Discussion: MEGA Relay

North America needs a big orienteering relay.

Given the increase in popularity of team events (MTB, AR, Rogaine, etc.) and given the increase in popularity of 24 hour races (AR, MTB relays, Rogaines, etc.) perhaps there would be interest in a 24 hour team relay. Here is how it would work.

The organizer would set 6 courses (A, B, C, D, E, F.). Courses would include 2 normal point to point, 2 gnarly trail runs with easy navigation, and 2 x score-O. Distance would depend on terrain but the top team should not be able to complete everything in <22 hours. The race starts with course A. A team does not move on to course B until 4 of the team mates have completed course A, then 4 must do B before C, etc. When the team gets to the score O course, they must get all controls before they do the next course (team strategy here to split up the controls individually, run together, etc.). A team member can not sit out more than 2 courses (or 2 back-to-back). The team that covers the most distance in 24 hours wins. The fun part about this is the camping/finish/start area. You can run, sit back, drink, eat, party, sleep, etc.
Noon to Noon.

I'd organize it, but I'd rather participate. Maybe it wouldn't be popular at first but I think it would grow in popularity given the large social aspect.

Sounds like a hoot, but I'd recommend starting a bit smaller. Maybe a 12-hour version. I think it could catch on, but will not likely become as popular as other endurance events simply because there are fewer people who really understand navigation.

That sounds like a rogaine to me ,with some interesting twists, and I think thats how a lot of people will look at it.Basically you can do all that in a rogaine if you want to set your route that way,the only diff.is that you have a numbered members team and the members can sit out at times,and how Eric mentioned we don,t have big numbers of people here in North America that are good at navigation with a map.I agree though that we need not a relay but more relays in N.A. because you can have so manny diff.formats and it allways atracts big numbers of runners of all capabilities.I gest had my son run for the first time in a relay at the U.S. Champs and his first question after ,was :When is the next relay event ,dad?He never asks me when the next O-meet is.

On the topic of relays, the Ontario Relay Champs were held today at Christie Lake near Hamilton, Ontario. Guelph Gators won both the 4 and 8 point handicap divisions (Green-Red-Green and Green-Yellow-Green). Doug Mahoney gave the Golden Horseshoe Orienteering Club (GHO) an early 10 minute lead, but Nick Duca (GGO) cut that in half over Mark Adams and then Julia Cioban caught Hans Tammemagi to squeeze a victory for GGO in division 1(G-R-G). GHO was 2nd, Toronto OC 3rd, GHO - 4th, and GHO - 5th. Full results on the GHO web site in a few days (www.dongetlost.ca).
Oh yeah, the Ont. Champs uses forking. ;-)

Just more classical O relays would be so nice! We have what... 2 a year in NA? Everyone is invited to the next year USA Relay Champs at Ponderosa park, McCall, ID as part of PNWOF2003. Hope to pursue my clubmates to conduct at least 1 relay each year in conjunction with major events we are putting (as well as Sprint or Park-O).

Have to agree with Sergey, adding relay to a major event is deffinitely a way to get more people to participate.

I think MEGA would be cool (sounds hard-core!), but I would also like to see some shorter relays (encouraging fast head-to-head running). an interesting possibility for a weekend relay event would be:

saturday AM: normal a-event day
saturday PM night-o: some (maybe 1 or 2) short legs of interval start "relay prologue"
sunday AM: relay picks up with a chasing start for the 3rd leg runner, and continues normally for remaining runners.

so the sunday chase would be based on the sum of the night-o times for each team, whose night-o dudes could potentially run again on sunday. or alternatively the night could be mass start.

there is already some nordic event like this, but I forgot the name.

kwalker>> the relay is called Smålandskavlen. (Named after the most scenioc and beautiful area in Sweden - in the world!?- Småland).
It´s a 5-men relay, 2 indiviudal legs Sat night and then 3 legs Sun with chase start. Women do 1+3.
If any US or Canadian team will go there in 2004 I can guarantee free entry and free accommodation.

I like the idea of adding more relays and sprint/park-o events to go along with other events. The problem with sprint/park-o is that a lot of american orienteers might be interested in doing them, but are unwilling to travel out of their local area for a run that will last less than 30 minutes. so adding them onto other events seems the way to go.

See our previous discussion on combining all USA Champs into 2 groups. Relays and spint would nicely fit into any of these groups. I will bring this idea to the BOD in November. Encouraging more relays and sprints, specially during O festivals makes our sport more spectacular and attractive to the media, as well as, to us regular competitors.

Actually, the recreationalist majority already doesn't care much about the relays, and will snub the Sprint as unworthy of their attention because the duration of the entertainment is so limited. A 2-day consisting of the relay and a sprint race is almost guaranteed to be poorly attended. It will be a money-loser for the organizing club, and if USOF were to require such grouping, most clubs would never bid on this particular group.

A more pragmatic approach would be to slowly introduce the sprint/park-O as a companion race to the regular one- and two-day events.

It is essential that COF and USOF have more relay, short and sprint events in the schedule (even if it is only for the elites with agregroupers doing the traditional classic). These are the formats that Nor-Am elites have had the best success at WOC (esp. Pam James' result!). We need the practice. GHO is using this format for the 2003 Ontario Champs.
Sat AM: Classic Day#1 (age-groupers)
Short Course (elites)
Sat PM: Sprint course (elites) with public viewing at a BBQ/dinner (open to all but required for overall title in elites)
Sun AM: Classic Day#2 (age-groupers)
Long Course (elites)
A 'team' race is in the planning for the holiday Monday
(but may be scrapped).

Mike, I wonder if you can get WRE being as one of the days during 2003 Ontario Champs. You have IOF controllers at your motherland :) so it should be easier for you to afford. That would automatically include this event to AOL list of events (see http://velichko.home.mindspring.com/aol/ ) and may create more interest from the USA elites.

By the way, I am not aware of any WRE at the USA in 2003 except for the USA champs conducted by BAOC. It is shame that we does not use a quota of 3 WREs each year.

There is already one 24 hour relay event in Germany, reasonably similar to the one Mike outlined in the beginning. The format is that you have 6 people, minimum 2 women and max 3 M21s, that run one after the other for 24 hours (A-B-C-D-E-F-A-B etc). They are all standard orienteering courses but all of them are different. In fact there are a number of short, medium and long courses that are either easy or difficult. The winner is the team with the most courses completed successfully. This format leads to many a tactical discussion - do all the short courses first to get the points, but then be left with long ones for when you're tired? Start with long but then run out of time to finish the short ones? And so on

Details (in German I think) on www.24-stunden-ol.de