Discussion: Wrong Direction for World Champs?

What a great World Championships in Orienteering we have seen. It was great fun watching the TV coverage and GPS tracking and illuminating to see so many elites make mistakes under the pressure. Great courses ensured that nothing was certain till athletes crossed the finish line.
The dark side was the very poor qualification races which were too easy, and wildly different from what athletes faced in the finals. This seems to have been requested by IOF, if anecdotal reports are to be believed, on the basis that weaker countries should get athletes into the finals. Well, it didn’t work. 20 of 48 countries were completely knocked out in the Sprint, 28 in the Middle and 26 in the Long. Nor was it a great idea for the stronger countries either. The strong countries can generally only enter 3 each in the Men’s and Women’s disciplines. But at WOC 11 Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Russia, and Great Britain all lost medal contenders in the qualification.
At the World Athletics Championships, currently on in South Korea, the only event where heats and finals are run on the same day is the 100m. The 1500m has a full rest day between days of heats, semis and final, the 5000m has a full two day rest. Compare this to World Championship Sprint Orienteering where athletes are expected to run 3-4km twice within the space of a few hours. Does this mean orienteers aren’t supposed to run to their best ability in either the heat or the final?
Heats and Finals on the same day are also bad news for organisers (and athletes) on a number of fronts. There is very little time to decide on any disqualifications and protests and that is a poor way to finalise the field for a Championship. Two maps, two courses and two arenas are required. The organisers, athletes, spectators, TV and media have to change venues in a matter of hours. The tragic aspect of this is that with 1 minute intervals and short winning times there was no need for a qualification. All runners could have run the final in a much shorter overall time than it took to run the two events on the same day.
Some of the technical flaws in the qualification races were astonishing. The first two controls on Mens and Womens “Sprint” featured a 70m climb in 500m to the top of an obvious hill running on paths and looking for cliffs in "green". The Tour De France rarely subjects riders to 14% gradients: it is not “sprinting” by any stretch of the imagination. On top of including a brutal climb, the setters got the length wrong – all winning times were longer than the 12-15 minute guideline, ranging up over 17 minutes. Doing two of those in a day makes the “Sprint” pretty much equivalent to a Middle Distance race, leaving one to wonder why on earth the IOF introduced it as a separate discipline.
The Middle qualifier featured track running – up to two thirds of the distance! Even Thierry Gueorgiou had to adjust his strategy after seeing the course. The Long qualifier wasn’t much better – a nice track run to no. 1 and a third of the course in open meadows. How many “navigators” were knocked out by “track runners” and denied a chance to run one of the best WOCs in history?
The issue here is that the next two WOCs are pre-scheduled and in the case of 2012 courses already set and near final. So are athletes to be expected to prepare for running strength in the qualifications and navigation in the finals? Can we at least please aim to get qualifications to resemble finals? Or better yet, get rid of them altogether?

You raise some great points.
I agree the 'easy' qualification doesn't make any sense. It's not testing the same skills as will be tested in the final so clearly some of people well-skilled for the final may come up short.
Sure, maybe there should be just a final in sprint given the starting interval.
But, I don't agree that the sprint is an equivalent to the middle. Not at all. 17 minutes which is large for a sprint, and probably a mistake, isn't even close to the 30+ minute winning time for the standard middle. Also the environments distinctly distinguish the disciplines each requiring different technique. It is a perfectly legitimate separate discipline. If you are going to change anything, it's the course planners!
But overall, I wholly agree with you. There are flaws, small but important, that deserve a look at.

When I saw the courses of the middle qualification races this year, I was really disappointed and felt bad for all the athletes that trained their technical skills this year in incredibly difficult terrain and had to run this type of race instead and especially, I felt bad for those who than did not make the final, because they didn't/couldn't run the path race which was presented fast enough. Some athletes told me they just couldn't change their strategies in the beginning of the race to adjust to the difficulty of the course. They expected something else and didn't react fast enough in the race. Some really great orienteers didn't make the final or had very bad races, probably because it just wasn't what it should have been and they got caught off guard. The qualis this year did not make our sport look good.
As a coach, I can say that the sprint day was ciaos. They tried to do both races way to close to each other. The athletes hardly had any time to recover, there was a huge amount of confusion and uncertainty after the qualification and for those athletes who were faulty disqualified it was an unacceptable situation. The sprint qualification was in my eyes a failure. But, they were able to pull off a great final in the midst of a lot of stress (that goodness). They should have allowed themselves a few more hours time between the qual and the final, or just have them on separate days.

+3, although I'm not against a sprint Q (and even F the same day).

Plus chasing start is a terrible idea.

Complaining about WOC is SO two weeks ago.

There are many people not happy with the direction the IOF are taking WOC. How do we go about trying to stop the negative changes?

My observation has been that technically, the qualifiers have been easier than the finals and I think that's okay. Yes, there probably were some very good orienteers that didn't qualify but having the qualifer and final involve different styles of orienteering better insures that it is only the very best that win metals.

The WOC sprint qualifier involved woods/trail running but the final did not. You could say that the qualifer wasn't representative of the final which is correct but you could look at it differently and think that only those that were the best at both the qualifer AND the final won metals. And, it is the World Championships so ideally, the winners are indeed, the best in the World.

You hear people complain of runners courses, yet the best still win.

Coincidence, I think not.

I guess there are both 'philosophical' and logistical reasons for having qualifying races then finals. But I have always had problems with the differences between the two races. Look at next years WOC -- the Long distance women's Final is planned to be 12.0 km; winning time of 75 minutes. But the qualification race is planned to be only 7.5 km and winning time 45 minutes. To me, those are different races (esp. if you factor in that there surely will be some terrain differences). Shouldn't athletes be picked to run in the final of a given discipline based on a course that is more similar? Otherwise it's like having a traack and field 400 metre qualifying race for the 1500 metres event.

Courses looked extremely challenging to me. In terms of mapreading needed, they certainly bear comparison with any previous WOC. And I've heard no complaints of fairness in the forest races. Surely the point is to challenge the athletes across the range of skills, and seen as a piece the qualifiers and final did just that. I suspect a lot of runners thought they could succeed in this terrain using only one technique: continuous contact mapreading at low speed. And the courses punished anyone adopting such a limited approach.

Really: how can a course for which Thierry was unable to figure out the right strategy until half way round be too easy?

having the qualifer and final involve different styles of orienteering better insures that it is only the very best that win medals

Surely the point is to challenge the athletes across the range of skills, and seen as a piece the qualifiers and final did just that.

The final selects gold vs. silver. If a variety of skills must matter to the champion, then they must be tested in the final.

The final selects gold vs. silver. If a variety of skills must matter to the champion, then they must be tested in the final.

How,... with easy and short parts for the Final course? When you want to put two so much different course designs in one for the final then only one solution with joining both times from qualifier and final would be appropriate for final rank and not to mix the course designs because that would require one course for everybody also in qualifier.

If we must have shorter qulifiers before they will finally disappear then we should have at least good courses on a good terrains also in qualifiers. Some thoughts about that also in this thread.

It's possible (likely) that a different qualifying course in different terrain would have resulted in some different people advancing to the final. It seems most unlikely that any course in any terrain would have resulted in one of the three eventual medalists not to have advanced to the final, and it seems most unlikely that any of the people who did not advance to the final would have been a contender for a medal if they had.

Or, as c.hill said, the best still win.

Well, for one thing, Pasi Ikonen, the Long Distance silver medallist, was eliminated in the Middle Distance qualifier. And as I said in the first post there were quite a few other medal contenders eliminated. This is not just about Thierry. We are not just finding a single winner - we are trying to assemble a field of the best elites from around the World and give them a chance to run the year's best race.

I'm with Graeme.

I'm with Tundra/Desert

The non-qualification of potential medalists is evidence that the the course was too easy, or different?

Especially after seeing the Middle courses and terrain involved, this seems like quite a stretch. I would need to see a load of detailed route/split analysis before I buy into that theory.

On the contrary, if indeed there were more unexpected non qualifiers than normal (there are always some), the simpler and more likely explanation is that the qual course already had plenty of tech difficulty, more than enough for many good orienteers to screw up in challenging terrain.

Perhaps one point of agreement is that this helps make the case to get rid of qualification races whenever possible. JWOC already seems to do a reasonable job of this.

He changed his physical strategy not his technical one.
He thought the middle final was too easy, never mind the qualification.
It was in no way 'extremely challenging'.

I'm with EricW :)

@graeme, could you ask him for my headlamp? ;)

I don't think the qualies are about the medallists (except setting up starting order). Contenders should be qualifying regardless, and if not, tough. Look at Usain in the 100m.

Qualies are about selecting those who will finish in the 25-45 positions.

I don't understand making a course have an unnecessarily large proportion of track running at a World Champs.

People argue relays should be easy and this years wasn't and was about the most thrilling I have seen.

short memories: last year everyone was complaining that the finals were less technical than the qualifiers

That's exactly the same complaint. We're saying we like technical orienteering.

Hey a lot of people know exactly how to plan a perfect orienteering race. Can you tell me what club you are from, I'd like to come and run in your events.

GEN, Ireland...

Come on. It doesn't take a genius to know a course isn't too challenging where you can follow a path up to 100 metres close to the control on every control. And most of the time it was the optimum route! :S

@ndobbs. Sure. Eric, can you give Neil his headtorch back please?

@O-ing. Look at the leg 9-10 where Pasi Ikonen lost 3mins and his qualifying position in the qualifier. Are you seriously trying to tell us he blew it because it was too easy?

http://live.woc2011.fr/data/uploads/maps/middle-qu...

Get over Pasi man. I'm sure he was dumbfounded at that mistake. He blew it because he messed up bad not because it was too hard. It's not that hard a leg. One of the easiest on the course.

Well, graeme that one was one of the furthest off a track for the course at around 60m. Do you seriously think that course matches the vision in the IOF guidelines for Middle (IOF Rules, Appendix 6)? And most particularly when compared to the really good course they served up for the final?

2 MIDDLE DISTANCE
2.1 The profile
The Middle distance profile is technical. It takes place in a non-urban (mostly forested) environment with an emphasis on detailed navigation and where finding the controls constitute a challenge. It requires constant concentration on map reading with occasional shifts in running direction out from controls. The element of route choice is essential but should not be at the expense of technically demanding orienteering. The route in itself shall involve demanding navigation. The course shall require speed-shifts e.g. with legs through different types of vegetation.

Point 1: This is not the first WOC where the medallists went around the tracks when the map is made predominately of green (and all its shades) Wont be the last (Finland I guess!)

Point 2: What wrong with a Runners course? We want the best (Fittest/Technically) coming through, and like CH said they are usually the same. If there was such a difference between thee "Runners" and "Proper Orienteers" there would be a totally different set of people winning the Sprint.

Point 3: If you thought the courses were not technical (even for WOC) your nuts! How are they going to make them tougher - Night O?
The planners were damned either way - set really hard courses and people would have been cursing them and having a shed load of DNF's like Minna, missing No.1 and just going home. They could have had a position of not enough qualifiers. They (Organisers/IOF) were not going to have that.

From what I saw on the head-cam videos of the middle qualification courses on World of O those small tracks were almost non-existent! The junctions were quite difficult to pick too - even though the head-cam runners had been involved in the course setting and obviously knew the forest, they still couldn't maintain contact with the map, and were stopping a lot to work out where they were.

@Think_Positive: Really? 9-10 looked pretty hard to me. Not that I would confuse myself with a WOC participant. Just taking a quick look at the course, that looked like the hardest leg to me.

As for the control Minna missed in the Long final - I was looking at the course before I realized what had happened to her. My reaction to #1 was that I would never find a control like that. Her GPS track looked sadly like the kind of track I might have generated. I would have used the trails more, but I still would have been wandering around, peeking behind knolls.

Hmmm.. I had legs that were a lot harder in the O-Festival and had no trouble with most of them. When I did miss however it was big time loss.
Take this leg. Get your rough direction sorted, check off the massive open to the right, then the massive crag to the left. Climb the ridge and head south east into the saddle. There should be no vagueness or ambiguity there.
I think we're off on a tangent unfortunately in personal debates. O-ing raised some other issues in his message yet to really be discussed

The course planners themselves said the middle qualifications were made easier than they wanted at the demands of the IOF. Are people seriously denying they're a lot easier than the middle final? Cause there was one control that looks 'pretty hard'? And sure, Thierry and Helena still won. I agree with ndobbs that the athletes this affected the most are those on the cusp of getting into the final. The years when it's technically difficult, it spreads out the runners and gives more of us a chance to get in. It's been mentioned above that more countries were eliminated in the middle than any other distance.

Okay, lets just say for a moment that there is a desire to get more countries into the finals but still limit the finals to the top 25 qualifiers. With that in mind, should the qualifier be made technically easier or technically harder? I think making it technically easier will result in a final with a greater variety of countries.

I think making it technically easier will result in a final with a greater variety of countries.

Based on what exactly?

The biggest difference between the top nations and lesser nations is mostly fitness.
Hubmann and co can bash out a sub 15min 5k with na bother.

Can anyone on the US team go sub 16? So in a sprint, they are down by 60seconds before they even start

I also think that's a false assumption. Personally, I made it into the long final because I did well on the hard controls. I wouldn't have a hope of beating Minna Kauppi on a runners' course. In Hungary and Norway, Canada qualified one runner each time. In France, we had four places in finals (three different runners). When there's opportunities for others to make mistakes, there's also a possibility for us to sneak through by having a consistent race.

Again, it's just my opinion but I think that the lesser O countries will be closer to the winners when the orienteering is less technical. Of course, there will always be individual exceptions. But, take for example the relay, I think the lesser O' countries were probably further behind the leading countries (in terms of % behind), in France than they were at other WOC's where the relay was technically easier than in France. IT's easy enough to check but I'm not trying to prove any point, mearly stating an opinion.

Oddly, we seem to be starting at the same point. I totally agree with you on the percentage behind point. I'm just adding that greater spread among runners makes more room for smaller nations to move up.

Plus, the relay in France was awesome for spectating. Seems like a win-win.

I think the situation is quite opposite for (North American men vs. women) vs. (top men vs. women). On a more technical course, North American men will be generally further behind, whereas women will be less behind. This is because even the top women typically lose a lot of time and make significant mistakes, so consistency buys you a lot. Top men don't make many mistakes, and North American men suffer the compounded interest of being physically weaker and technically weaker on a more technical course.

That is true.

Yeah, that's a fair point. I realize that I'm really arguing from my point of view and my technical skills far outweigh my running ability.

Out of curiosity, when was the last time a North American man made a non-sprint final? I've found Nick Duca in 2003 (40th in the long).

Edit: And Brian May in 2003.

"O-ing raised some other issues in his message yet to really be discussed"

I agree.
O-ing, I think your opening post contained too much too address in one thread. I think some of the issues could be ignored, but some others are worthy of discussion. Perhaps you would like to start a seperate thread or threads with more defined and prioritized issues?

I'm sure someone other than O-ing could also choose to take the initiative?

Hmm. Thanks, I think. Which of the themes needs another thread?
Themes:
*Technically difficult finals a great success
*Technically Easy Qualifications don’t belong at WOC (most discussion, fairly evenly split)
*Technically Easy Qualifications there because IOF want weaker countries to qualify
*How to assemble a field for a WOC Final – are qualification races the best way?
*Should Sprint Qualification and Final be on the same day?
*Should “Sprint” Races include 500m of 14% gradient climb?

Or one I wasn’t expecting:
*Were the WOC 2011 qualifications technically easy (Middle, Long)?
Many disagreed that they were which I find a bit of a worry, given that the finals were clearly set at a technically more difficult level.