Discussion: Urban WOC

The Scandinavian Federations have put a joint proposal (pdf pages 17-21) to IOF for an Urban WOC. Here is the proposed timetable:
Day 1 KNOCKOUT SPRINT
Prologue (10-12 minutes), Quarter Final (6-7 minutes)
Semi Final (6-7 minutes), Final (7-8 minutes)
Day 2 REST
Day 3 SPRINT
Qualification (12-15 minutes), Final (12 – 15 minutes)
Day 4 REST
Day 5 SPRINT RELAY
Separate Mens and Womens, 4 legs (12-15 minutes)

Generally a good idea at least to separate Urban and Forest WOCs, but there isn't a single race for a sprinter. Can we design a better program?

The general issue is that generally people have a mix of fast and slow twitch muscle fibres; most people have a reasonably even mix which means that their best distance is "middle distance". Those blessed with lots of slow twitch fibres tend to be best at long distance - 10,000m to marathon.
Orienteering, as currently contested, is far too weighted to the slow twitchers. It was the right idea to bring in a sprint discipline, but the way its currently organised, and proposed in the Urban WOC program, favours the same people who do well in the long distance.
For example BOF have recently selected some of the same runners for both their Sprint and Long Distance WOC team.
The proposed program has multiple races on the same day - this is not done for any distance over 400m in the World Athletic Championships. If Orienteering really is a running sport, why should it be any different?

Here is one alternative: I'm sure others can come up with better:

Day 1 SPRINT QUALIFICATION
Day 2 SPRINT FINAL
Day 3 CHASING START Day 1 (or KNOCKOUT)
Prologue (10 minutes)
Day 4 CHASING START Day 2 (or KNOCKOUT)
Final (Chasing Start, 12 minutes)
Day 5 SPRINT RELAY
Separate Mens and Womens
4 legs (12-15 minutes)

I think the problem with having forest and sprint in alternate years is that you probably still end up with the same faces at both. Unless you do something else during the year to separate out sprint specialists. Murray Strain has recently commented that (as a self declared sprint specialist) he couldnt get into the post finance sprint this year as its open to the top 40 world ranked orienteers only. Difficult for a sprint specialist to break into this.

My other queries with the various sprint events is how do you differentiate and/or select a team? Do you select a team of 3 and each person does all disciplines? Is there a blue riband sprint event or are all equal in status?

Is there a mass start still on the agenda? This seemed a wee bit pointless to me - doesnt seem to give much priority to navigation.

How many federations/clubs hold knockout Sprint events?

"If orienteering is a running sport then why should it be different"

It's a sport that involves running.

If this is supposed to be an Urban Woc, how come are all races less than 15 minutes? Just because in this kind of racing involves shorts and T with road shoes, doesnt mean there cant be events with 40-60minute winning times.

Agree with Mathias. I looks more like a sprint festival to me. If you're going to have medals, I think the knockout format and the qual/final format are too similar. One determines who the best sprinter is within 4 rounds, the other just uses 2 rounds.

A consideration for a longer race would be a larger area to control vehicular traffic.

Thank you Mathias. I was just thinking that. Sprint WOC and Urban WOC are two different things.

Urban WOC with a 10 km ish city race style event would be cool.

If you're going to have a sprint WOC though then you should have urban sprints and forest sprints.

I would think there would be more benefit to splitting urban and forest WOCs than splitting sprint and longer than sprint WOCs. There's more difference between running (both physically and technically) a city race and a middle or long than there is between a sprint and a middle quali. How much difference is there really between a 15 minute winning time for a sprint and a 26 minute winning time for a middle quali?

+1 for Mathias comment as well. The proposal above should be named Urban Sprint WOC. If IOF is to allow their most prestigious championships to be used by another event, it should be either named for what it is, or properly designed to improve or expand on the current format.

And don't get me wrong I would love a high prestige sprint festival/championships, but do we introduce the Urban WOC in addition to yearly WOCs, or do we alternate them?
I don't think going back to biannual WOCs would be accepted without a really attractive proposal for the alternative years, and the program above ain't it.

Mathias has a good point - for an "Urban WOC" it would be good to have a longer race. Although the Knockout Sprint as put forward by the Scandinavians actually has a 29 to 34 minute winning time, just broken into 4 races: it would be good to have a 60 minute winning time (or longer) race as well.
My concern was that there wasn't an actual Sprint race envisaged in the Urban WOC, ie a single 12 minute race without having had to race an hour or two before.
Of course the Urban WOC should be in alternate years to the current Forest WOC.

Murray Strain's case is a good example of the issue. He has some good speed and trains specifically for sprint races. But the qualification for the Post Finance Sprint is top 40 in the World Cup; to get into that you would have to score well at Middle Distance races at least, if not Long.
I'm wondering if the IOF design for Sprint Races is actually designed precisely to have the same faces at Long, Middle and Sprint; maybe to reduce team sizes and accommodation issues at major competitions?

I'd say we should be aiming for the opposite. If the same people keep winning all disciplines, then this suggests
a) They are not different enough
b) There isnt enough strength in depth

Not sure Urban (as in long urban) has developed sufficiently as a discipline in its own right yet to hold as a WOC race. How many federations hold a national urban champs? I'd like to see it happen one day though.

I agree that development and spread should take place before a discipline should be ina WOC, Andy. This principle didn't seem to be observed for the micro though, thank goodness it dropped off the agenda. How many federations hold a national micro, even now? Or do any at all?

Something that is missing IMHO is an IOF development programme, which would involve, maybe: calling for ideas for new formats, developing the detail, training national reps in the technical requirements, trialling them on non-IOF status events, and some sort of assessment procedure.

Think you are right with your comment on development. Even within sprint there's still an apparent difference between types of sprint race (see British style v European debate elsewhere). Mightnt be a bad idea for some discussion around the basic format.

Going back to the original post, maybe the chasing start could be a more technical (British style) sprint with the "classic" sprint being the european style less technical sprint. There seems to be enough difference between the two to allow for different winners to emerge (see Linnea Gustafsson result/comments at British Sprint champs)

Back to my original question... how many federations/clubs hold knockout Sprint events (never mind Championships)?

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With no Urban WOC we should at least think how to start this development. Maybe with splitting World ranking list into WR Forrest and WR Urban&Sprint ranking. We already have some good Sprint festivals outside Europe and if IOF don't see this as important step than clubs and national federations could administrate their own World league. We need to promote sprint events and sprinters more than today.

It is very hard to make fair Urban Long event. Venice as one example of Urban long is more or less suitable only for recreational level. Italians have "centro storici cup" as separate discipline and I see Urban long only as promotional event before Urban WOC and very good promotional tool for sport, tourism and city. A lot of people like adventures, etc and like to explore cities on foot.

It is very hard to make fair Urban Long event
In some absolute sense nothing is "fair". But compared with the tracking up, following, hidden controls (c/f People punching) and unmappable obstructions in forest-O, the occasional traffic/pedestrian delay in urban is a small unfairness. Evidenced by the fact that the same people win. The problem is more to do with runners causing problems for non-participants (like increased brake-pad wear).

Yes I think there are few cities where it would be safe for a highly competitive event - traffic can't be excluded over that many square km. But for some reason, we and the city authorities seem to be relaxed about urban rogaines.

Traffic is a strong function of time of the day and day of the week.

Night mixed sprint relay... sounds great.

I really don't think you need that super big map for an urban long-O. Stop looking at it from a forest-O perspective and compare instead with ski-O which is more similar in style. If the difficulty is picking and executing the correct routechoice rather than finding the controls there is nothing wrong with reusing the same small (but good) area for several loops on a long course. In fact, that is precisely what is done at most ski-O events!

...occasional traffic/pedestrian delay in urban is a small unfairness.
Safety has priority over fairness and runners must feel that when they are out there. I have in mind this kind of fairness and it could be compared with two different maps for same event; one with danger cliff/abyss and one without it. If you can't prevent small unfairness than this is not unfairness to me. It is luck.