting such a change?

But Johnny boy, under the current system you are North American Champ for another 23 months (at least).....

But it is so much more exciting to have to focus on defending it sooner, rather than sitting back and getting old and fat like some people I know... ;)

Besides, the thrill is in winning the championship, not in being the champ. I'm like an addict looking for his next fix.

There are already way too many US championships. Adding yearly North Americans would be good because people actually show up, because they are all held on the same weekend. However, please let it be at the cost of reducing the number of weekends on which a US championship of some kind is held...

I'll second that... one weekend of US Champs and one weekend of NA champs seems pretty reasonable to me.

On the other hand, maybe we should look into adding a B&W map orienteering champs and a no-compass orienteering champs, and maybe a three-legged O champs, too. Why stop with what we've got?

I wanna be the US champ of string-o. Can I can I? Oh wait, do I have to be an American to win that?

Yes, but you can be whatever you want to be if you lose.

One way to get fewer US Champs weekends is to do what Canada did...go to a Sprint/Middle/Long format for the national champs, typically as a single weekend.

For NAOC every year, I suspect that it requires USOF and COF to each pass BOD motions, or some such thing. Maybe rules changes. Inquire with your VP Competition.

Note that the SK team is discussing the possibility of adding a fourth WRE earlier in the week, if that were a good way to use one of the extra WREs. Don't know how much interest yet.

I have been hoping that someone would propose scrapping all of our various championship events and going to a Sprint/Middle/Long Championship weekend like Canada. Would such a proposal be likely to go through the board, or are they pretty set with the 2-day individual format in addition to the sprint, "short" and long? Is it possible that we could make a proposal for 2008 already?

In fact I think all A-Meet weekends should be S/M/L format. Of course it should be up to the clubs, but maybe we can encourage more clubs to start adopting this weekend format.

Hey! Don't forget trail-O!

>maybe a three-legged O champs, too.

>I wanna be the US champ of string-o.

After a one year hiatus the World 3-legged string-O Champs will be back at NAV-STOCK in the Barrie area. NAV-STOCK is Ontario's version of the very successful Barebones weekend. All brand new maps for NAV-STOCK '07. Night-O, sprint, middle, long and string-O.

Love, peace and O.

Make it three days and/or throw in some trail-O, and I'm there.

Nav-stock rocks, sucka.

I can't speak for what's happening in Eastern Canada, but in Western Canada pretty much all A-meets are now in the new format, meaning Sprint, Middle and Long. If it's a 3-day weekend, you might even be lucky enough to get a double-header sprint, so that's 4 events in 3 days. Pretty nice too.
Bye bye 2-day combined-time events. It's so 80's anyway ;-)

Would such a proposal be likely to go through the board,

No. Don't waste your time. But if you can somehow tie the proposal to the magic words "JROTC" and "Scouts", then maybe.

It's all about spin. Just change the names: "Sprint" to "Scout Distance" and "Middle" to "JROTC Distance". Voila!

A career in politics Captain Bellini? Sounds like you'd be real good.

I think I have to do something scandalous first. I'm not sure that orienteering in a mismatching outfit counts.

Depends. I became pretty notorious for wearing yellow top and bottom, and that matched.

Don't write off SML. People were pessimistic here, and then the AGM motions passed (unanimously, or nearly, I recall). And then all the A meets followed suit. Give it a try. Getting your club to organize some first might help develop a following, and, properly done, a cool/trendy factor.

AGM? The only thing we got off of our AGM was "we like a 2-day Classic, and you deviants be damned if you ever try another format."

So you're saying it's actually a small miracle that NAOC's were allowed to be SML? Were they just "allowed" to make it SML because it was in Canada or has it been voted that NAOC's will become SML in the future? 'cause in Canada we're appearently a bunch of deviants that like SML... or is it S&M?

But it is so much more exciting to have to focus on defending it sooner, rather than sitting back and getting old and fat like some people I know... ;)


hei Johnny, you didn't refere to me when you said the above statement ?? I waited over 28 month to defend the 2004 tittle, so I got old ( yeah, right, but i do not consider that I got fat.. in fact except for the fact that I ran alone the whole classic race, hit a big branch lost in space there, I put in a good and respectable show @ long,..I cannot stop the clock , but I'll try to not get fat. see U in the spring

Sometime in the last year, on a proposal made by Randy Hall, the USOF board voted to make any NAOC in the US the SML format. There may be some on the BOD that want to hold onto the two day total time format for the US Classic Champs, but note that generally that event is now almost always referred to by this longer name and not just US Champs, giving it a sort of a nostalgic flavor, and hinting that it may sometime soon be considered this strange format that we keep around for sentimental reasons. If more A events went to the SML format (and that's entirely up to the hosting club), more board members might go along with a proposal to change the championship structure. It's been discussed a number of times, but never with a sense that the broad community is behind a change.

AND, please, please, run for the board and usurp all these people who don't vote the way you want. Once again, every election was uncontested last year, and I would have loved to have voted for some new blood if their had been any candidates. There is plenty of opportunity to get on the board instead of just complaining about it.

Yes, this is part of how things changed in Canada...new blood and a new generation on the BOD, with more representation from present or former top athletes.

When WRE results get submitted, does the US organizer submit me as 'USA 138'? Or does (s)he just submit my name, and the WRE people figure out where I am in the database? The reason I'm asking is that I'm considering whether or not to have my nationality corrected.

Actually the format proposal that I am still bitter about, three years later, sailed through the Board, only to be shot down by "Sammamish Orienteering Club" at the AGM. If there are less pear-shaped bodies on the Board, it does not mean that there are less of them in the general O-population, and if the Board gets out of touch with the electorate, that is probably worse than having a forward-thinking Championship format. I think USOF has a Board that it deserves.

Mikkel—send a message to Ray Barnes, info at 6prog dot org, and he'll be happy to correct your nationality.

For the results that were on the IOF web page up to now, WRE IDs were taken from prior records. There were few people who didn't have prior WREs. For the whole bunch of extras that just have been added to the Sprint (yes it's corrected), I submitted the national affiliations to the best of my knowledge. The athlete can always write Ray/IOF to correct.

The issue of USOF Championship overhaul and format changes is one that Randy and I have been trying to work on for a few years. But we have found no willing volunteer to lead a reform committe to present a complete proposal to the board. The system of champs that we have now is the result of the board responding to a series of individual proposals rather than a full package. In my experience the Board is very receptive to proposals that have been put together by committees who have put real thought, effort and research into their conclusions.

For more WC rhetoric read today's posting on hottjohansen.com. Feel free to fill in important points in the comments section, as I will be sending the link to the IOF board.