Discussion: USA Juniors II

Thanks for all the comments on the USA Juniors thread.

We've received 40 applications for the 24 spots on the Junior Standing Team. The applicants come from 15 different clubs. If you haven't read the application, I encourage you to do so; you will get an idea of what these kids are committing to. Notably, several of the juniors we invited to apply have declined. This is a good sign. It means we are being clear about the commitment required, and juniors are thinking carefully before making that commitment. I'm expecting JTESC will make decisions on JST membership by Feb 15.

The March 2-3 WCOC training camp will happen! Yay for AttackPoint threads! Yay for people stepping up and volunteering! Becks, cmorse, Erin and I will touch base in the next few days to firm up plans.

Finding an airline sponsor is a very good idea. Can I get a volunteer to help me push hard on this idea, right away?

Other volunteering opportunities:

• Coordinator for junior meet up space and other junior events at each of these meets (it's easy):
  
  
  
  • Interscholastics, March 9-10 (we are working on getting space in the event hotel)
    
  • California A meet, March 22-23
    
  • Flying Pig, April 5-7
    
  • West Point, April 26-28
    
  • Individual Champs, May 10-12
    
  
  
• People to help follow up on several specific fundraising ideas - contact me for details on what we've come up with so far.
  
• Assistant administrator. Example tasks: coordinating planning for specific upcoming junior activities; editing and sending team emails; collecting information from team members; supporting Erin in his communication with clubs and juniors; filing expense reports; managing email lists; reading and processing email to junior team administrator; staying in touch with other Teams.
  
• Team leaders to accompany the juniors for any part of the Europe trip. Our ideal team leader has good communication skills, is well organized, interacts with juniors well, encouraging a safe, respectful and mature environment and behavior. Contact me to apply.
  
• Finance coommittee members; contact me to apply.
  
• Grant-writers, sponsor seekers. You'll coordinate with Glen.
  
• Coordinator for the Junior Development Team. Work with local clubs and JROTC groups to ensure that each junior orienteer has a mentor and opportunities for kids in the club to meet up at local events. Build communication mechanisms. Ensure that Erin communicates to JDT regularly. Organize meet-ups at A meets. Get stories about JDT kids into ONA. Post JDT members and news on OUSA website. Post/email curriculum for junior development (to be provided by Erin and others). Coordinate grant application requests and grant committee decision-making. Address safety (e.g., coaches/mentors who work with kids have CORIs).
  
• Coordinator for the Junior Standing Team. Make sure each kid has a good relationship with a local mentor/coach. Check on / facilitate regular communication between JST members and Erin. PR for the JST, e.g., articles in ONA and elsewhere. Help with fundraising.
  
• Technology team. For example, we want to combine GoPro video with RouteGadget-like routes on maps. We want to make and post videos. We want kids to be able to connect online, but not be overwhelmed by tons of emails. We’d like to have equipment to allow GPS tracking for trainings and competitions. Erin’s been talking about wanting a website - maybe figuring that out or cobbling something together from existing things like AttackPoint groups or Facebook or the OUSA website.
  
• Club coordinator. Stays in touch with the club JTESC contacts. works with the other coordinators too, but a focus on club issues: building new programs to recruit families; curriculum; encourage putting on A meets; encourage employing or at least creating volunteer opportunities for kids. Arrange regular open club-JTESC calls.
  

New word of the day: ringfencing (thanks, Becks!)

2-4 pull ups for girls! Yikes!

(I do think having basic physical strength standards is a good thing.)

:-)

These are aspirational goals; we don't expect applicants to meet these targets on day one. For further discussion of pull-ups, check out some comments on my AP log. (And feel free to continue the discussion there :-)

It may be of interest to know that of the female JST applicants who provided data, 50% have already met or exceeded this goal, and another 25% are half-way there.

"CORI" = ?

CORI = background check in the state of Massachusetts. Not sure how important such certifications are in other states.

I was interested by the physical strength goals. While at times in my youth I certainly was able to meet the running on a track speed standards with quite a bit or room to spare, I never have been able to do that many pushups in one session, and pullups almost kept me from reaching Eagle Scout rank in boy scouts--they required 5 pullups to get the necessary Physical Fitness merit badge, and it took me over a year of several sessions a day of struggling to get the first one, and an additional year to make it up to the 5 mark. Had I taken another two months, my age would have gone up to where I would have needed to achieve another one. On the other hand, I don't think my total skill set would ever have been adequate to be on the Junior Team anyway! I believe Roger Bannister commented in an interview at some point after he had run that first 4-minute mile that he had been told by skeptics that he would never make his goal because he could only do fifteen pushups, and his response was that he thought with limited time available for training it was more important to work on running than on doing pushups. Again, running through woods is not quite like running on a track and working so core strength is more important for orienteering, but I can't help but wonder about the utility of carting around those overdeveloped biceps and triceps!

View Summer Europe Orienteering in a larger map

(For some reason, I have to reload the page to see the map. It also helps to zoom out once with the "-" button.)

Nice Map---maybe Vienna should be on there too?? No orienteering there but I think the concept plan is to spend a few days there between Karst Cup in Slovakia and Bubo cup in Slovenia

The regular maps API (maps.google.com/maps?...) is notorious for not working exactly the same way in different browsers, or in the same browser at different times. After some people missed their start and claimed that the Google map on our site was the reason, I switched everything to the other API, staticmap (maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?...). You can't pan or zoom within your page, but at least the appearance is the same for everyone at all times. There is a link from the static map to the main Google Maps page so that users can zoom, pan, plan the route, etc.

Bubo cup?
Finally an interesting name for an event ;)

You deserve to havean event named after you!
be master of ceremonies and get free entry?

T/D: thanks, that's interesting.
For future reference, here is the documentation. Not taking the time to figure it out now...

Some over lap of events during the last week of July. Which will you be going to?

Barb, the statement that the Czech coach "will" travel with the team to Karst Cup is probably too optimistic. If we are talking about the coach who I communicated with in late December/early January, as I recall, he said he "might" or "could". He did not agree put it on his calendar, or agree to hold his calendar open. He would presumably want to know a few things, including how he would be compensated, which would likely depend on how many are going. Until you know how many are going, or are willing to agree to pay him a minimum amount, regardless of how many go, or how many go, he's not likely to put that week on his calendar. He agreed to put the Olomouc training camp on his calendar on the basis of my personal assurance (which he was willing to take because he is a friend of a friend) that about 15 would go. I am confident that 15 will go to Olomouc, even if I have to invite kids from other countries (which I have already done). On the other hand, I am not yet confident that 15 will go to Karst Cup. In fact, it now appears unlikely that Will and Michael L. will go to Karst Cup, because of the other orienteering opportunity offered to them during that week, as mentioned in my e-mails on that subject. If 15 will go, and will put down a deposit, I am certainly still willing to coordinate the Karst Cup with the coach (if he still has that week available) even if Will is not going.

Ah, great, thanks!

Erin's February 2013 report is up.

Out of 44 applicants to the Junior Standing Team (JST), Erin and the Junior Team Executive Steering Committee (JTESC) selected 24 to be on the team and represent the USA. The other applicants were also very strong, and have been placed on the Junior Development Team (JDT), and invited to work with Erin to develop training plans. In addition, we have had 8 additional applicants to the JDT. Erin has started working with the Teams. He is working on a training plan with each athlete by phone or in person, and is also communicating with the group as a whole.

In February, Erin traveled to several orienteering events, where he conducted meetings and trainings for juniors, spoke with juniors and their families, and met with the Rules Committee Chair.

Erin attended Cascade Orienteering Club’s WIOL meet in early February, where he met many juniors. We are grateful to the Bresemans and the Forgraves for hosting Erin.

Erin also attended the Vancouver Sprint Camp, where he had additional conversations with juniors and parents, and got some great ideas for things to do in the USA. He also spoke with the Canadian junior coach, Brent Langbakk, and discussed joint training for the teams of our two countries.

Erin participated in three-day Arizona B meet, followed by two days of training that he led for juniors and adults. At the meet, he conducted beginner trainings, course reviews, and advanced junior trainings. He interacted with a total of about 30 juniors at that event. Thanks to Allen and Will Hubsch for hosting Erin for a couple of nights. And thanks to Mike Minium for helping with the junior training camp, especially the map printing when a predicted blizzard scared us off of the original maps. And huge thanks to the Tucson Orienteering Club for putting on the meet, and being open to including the junior activities.

Erin is working with the organizers of 4 upcoming A meets to plan junior activities. Inspired by Erin’s work with juniors, WCOC members Becky Carlyle and Clint Morse stepped up and are planning a local junior training, which has been postponed to March 23-24 (from the original date of March 2-3).

Erin, with JTESC’s backing, submitted proposed rules changes to the Board via the Rules Committee, related to JWOC selection and competition categories.

Erin meets at least weekly with me (Junior Team Administrator) and Guy Olsen (JTESC chair) by phone. He was part of JTESC meetings to select the JST team, and participates in JTESC discussions online.

We have an ambitious plan to take approximately 24 juniors to Europe for several intensive weeks of training and competition this summer. Many of the juniors are from families who cannot afford the full cost, and we must raise funds to supplement what they can provide. Our minimum goal for additional (unbudgeted) fundraising is $10,000; our desired goal, covering the accommodation and entry fees (but not airfare or add-on orienteering events later in the summer) for 24 juniors and 4 accompanying adults, is $33,600, and our stretch goal would also help pay for the airfare. In addition, we want to raise money to seed local junior development projects, plus we need to raise the baseline $13,700 that the OUSA budget has us raising ($5300 more than in last year’s budget).

The fundraising ideas we are working on include a silent auction at West Point’s A meet; making it possible for orienteers to donate proceeds of their online auction sales to the Junior Team; a possible fundraising orienteering event in May or the fall; asking clubs to dedicate the proceeds of a local meet to the Junior Team travel fund; crowdfunding; asking juniors to approach local businesses for support.

Erin met with me and Glen Schorr (OUSA Executive Director) about grants and sponsorships. Glen doesn’t have a lot of time to work with us on fundraising, but he sent us a slide deck that was used in approaching a potential sponsor, and gave us advice. Glen also said he’d use a service that OUSA has access to, to get a list of potential grants we could apply for. (Erin has also identified some sources of information about grants.) Glen explained to me that we need to be careful about NCAA eligibility; for example, a sponsor could not feature a student athlete in a commercial. This was useful to learn about; NCAA eligibility is also a consideration in how we distribute travel funds. Glen said he’d draft language for us advising kids about the issues surrounding NCAA eligibility. He also has ordered business cards for Erin.

All in all, Erin continues to make great progress toward the ambitious one-year goals OUSA tasked him with when he was hired into the junior development contractor position.

All of Erin’s monthly reports are available on the web

Glen doesn’t have a lot of time to work with us on fundraising
Isn't that his job?

I think the fundraising he does is for OUSA as a whole, some of which does go to teams, but team-specific fundraising is in the team's court.
What I remember Glen saying he is working on:
1. marketing of OUSA and the sport
2. serving as a communication point with the clubs
3. financial development
4. general management and positive direction of the organization

Please consider attending our open phone call this Wednesday
You are invited to call in for an open meeting with Erin Schirm (Junior Team Coach), Guy Olsen (Junior Team Executive Steering Committee chair), and myself (Junior Team Administrator).
There are four meetings scheduled, the first Wednesday of each month at 9 pm EST (6pm PST).
Dial in number: 1-213-342-3000. Participant access code: 135506.
This is a regular opportunity for clubs, parents, OUSA leaders, and others to stay in touch with JTESC in an open forum, to discuss junior development in the USA.

Please send me any questions you have, or information you'd like to see disseminated.
We will divide up the time into topics based on things we want to share and questions we receive.
For each, we'll give a short summary and then take questions.

Some notes on the (currently happening) call with Erin and others about juniors:

Bob Forgrave: there is a big hole in the training component for us. I’m interested in whatever Erin has about suggestions for how to get training started from scratch. We run a training event every now and then, and then it is over and done. What are best practices for creating an ongoing training program?

Erin: you need a regularity. WIOL meets every 2 weeks on a Sat Nov - March. To get a regular training program going, Tues 5-7 we are meeting in these places, or even one place every time. Or a schedule that is in a general area. You need someone to coordinate. You don’t necessarily need a coach. Someone who can delegate. So and so sets the training this day, and so on. Just go down the line and people can take that up. Erin says a good place to start is to get together and go for a run. As the kids are running, they are trying to read a map. One person has a map; you get 5 s to look at a leg; hand over the map, and verbally tell the partner the leg, and they check off to make sure you got it. Just running through the woods, and working on form, strength and conditioning exercises together. Simple urban parks - easy to set up simple pin flags for controls. It doesn’t have to be too complicated.

These are simple - it takes a short time to set up, maybe half an hour. It could be differentiated to one or two levels.

There is a misconception about the capabilities of younger orienteers. If a training isn’t too long, they are capable of doing more advanced controls, especially in a simple park. You can set one simple training; with a couple of loops, the younger kids might just do one loop and the older both.

1-213-342-3000
135506 is the participant access code.
*6 to mute, and unmute (star - six)

Erin: I’d be happy to work with some basic ideas, in a progress. You might start this spring or next fall; I’d be happy to help put together some ideas in a progression or a curriculum.

Bob: I would like that very much. There is another question - the blocking issue for us and the reason we’d never gotten it off the ground.
With meets, we have someone to handle permits. With training, how do people get around access to a park, for what might just be 20 or 25 people? Or is it don’t ask don’t tell?

Erin: I go with the latter, unless you know the park has issues with off-trail use. If you and your friend were going to go for a run at a park, you don’t need to get permission to do that. Training is similar; a bunch of people showing up to go for an orienteering run. You might want to be careful especially in the Seattle area where there are policies of staying on trail. But you would probably be OK saying...
You could pick 2 or 3 parks and talk to the park managers about it. But you wouldn’t have to do that until you had a lot of people.

Erin: initially to get started, it’s easy to say, we’re meeting here at this point; setting out streamers or pins is not a big issue. It’s like playing soccer, you put out cones, and when you’re done you pick up the cones and walk away.

Liability is something you do need to think about; should be looked into. If it is a club event then it is covered. Should check the details.

Erin: I’ve been working on a curriculum, especially with BAOC. I have a lot to focus on at the moment, so it may take a little while, and I’ll keep you in the loop.

Bob: thanks.

Mike M: do be careful about using equipment that is labeled with the club's name, and with larger numbers, when you're doing informal trainings.

Parent of a JST member asks about dealing with kids traveling alone to A meets. It's expensive to have a parent go along too; what support is there for kids traveling alone?

Erin: Let me know, and I can help coordinate transportation and housing, and we can reduce the cost for those things.

Barb: We are working on having a coordinator for each A meet to make arrangements and work with people in the local club.

Question about coordinating itineraries to Europe.
Barb: I'm collecting the info so people can try and travel together.

Bob: for travel to A meets, you can check to see if anyone from the local club is doing. Clubs can do more to communicate who is going to meets.

Erin: it’s good for clubs to talk up the meets, maybe put out there, who is planning to go on a meet. Have a group mentality: as a club, we’ll go to these meets, and someone can start to build more unity for the club and the kids about the travel to meets. It’s important for growing the sport as well.

[It would be great for orienteering in the US if clubs did more organizing around going to A meets - find out early who's going to meets; encourage each other to go; create a buzz.]

MaryJane: GAOC does a good job of helping juniors with travel logistics. We give power of attorney to the responsible adult.

That has been essential in some cases; example of a kid who got dehydrated and ended up in the hospital; having the medical information and power of attorney was really important.

Discussion about how it would be useful for clubs to have medical forms and POA forms for juniors. And also for adults. Mike M will send examples to Barb; that will be useful for JST, and we can encourage clubs to collect this information for travelers, or to recommend to travelers that they share this information with their clubmates who are traveling.

Erin: it would be good to get a legal perspective on this, for the national level.

Barb: I'd like to find a person to be the coordinator for the Junior Development Team. Most of the JDT action will be at the club level, so this coordination role is key. This person would work with the clubs on recruitment, encouraging setting up local trainings and meetups, help with communication between clubs and with Erin, and amongst the juniors themselves. They'd also help with soliciting grant proposals for local development programs to be paid with the money we've collected from JDT applicants.

Erin talked about the proposal to combine the M18 & M20 racing categories, and the F18 & F20 categories. One reason we want to do that is build a more cohesive, larger, competitive category. Currently there aren’t a lot of kids in either one. There has been some debate about which color courses they’d run and who they’d be competing against. It’s still a work in progress. The goal is looking at where international competition is going. Generally, it is going more toward the sprint and middle and just over a middle distance. The long is still there, but it is not as prominent a competitive distance as it had been in the past. The focus of the courses we’d have M20 and F20 run would be more toward sprint and middle, with an occasional long.
On the shorter distances, compete on blue and red in order to compete against the elite athletes in the country. It’s a stepping stone to really start looking at our racing categories and courses for the juniors in general. Is the way that it is set up serving the kids and flexible enough to cater to the kids and exciting and fun?

Erin talked about wanting to change how the JWOC team is selected. Currently you need a ranking of 75, and rankings determine selection order. But there are many flaws with that approach. We want a fair system that is open but takes the kids that are best prepared in the spring and leading up to JWOC, and have been working toward that. And not necessarily someone who ran really well 6-12 months ago and hasn’t been training for 4-5 months.

In the US, there isn’t a huge depth of competition. Our races are based on who we are competing against. But the reality is that an international standard is much higher. A ranking in the US doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to compete against someone training 5 hours a week, and doing orienteering speicfic training 5 days a week. We want to motivate individuals to do the things they need to do to get to that level. We’re talking about selection races, different rankings, other criteria. It is a work in progress.

Peter Goodwin argued that the rankings are a reliable standard, just as the SATs are a reliable measure of your knowledge.

Erin: The ranking system doesn’t have the ability to raise the bar to the next level. It doesn’t teach you how to go from the level of competitiveness in the US to where we need to be for the elite women from Sweden and Norway. It doesn’t give you an incentive to rise above where the rankings bar is set.

Erin describes the thought process behind his approach: In working in the education field, and watching how kids learn and move, I've seen that it's easy to come up with a standardized way to measure what a kid is capable of and what a kid is not capable of. But there are some kids who figure out the system of how to take tests well, and they do phenomoneally well. There are some kids who are equally intelligent, but haven't figured out the system, and it doesn't click for them. A nice thing that has been happening in education is that we're finding different ways to find out what will motivate each kid, ways to work with kids, to help them learn. I believe it's important to have the freedom to be able to work with all of these indivdiuals, and for some this means coming up with a different approach to get them to where they could be. My job as a coach is to get kids to where they need to be, regardless of the system, whether we continue with the rankings system or not.

The general point is that it is one thing to say we're going to do all these things to help you improve but we're going to keep a system that can be manipulated in different ways, and it's another thing to work in the context of a system that truly supports raising the level of orienteering.

The reality of being an elite athlete is that you have to put in your training. You have to get your nine hours of sleep. You have to have consistency.

As kids get better, yes, the rankings will reflect them getting better. However, there is a thought process behind the total focus on the rankings: I'm going to choose which meets to go to so I can get a better ranking score; I'll go to this meet because there are not so many people; I'll go to a coures where I know the terrain and have the opportunity to do really well. I'd like to see kids focusing not on how they'll get the best score, but rather how they can be the bet the y possibly can be, on any terrain, against anybody. You can't build a community of juniors if the kids are in that mindset and going to certain meets for the score. We need to come together in that regard.

In my involvement in education; in watching what motivates kids and how they learn, and what makes a team rise well above the ordinary, there is more to it than just a system. Of course we need to have a selection system, but we can come up with a system that enhances the possibilities for an athlete, and for a team, and doesn't limit them. That's my approach, and I've observed the downsides of a single strict assessment method in various settings, in education (like SATs), in orienteering (rankings only for selection).

Chasing ranking points used to be a big problem also in Sweden many years ago. Maybe it is still - I´m not particularly involved on the elite level nowadays? Of course you can act with a very tactical approach if you want a high ranking but to what use?

The big difference is that the only thing (as far as I know) that the rankings are used for is for selection for elite courses where there are more runners entered than what the regulations say (~50-60 or whatever the conditions allow). For selection to run in some of the Swedish Champs competitions special rules apply stating what period of time is used for calculations. Of course there may come some bragging rights with the ranking points but they are never used for selections for National Teams (training groups) or for World Cups or WOC's.

We need more of this kind of analysis. Interesting conclusion that it is strategically better to run M20 than M18 at ISIC. I've heard the opposite. I don't know who is right. I'm just saying that, in my recollection, people have said that it is an advantage to run M18 rather than M20 at ISIC in terms of ranking points. I thought that was one of the reasons so many boys were running M18, and so few were running M20. My math skill aren't good enough to understand all of this, but I think smarter people than me should be able to figure this out. What do other people think?

Well, I just got home from work, and had a chance to look over this in more detail. The thing that had interested me the most was the idea that running M-20 rather than M-18 was somehow strategic.

On the bottom of page 4, the following statements appear: "Notice that by running an 8 min/km pace on M20, you would get 3 higher rankings points than if you ran the same pace on ISVM. And, yes, 3 points matter. On this particular race, Matt ran ISVM at a 7:54 pace and got 66.80 points. Had he run M20 at that same pace, he would have had 69.85 points. 3 more points!"

But, in fact, the Red Course was 7.9km long, and the Green Course was 5.8km long. If my math is correct, the Red Course was 36% longer. The Red Course had 25% more climb. It is not reasonable to assume that the same runner would maintain the same pace on both courses. It is reasonable to assume he would slow, at least a little, and likely enough to lose those precious 3 points, or more.

And actually, to the extent relevant, the winning paces on the Red Course were significantly faster than the winning paces on the Green Course. On Day 1, the winning pace on Red was an IC Varsity Male who ran at a 6:34km/min pace, compared to a winning pace on Green of an IS Varsity Male who ran at a 7:58km/min pace. If the courses were equally difficulty technically (and I don't know whether they were), this suggests that if the top Red runners had competed against the top Green runners on the same course, the top Red runners would have absolutely smoked the top Green runners. The top Red runner, running at the same pace on Green that he ran on Red, would have beat the Green leader by over 10 minutes. And realistically, the top Red runner, running a shorter distance, with less climb, would have increased his pace, not just maintained it.

The idea that someone could successfully "game" the system by running Red rather than Green is not supported by this data.

I got a C in Freshman calculus in College, and decided to become a English major. I'm no math expert. I would love to hear someone else's views.

What got my attention was the comparison between WY and KS rankings scores...

Most people who have run in both places would think that WY terrain is faster than KS terrain -- if for no other reason than the former having a much higher proportion of open / non-forested land. And yet, 8 min/km gets you 93 points in WY, but only 69 in KS! Yes WY is at a much higher altitude, but that alone should not explain a 23 point difference.

Guy, there is no doubt that the ranking scores were low across the board, in every class. In Barb's analysis, if I am reading it correctly, there is some suggestion that there were so many good competitors, that they tended to depress each other's ability to have an outstanding result. I think that's right. There is also a suggestion that the classes should not have been so broken up. So, for example, when you have three Green courses, you have more similar people competing against each other, which may depress their ability to stand out. I think that's probably right too, but I am less sure about that one. I think there's a lot of good thought in Barb's analysis, and it raises good questions. I just didn't like the suggestion that running Red was gaming the system. I think that is not supported by the data. If anything, the opposite appears to be true.

I also think there were other things going on at this meet. No offense to KC, but the terrain is not very technical. It may be a terrific, accurate map. But the terrain is very straightforward. There is nothing subtle about the contours. The terrain was, so I have heard, generally super runnable. You cannot expect a high gnarliness value out of this map. You just can't. Forget about ranking points - in plain English, you can't expect to be told you are absolutely amazing just because you did well on this map. That's my take.

I should stay out of this, but I'll just wade in to try to understand the motivation behind the exercise. Ordinarily, if you seek to re-engineer a process, it is because you don't like the outcome. Here, the process (I think) is JWOC selection, and the outcome (I think) must be the team selected (in general--not a particular team or runners, I'm sure.)

Anyway, the tacit implication is that some other process would produce a different subset which would produce ordinally better results. I guess I just don't see it.

The artifacts, nuances, and proclivities of this ranking system, vs. others, have been debated ad nauseum, for many years, and there is nothing I like better than examining its oddities and biases (this horse has been beaten and sent to the abattoir already), but, that doesn't advance the sport in any way. I wish someone would put together an AP bibliography of rankings threads, but anyway...

All I can say about this ranking system is that scores depend on how you do relative to other particular people on your course on a particular day. That isn't really so controversial, I'd think?

At the end of the year, your score reflects the composition of events and races you ran at. If you ran only sprints or orange courses, you won't have a high score. If you run only at a place like Fundy National Park, and do well, you will earn (and deserve) a high score.

The US champs maps (Moreau and the new Wakpominee map) will offer a great challenge and more detailed terrain than KS. While a bit late for this year's Junior team selection it will count towards next year's races. Bring your juniors aspiring to make the team!

And for anyone planning on competing to be named to the Senior team---this is your trials event!! Standard registration open through April 13. All welcome.

I think there are many problems with the idea of using time per nominal distance to compare performances. dawgtired has pointed out some of these (total length, climb). Some other considerations are: actual ideal route length, runnability, and navigation difficulty. You might say that in the same terrain, these things should be equal, but I suspect the reality is that they aren't, at least not enough to support this precise level of analysis.

I will point out that the strategy of running or not running has been made much less of a point with the new way that rankings are determined. It used to be that there was a penalty if you didn't run well on a course or some courses. This has been changed so that your ranking is the result of the four best runs. Now, the "strategy" might be to go to as many meets and hope that you have a brilliant run on four of them. The system actually encourages more participation as compared to less. If you don't do well in a sprint, it won't matter in your ranking.

I have to object to the implication in Barbs analysis that the JWOC team selection based on the current ranking system is "not fair and may not pick the optimal team". How can a group of three people trying to compare results from a few select races while weighing in "consistency of training and other attributes" be more fair than the current ranking system that is untouched by one (or two,or three), peoples personal opinions? Furthermore, I have yet to find anyone say that an undeserving junior went while a more deserving one was passed over as a result of the current selection process.

Consider that the proposed system will use some yet undisclosed series of events. Somehow, someone or somebodies, will need to reconcile the results of said races and determine who did better than who. A simple task if there is just one race and everyone runs. But, it won't be one race, it will be several and everyone won't be at every race. So, trying to reconcile these scattered results is just going to result back to some sort of "ranking system" but the problem is that the "ranking system" for just these selection/designated races is going to be based on an even smaller set of data and have the same issues as the current ranking system. How is that more fair?

In the summary it says "We want a system that motivates kids to use A-meets to experiment with riding the close line between just right and too fast, taking risks to see what it feels like in competition, without fear of jeopardizing their ranking". Certainly nothing wrong with this statment but won't the proposed system encourage more caution? I mean, are the kids going to be "taking risks" at the selection/designated races? With the current system a bad race or two won't necessarily destroy your JWOC chances so there is plenty of incentive to "go for it". Also, I can't speak for others but I have never sensed my two kids ever holding back becasue they were afraid of hurting their rankings.

Basically I strongly favor keeping the existing Ranking based selection process because it has worked well but also becasue it is frequently updated so the juniors know where they stand and what they have to do to make the team. With the proposed system the kids won't know where they really stand until the actual selection.

I don't want to comment much, but really Barb seems to be conflating two issues. Either the ranking system has problems, or it doesn't. And either you want to use it to select teams, or you don't.

On the first, nobody who's paid any attention can dispute that the ranking scheme is imperfect. Barb picks up one issue: rankings are depressed when people with low rankings come closer to the winner, in the sense of min/km, than normal. This is well known to be an issue in sprints. Apparently it's also true in the IS/IC champs this year, probably because the courses were easy.

Her remaining points assume that min/km is a good 'true' measure of orienteering performance across different courses, which is being imperfectly captured by the ranking. This I completely disagree with. That throws out most of the rest of her document. (For example, there is no way to compare the 2.3km Brown A to the 2.9km Brown B. And notice that the courses (Green Y, Red Y) that look to be the 'hardest' to score 100 points on (in the sense that the per km pace required to score 100 points is lowest) actually had substantially less climb at NAOC than did the other same-color courses.)

So, it's one thing to note that rankings are imperfect, and another to propose a better rankings alternative that would realistically work better on real-world O data (small fields, varying course types, and so on).

But this isn't Barb's real issue as far as I can tell. I think her real point is that selectors' discretion should be used in selecting the JWOC team. Here I entirely agree. I think the ability to show an outstanding performance or two at an important race or two should give someone the benefit of the doubt about their future potential, relative to someone who's consistently mediocre. The ranking system doesn't allow for this, at least for those who don't run many A races. The selection system should.

If I was designing the selection system, I'd vote for four auto-places to those at the top of whatever objective system is being used (eg rankings), two at the selectors' discretion.

Wow, Feet, you just described how we chose the senior WOC Team for years, until people (mostly from the west coast) complained that the selectors were biased.
FWIW, I thought that system worked pretty well overall. But I'm probably biased myself.

Originaly in choosing M-18 for the Kansas meet I thought the multitude of competitiors would help me. I thought the course would be more technically difficult and the competitiors times would be very spread out like last year in the thick woods of washington. I thought I could win by 5 mins like the ISVF champion did. However I was wrong and the woods were very fast. The amount of competitiors and the fast course had the opposite effect from what I was hoping and the scores were low. From the past, meaning 2012 champs, m-18 seemed to be the higher scoreing age group at Interscalastics.
I chose not to run M-20 for several other reasons. One, Connor and I have always been running the same courses and possibly lowering each other's scores by having low-scoring runner the two of us constantly finishing closer to the top then our scores sugest. Two, the red course contained runners who were bound to race well including John Williams and Will Hubsch. This would have made scoring easier as is but these two runner were bound to set a high status course. The course, however, from hindsight, as Barb's analysis indicates was the better course. Yes I think the competitors were better and faster then me on day one for red. But I also think the course was faster even though it wa longer and hillier. The terrain from looking at both courses on race day seems much more open. This estimate might be a little fast but I think i could have run 7 min a k on red. If you look at day 2 when the courses are less open and more about navigation the min per k are closer and within 25 secounds rather then the huge minute and 20 gap on day 1

feet's analysis was going great until the last bit. The best use of an objective rankings system is to choose the 4th, 5th or 6th places on a team, not the top places. The top places would be similar in any subjective selectors pick or objective rank from results. Its the borderline cases where the anguish, disappointment and disillusionment kick in - that is where you need objectivity (and I'd argue, fairness).

@O-ing - if the top places are chosen subjectively, wouldn't they be very likely to agree perfectly with the objective ranking because they stand out from the pack? In that case, subjectively choosing the top k places and objectively choosing the remaining (n-k) is exactly the same as objectively choosing all n places.

The point of a subjective metric is to discriminate among very closely ranked competitors using additional information not available to the objective metric.

I find it interesting that some of the top runners eligible for varsity are eschewing the varsity championship to seek out ranking points and longer courses instead.

What's the point of the IS Championships if not all of the top runners are competing? It's one thing for them to not attend the event, but to come to the exact same event, but to run a different course... that just seems odd to me.

Look at the Kansas day 1 Green Y and X courses. Were the courses similar?

Matt was fastest on Green X with a pace of 7:54. This earned him a score of 67.63.

Rick Breseman was fastest on Green Y with a pace of 8:01. This earned him a score of 78.54. In fact, you don't get a score as low as Matt's until you hit 10th place. That runner had a pace of 9:22.

Drastically different scores for what appears to be similar performances, on similar courses on the same day. If the courses were anything close to equivalent, the ranking system methodology appears to be deeply flawed.

@Pink - I can only give you one junior's perspective, based on what I know. For a junior whose school and club has only one runner, there really is not much point to the IS Champs at all. It's just another A meet. And when the junior orders the old map from the event organizer, and sees how incredibly non-technical the terrain is, and because he takes orienteering seriously, and attends every A meet he can consistent with school, and is not interested in a silly medal, but because he wants to get better, for the long term, and he wants to challenge himself, and he thinks it would be cool to compete against the USMAOC team, and possibly beat them. He chooses the Red course. But that's just one junior's perspective. If that seems odd, then yikes.

@dawg - All of those reasons make complete sense to me, and none of them are unexpected responses.

One one hand, it's like an M40 running M21 at US Champs. But on the other hand, it's not, since at IS Champs, only one category is competing for a championship (unlike everyone at a US Champs).

And maybe it's just me being out of touch, since I've never been (and never will be) elite at anything. I'm sure this stuff happens at the elite level in other sports. I doubt the top tennis players play on their high school's tennis team, for example.

So if selection is based on selection races, doesn't that make the selection race the most important race of the year?

So these days (and I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong ;-) the main focus before the selection races is the selection races. Once a junior is selected, then who cares? A half-hearted prep for a race where the goal is not all that lofty.

Seems JWOC itself, and general skills and personal growth, should rank higher in the amount of preparation and training.

Wouldn't it be better to have the entire squad preparing all year for JWOC, developing those skills and techniques and mental abilities most relevant for that race. Then the coach would select those that are best prepared. Oops, sorry, for a moment there I thought I was in the "orienteering fantasy" thread ;-)

No, AZ, you're in Canada, where the selectors are omniscient and objective. ;)

We live in America, where we are merely human.

@Bob-F and others...

It doesn't matter how fast you run on a course. Well, it does, but it matters more how everyone else does. In an absolute sense, the performances you note may seem similar, but in a relative sense (relative to the sample normed against) they are not. Hopefully, it is obvious to all that this ranking system is fundamentally relative: there is nothing indexed--to time per k or anything else--anywhere in it. There is no Plank constant, if you will.

My point is that the rankings are the basis of the Junior selections. Yet in very comparable circumstances you can get very different results. It would be hard to argue that the green X and green Y courses at the same meet, on the same terrain, set by the same course setter, run on the same day were substantially different. Yet if Matt had run on green Y with the same pace he ran on green X, his score would have been %15 higher.

I don't see how you can call that a fair system.

I have nothing to add beyond anything I may have said in other threads in years prior. I'll defer to feet. His recent statement is a succinct recapitulation of the situation.

As I recuse myself from this discussion, I will merely say that people can't even agree to the greatest marathon (golf, cycling, etc... fill in the blank performance). These are things which can be expressly normalized... I.e., you run 26 miles, play 18 holes, etc., it should trivial to determine the best performance across years, fields, venues, environments, etc. But, it is not. Orienteering is a pretty non-normalizable sport; in fact, that is it's whole essence. For that reason, and other issues cited by feet (small fields, etc.) the whole undertaking of comparing across races is untenable. Yes, the system is flawed. Its defects have been extensively cataloged, but the non-invariance of time per k is the least of the issues.

Why can someone win a 400M heat in 44 seconds whereas they would be out of the medals in a final with the same time? Or vice versa? Aren't they equivalent performances? No. But, they are contested under much, much more comparable circumstances than you would ever get in an orienteering race. What separates the victor from someone else, is just that he was faster than the 2nd place guy, not how fast he ran around the track. They latter is good for a world (or whatever record). What would be the analog of a WR in orienteering? The fastest time per K? Of course not.

The most credible metric we have indicates that there was something quite different about those two courses. Not having looked at them, I can't tell you what it is.

@j-man - there is at least once exception from the rule - long track speed-skating where fastest time wins instead of head to head but I get what you are staying with 400M example and I agree. At the same token USA Track&Field team selection criteria is simple - come to nationals, place it, and you are on the team, no exceptions. Dan O'Brian was arguably the best decathlete in the world in 1992 but he failed to clear starting height in pole-vault at nationals and had to wait another 4 years to participate in Olympics.

If intent is to build winning program that potentially can medal and win at JWOC than selection race is way to go. If you can't handle pressure at selection races then you are not ready for the world stage.

I still see intent to use discretionary selection in document Barb outlined. I'd advice it against for selection committees own sake. Unless your discretionary selected athletes medal you will increase odds that you will not be as popular after flopped JWOC performances. Even if performance is slightly better then last years your selections will be scrutinized forever. Only scenario where I would take a risk if insisting discretionary selection vs selection race (or even established ranking system - as flowed as it is) if when I can guarantee way better outcome compared to last years or medal.

If you can't handle pressure at selection races then you are not ready for the world stage.

Sure. However that is a 'necessary but not sufficient' pre-requisite. There's much more to being ready for the world stage than being able to handle the pressure at a US race. The question is how to measure the other aspects. I claim it can't be done by any non-subjective measure. In fact I don't even know how you even list what it takes.

I agree this should merge with orienteering fantasies thread.
There should be only one class (Red for junior males) to score selection points, if selection process is taken seriously. Comparing two different courses using race speed is dumb, if I am to put it nicely.
Varsity class should be left for wilderness adventurers, medal-hunters, etc. A serious self-respecting junior would run in individual class.
This terrain in KC can only test physical part. Such tests are also needed, and give useful info. I see that all the runners on Blue course finished in the same order both days, according to their running shape. But not much can be said about overall orienteering level based on such primitive courses.

More:
In working in the education field, and watching how kids learn and move, I've seen that it's easy to come up with a standardized way to measure what a kid is capable of and what a kid is not capable of…
By assigning points, “on a scale from 1 to 5”, judged by ‘committee members? With a quality of blog being a measure of potential?

In fact it is difficult to come up with a meaningful measure. Selection race is known to be the best such measure available in sport disciplines.

Situations exist when there is space for subjective decisions. For example, when an athlete already proved one’s potential at top level. I am afraid that is not the case with US juniors at the moment. A condition of a possibility of such subjective decision rule would be a broad consensus, that people who make the decision know what they are doing. Now, from the point of view of a junior: Suppose I believe that I have a lot of potential to become a World Champion. If I lose a selection race by one point (say 10 seconds) and do not make the team I know it is fair, and I am motivated to keep going, and try it next time, if I am not too old. But if I win 10 seconds and do not make the team based on Barb’s judgment about my potential, I would just go and ...edited ...become a hood hunter

@AZ - winning national champs should be pretty good indicator that athlete has all the other intangibles trying next level of competition. For example I think one of the concerns for selection committee (if I can read between the lines) that they'd rather include on team someone who works hard and practices regularly vs. someone who is naturally talented runner and navigator. Level at national competition (ideally) should be at the level where you cannot just cruise through just on talent. Unfortunately reality is that it's not the case and I can understand committees desire to foster hard working athletes.

Unless your discretionary selected athletes medal you will increase odds that you will not be as popular after flopped JWOC performances. Even if performance is slightly better then last years your selections will be scrutinized forever.

Such risk aversion... sheesh!!

"If you want to make an omelet, you're going to have to break some eggs..."
- unknown

There appears to be something approaching a consensus on the rankings not being flawless / perfect, etc...

But, would it be possible to determine how imperfect?

Polls have a margin of error, from which pundits will often state that Candidate A is in a virtual tie with Candidate B -- even though one might be ahead of the other by some small number of percentage points. So I have to wonder: What is the difference in ranking points between any two orienteers at which their performances (over several races, possibly none head-to-head) would be considered virtually indistinguishable -- or at least the ranking system would be unable to make the distinction?

feet's Law of Uncertainty.

It would be straightforward to run a regression analysis to check the predictive power of the rankings. But Guy's question is not well-posed because 'virtually indistinguishable' is not precisely defined. A well-posed question would be:

'How many points greater a ranking score does orienteer A have to have than orienteer B before one would, on the morning of a race, and with no other information available than their ranking scores, rationally believe that orienteer A has a 55% probability of beating orienteer B in that race?'

Or 60%, or 65%, or whatever threshold you like.

@Guy - With all due respect, I would turn the question around. You have proposed that you and two other people, by committee, would generate rankings. The three of you have publicly said that you would not use the rankings system, because you think the rankings system is so inaccurate.

Do you really contend that the rankings generated by you and two other people, solely in your minds, and without reliance on the rankings system, would be flawless/perfect? That's remarkable confidence in your own ability.

Have you and the other two people performed these kind of rankings in the past? How did your rankings match performance that occurred after you generated your rankings? How accurate were you? Were your predictions public? If not, what evidence can you provide to show your success in this area? How about the other two?

I think you (and the other two) should consider predicting and publicly announcing the order of finish, and the time gaps, for M-20 competitors at every A meet from now until April 2014. You should consider posting the predictions here on AP, so your qualifications can be evaluated.

I note that in Barb's analysis, above, she estimated a 3% error in the rankings system (based on the extraordinary assumption that a Green runner would run the same pace on a Red course that he ran on a Green course, even though the Red Course was 36% longer and had 25% more climb). I would be interested to see if your predictions have a less than 3% margin of error.

@dawgtired, I used the example of the Green Y and Green X courses from day 1 at Kansas. I assume those courses were roughly equivalent (if I am mistaken please correct me). The winner of the Green X course had a pace of 7:54, the winner of the Green Y course course had a pace of 8:01. The performances appear to be close to equal with the Green X runner being a bit faster.

The scores were not equal. The Green X winner received a 67.63, the Green Y winner 78.54. Almost a 14% difference.

In this case we are comparing Green runners to Green runners on the same terrain, with the same course setter, with the same climb, on the same day.

One point I absolutely agree with Barb with is: "Savvy juniors know how to optimize their rankings."
We are new to this game, so to speak. Michael and I talked back and forth about what to register for. There was all this discussion about juniors should run Red if they intend to prepare for JWOC, and our area did not have enough juniors to put up a ISVM team anyway, so choosing M-20 was definitely not a calculated move for ranking points, but rather trying to catch up with the necessity of having at least 4 runs to rank "properly" so to speak in one course category. And we were disappointed there were only 4 runners in the category, I had no idea that there are supposedly strategic angles to all this.
Oh, ya, the financial angle.... events with three A-meets per event are more economical, so avoiding sprints for ranking reasons is kind of a financial shot in the foot, especially if one is in a place one has to fly to the majority of A-meets.
In any case, I actually found one of the ideas in KC of one of the juniors, I think it was Matt, actually rather cool. Have a junior camp during winter break, with several selection races at the end. Advantages: leveling of home advantage, reduction of financial burden, all juniors interested in qualifying participate in the same races, training and bonding together, and definitely playing strategy only in the route selection and not in the race selection.

@ Bob-F, those courses are not that similar. The Green X course has far more easy running to straightforward locations than does the Green Y. It doesn't surprise me that equivalent speeds on those two courses amounts to a better performance on Green Y than on Green X.

In any case, if you are trying to demonstrate that there is a problem, there is a better way to go about it if you have the program to calculate rankings up and running, as you seem to. Take any _single_ course (for example, Green X only) and split it into two sets of runners (Green XA and Green XB). Because you know these are the same course, they should get the same GV. Check: do they? How different are they?

Day 1 in Kansas... Green X was longer than Green Y (5.8km vs 5.4km). Looking at the legs, I'd expect Green X to be a little faster, with a few long-ish, easy-ish legs through wide open terrain. I didn't run either one, but Green X looks a little faster to me.

You are talking about two different courses. You assume they were roughly equivalent, but you don't know that. No one knows whether they were. They were planned to be "roughly equivalent", but that was not the key focus of the course setter. The course setter did not plan to make them identical. In fact, it is not possible to make them identical. When you have a given map, there are many, but still finite choices available to the course setter within the confines of the map. I suspect the course setter tried quite hard to make Green X1 and Green X2 very, very similar. But there was no reason to do the same for Green Y. In fact, the course setter may have purposely decided to make the old guys run a slightly more technical or longer course, or have tougher route choices, or not give them a water control, or whatever might affect old guys. Or, it may not have been intentional. It may have been inadvertent, because it just was not important, and should not be.

The reason that the course setter set a different course for the old guys was that either the rules require it at the Interscholastics, or it's custom and practice (honestly, I can't remember which). If it's custom and practice, it's because of limited start windows, and Green tending to be the most popular course. There have been Green X and Green Y at many, many events. The courses are not identical. They are never identical. If you think that all Greens should run the same course, so that they can all be compared, that's an interesting opinion. It can be done. You decrease the start interval to something like 30 seconds.

But, it's funny. Having juniors run against the old guys is completely counter to the argument made by Barb in the past. Barb has argued, as I recall, that it's unfair for the F-20s to run against the old guys on Green. They should be on separate courses. So, maybe you want juniors on Greens to run against the old guys. Barb does not want the juniors to run on the same courses as the old guys. If they are running on different courses, the courses they are running on will be different.

@Bob-F:

As has been pointed out several times already, the claim:
(same pace + the same color course + same map + same day) = same points
is not valid. The course is invariably different, and therefore the pace is not a reliable indicator of points. Rather, the points are a reliable indicator of how "equivalent" the courses were.

Taking your example, consider the following pertinent fact:

Green course rankings going into the race on 2013-03-09:
Rick Breseman = 79.39
Matt Stout = 67.99

Unless you think the rankings averaged for the entire year are flawed by as much as an 11.4 point margin, the results of the day would seem to corroborate the rankings prediction darn near perfectly, despite being applied to two completely different courses. IMHO, this is a rather remarkable success for the rankings.

If it's custom and practice, it's because of limited start windows, and Green tending to be the most popular course.

This is the reason. Green is already the most popular course at A-meets for adults, and when you add all of the varsity boys (the most popular IS class), you have to split it. I believe that X1 and X2 were the same course, but with different forkings.

We have plenty of gnarliness at Run Black Diamond! and only three registered participants for what equals Red on Friday. Someone must be strategizing! others will enjoy a very unique challenge of navigating a multilevel campus at night, have fun, and come home with unique memories and prizes from Road Runner Sports. The choice is yours.

@feet: Agreed about "virtually indistinguishable". Isn't 95% a typical confidence level for such determinations.

@dawg:
1. The JTESC Chair is not a member of the Selections Committee. See Rule G.2.7.9 here.
2. I don't think I ever said that rankings are so inaccurate that they should not be used for JWOC Selection at all -- nor do I recall "the other two" saying anything that definitive. My view of rankings is that they should not be treated like gospel; like any determination based on samples, ranking scores should be utilized with due diligence.

...only three registered participants for what equals Red on Friday.

At least there won't be any rankings arguments about this course -- because there won't be any rankings (unless at least 2 more run it).

If you want 95% confidence that a higher-ranked orienteer will defeat a lower-ranked one in a given race, my guess without doing the analysis is that you might need a very large ranking difference (tens of points). Anything can happen on any one day, including that the higher-ranked orienteer gets injured or mispunches.

I was just watching the pre-amble to March Madness (big USA university basketball tournament) and I wondered "why do all of these teams have human coaches? Wouldn't they be way more successful to build a ranking system for their team's players, and then have the computer constantly deciding which would be the best five players on the court at any time."

They also have professional scouts, coaches, reams of data, video, and computers, and most importantly, a very high level of interaction between the coaching staff and the finite set of players, enhanced by hours of practice together throughout most of the year. This situation is so much different from orienteering in North America that the comparison seems a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly, IMHO.

With all those resources these teams should be able to build kick-ass ranking systems! The system should always pick the best team to put on the floor, with no emotion or bias and way less chance of making a mistake.

But I kind of agree that a dedicated, committed coach will do a better job. In fact I think a human coach will always beat a computer coach at picking the best team. But then there were people that used to think that about chess players too.

I hate to wade into this morass, but, a few points:
1) The two Green courses in question were not similar. They had very different routings, one went though more thick vegetation, one spent more time in white woods, one had three additional control, one had revisited controls (butterfly loop), etc. It was not obvious to me which I would expect to be a faster course, because there were numerous differences.
2) I believe Barb's point about Junior girls is not that they should be on different courses from the older guys, but that the reference value should not be the best older guys. That is, while the fastest Red runners may be M20s, who will therefore be the 100-point runners, and it makes sense to use 100 points as a standard (and to have a cutoff that's some percentage of that), on the Green side, the best Green runners are not F20s, they are M50s or something, so to use 100 points as the reference and to have the cutoff be the same value that it is for Red doesn't make sense. It would make more sense to have to be the same percentage of the rankings of the top F20s.
3) OMG, Karan Keith showed up?

@ AZ---I think Canada relies heavily (solely?), on the coach selecting the team. How do the atheletes feel about this? Just asking becasue I've overheard comments from several that left me with the impression that they didn't care for it. It was just bits and pieces and I might be wrong but that was my impression.

March madness probably doesn't take it to quite the same level as the NBA, but in pro basketball there's basically a ranking system for everything, including things like likelihood of scoring from various parts of the court for each player, when to play which player based on who's on the court for the other team, etc.

That's a tricky question, in so many ways! Of course, hard for me to say. But my impression is that there isn't a lot of trouble for the top (i.e. "obvious") selections. The issues will be around the 4/5/6 places. Obviously those that don't get chosen might prefer to have a different selection system.

Another reason its hard to say is that this year we have a different WOC selection process that will give athletes a "winner-take-all" chance at the selection races (at the US Champs, same as the USA selection) along with the discretionary places. Maybe that is a reasonable compromise - we'll see how it works. Note - we changed because we no longer have a national head coach (who in the past was responsible for team selection).

A couple of years ago we implemented a discretionary system for JWOC selection. At first there was a lot of discontent, but I didn't see so much this year. Maybe this is because once the athletes got used to this system and understood what it took to be selected then it was okay. Or maybe it is that there are so few candidates! But in any case we are very happy with the new attitude of being selected to the JWOC team - it is now seen as something earned and something to be proud of much more than it was before - since now it takes commitment, dedication, and training and performance over many months (whereas before often "just showing up at the selection races (and not DQ'ing)" would suffice). I would say that, especially for the juniors, it isn't so much a question of picking the strongest team, but rather about creating a more positive environment that will help all the juniors improve their technical and physical and mental abilities along with their leadership and self-belief.

Probably I'll wish I never wrote half of that ;)

@bshields. Wow! I love it. I have a new hero - Battier.

But with all the data, why isn't Daryl Morey (the stats guy) and his computers running the team? Why is he just being asked for stacks of data and advice.

In other words, what value is the coach providing?

AZ, should I add any wording to our US Champs info page about CA team selection?

I haven't seen the event on your event calendar, but maybe I looked in the wrong place.

Hey Janet, I don't think it is necessary to add anything. The info is in the Canadian HPP Handbook and all the athletes should know about it. For general interest though, it might be cool to add something on the website. Thanks for asking

But in any case we are very happy with the new attitude of being selected to the JWOC team - it is now seen as something earned and something to be proud of much more than it was before - since now it takes commitment, dedication, and training and performance over many months (whereas before often "just showing up at the selection races (and not DQ'ing)" would suffice).

Like!!!

At the end if the day, I guess it's who you know. That's what it takes to get ahead in the world.

?
Don't understand that at all.
Are you seriously saying that the selectors are an old-boys-club?

I guess. If selections can't be done by any non-subjective measure and/or the criteria can't be listed by the selectors themselves, what else do they have to go on? Their gut? Even when well meaning, how could a selector give a nod to an unknown vs. Someone on the in crowd if they themselves can't enumerate the criteria?

Yes I think that's what selectors bring to the process. Their guts.

A couple of years ago we implemented a discretionary system for JWOC selection. At first there was a lot of discontent, but I didn't see so much this year. Maybe this is because once the athletes got used to this system and understood what it took to be selected then it was okay.

This is surreal. Reading this thread replaces for me lately going to bash.org

Also comes to mind: War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength..
...

AZ - I think you should count yourself as one of the lucky ones who hasn't been scarred by well-meaning but utterly unjustified subjective selection travesties. It happens. It is quite common.

@O-ing, there is a problem in O that the choice of selection race influences the results. Hold the races on the east coast, east coast people will have an advantage. I've been annoyed with Irish Champs in the past being held on heavily used maps, for example. Sure, performance on the day is what counts, and one can only blame oneself for not performing, but it doesn't make it fair. Selection for athletics is a different kettle of fish.

I'm not saying using rankings is bad, and selection races done well are fantastic, but people can feel aggrieved no matter the system.

I think I start to understand why NA powerhouses insist on discretionary JWOC team selection. It's less to do with who'd be selected for the team but more a mechanism to ensure that prospects train all year long and stay connected with prospects, etc. Becks pointed this out in previous thread that most likely same prospects would make a team regardless of selection criteria - discretionary, rankings, selection criteria or even random drawing would get that almost the same team selected. (Ok.... I am kidding about the last one...)

Even I understand the reasons behind it I think there are other ways how to ensure that potential prospects do train all year long and not just show up at selection race, do not DQ to be on team. Having performance targets is one of them. Requiring a record of participation at local meets might be another. I'd even go as far that if there is a year where none of the potential prospects cannot meet permanence targets - do not send team to JWOC, or send limited team, only those who qualify based on performance.

Instead of just comparing raw numbers selectors can take a look at the results and splits of those races and see why each one got those points. Like was somebody following someone, was there misplaced controls and some just happened to find them straight by luck and some not, rivals were running it as training or were weakened by injury or a tough race the day before (a race the point hunter did not run) and so on. Most ranking formulas doesn't do evaluations like that.

Yes, Gil +1.

I, too, can understand the motivation for discretionary choices. The end, as Gil reiterates, and AZ touches upon several times, is worthy: foster a sense of commitment and attachment. But, while the end is good, the means is fraught.

There are other ways to encourage what we are all looking for (I think) which is a team ethos, a sense of camaraderie, and high performance. In an ideal world, these would be mutually reinforcing. But, it will take a lot of work to get there. In my mind, we need more "density"--of races, athletes, etc.--to get to this happy place.

In the meantime, I'd think we would want a selection process congruent with our reality, a development program which builds enthusiasm, and at least in America, where it shouldn't matter who you are, where you were born, or whether you orienteer in the obscurity of Wheeling or the bright lights of Boston, a chance to have your performance speak for itself.

(The somewhat overblown rhetoric is meant for effect. Apologies.)

(Gil + 2)

AZ - I think you should count yourself as one of the lucky ones who hasn't been scarred by well-meaning but utterly unjustified subjective selection

Quite the contrary. What is different, perhaps, is the lessons I learned from those experiences...

Lesson #1 - when I'm an "applicant" I no longer consider it the job of the selector to pick me, I consider it my job to give the selector no option other than to pick me (this is a very valuable shift in focus, that serves especially well outside of sport where we are all often in this position).

Lesson #2 - when I'm the selector or establishing the selection process then I do what I can to make sure there is no "unknown" person and that both selectors and applicants are aware of the criteria. Sure, that's really tough, but not as impossible as yurets might believe. And each year I figure we are getting better at doing this.

I come back to my question earlier - with all the resources available to them, including an amazing ranking system on every single player, why do the Houston Rockets (to use bshield's cool example) pay millions of dollars to a human coach to make discretionary decisions? The answer is that there is a ton of value in the coach - which I think comes in part from his leadership and his ability to motivate athletes. By allowing past bad experiences to force you to use only the spreadsheets you are throwing away this potential value, with the result that your athletes will not achieve as high a level as they might have

AZ Lesson #1 +1!

I don't quite understand statement in Lesson #1. My understanding of discretionary selection is that there is not black-and-white, written in stone criteria that needs to be met in order to qualify for team. However if as an applicant I fulfill my duties and give no choice selector but to pick me for the team then it's not subjective or discretionary selection. My understanding of discretionary selection is when I do everything what's expected from me but I can still be overlooked just because.

Same with Lesson #2 - if I understand it correctly you do notify applicants about the criteria for selection and every year you try to fine-tune your selection criteria to assure fairness. If so than you really have objective selection criteria, not subjective.

I am glad to finally see some sensible comments about the rational for JWOC team selection. I agree with many of the recent comments.

I am also glad that some people got around to actually comparing the courses in question. I was waiting to hear the word "routing" (thanks JJ), but I find it very discouraging that it took ~40 -50 comments to address this crux issue.

Still I think the post-"analysis on rankings" portion of this thread demonstrates a tragic lack of perspective on the significance of this subject. The 4-5-6... place Americans relevant to this discussion can at best be expected to finish 30% (easy sprint course) to 80% (tough Middle or Long) after the winners. This assumes very optimistic improvement over last year's results.

Is this international public forum really the most appropriate place for this discussion?

I hope the core issues of attracting more juniors, and getting them to train more would get similar brainstorming and action, but I don't have any simple solutions for these tough issues either.

In addition, I think this discussion reflects a serious overvaluation of the importance of JWOC for developing junior orienteers in the US. When you are 30% to 100+% behind the winner, you are not really part of the competition. Yes you can say "i was there", but it has very little measuring stick value, and there are more effective ways to learn orienteering. Yes JWOC is a big exciting event, with a great party reputation, and therefore is a very nice "carrot" or reward, but so is Spring Break in Florida, which I'll pose is only slightly less relevant.

There are many other O meets in Europe with more meaningful competition, and many other opportunities to train domestically (NA) or in Europe, to say nothing about the greater importance daily/ weekly training at home, all of which I believe would produce much more return on the time and $$$ invested by participants, parents, and supporters.

overvaluation

My feeling exactly (sorry Barb). Sorry again. Glad someone well respected brought this up.

I don't particularly have a problem with someone being 30% to 100% behind a winner as long as everything discussed and done to build JWOC team is part of bigger picture popularizing and building broader overall base for orienteering in NA. I am curious if someone could provide analysis of "where there are now" of former NA JWOC team members, particularly, how many of them are still involved in sport. I don't think it's realistic to expect 100% retention rate but at the same time if so much effort is put to - for lack of better term - babysit and nourish JWOC team members I'd like to see them becoming somewhat orienteering ambassadors in NA.

Those from the early 1990s JWOCs are still around... with few if any exceptions. Those from later JWOCs have a higher attrition rate (100% for some of the late-1990s and early-2000s JWOCs).

Hold on here. I agree that JWOC (and WOC) are overvalued in the sense of $$$ per race. However, their importance in motivating our NA athletes is most certainly not overvalued. If it wasn't for the dramatic rise in the popularity of JWOC in the last 10 years or so, our already fragile programs would most certainly be in much worse shape. There is also much value in contributing to the international community. If WOC/JWOC was an exclusive affair for the top nations only, the sport as a whole would be poor and dull.

I think we should be very thankful that the JWOC "brand" is so popular, send teams, but then strongly encourage the members to stay in Europe, go to other multi-day events and trainings with better bang for the buck.

Something else I think we are missing out on currently, is to strongly encourage those who don't make the JWOC (WOC) team that they can still go, support the team, join the atmosphere and run spectator races. Then continue to travel with the group for the other races after. This would help lessen this angst over the selection and build a larger program.

Finally, I would suggest that the athletes don't run Elite classes in Europe just because they can. It's healthier to build some progression in an A class, rather than see your name at the absolute bottom of the list race after race.

@ndobbs. I agree! I happen to think its better to have any aggravation directed at the process (rankings or selection race) rather than at selectors. And at least if the process is known well in advance the runners have an opportunity to do something about it.

#Houston Rockets. I do not see the usefulness of this analogy. They play basketball? or baseball? whatever, its a team sport and they are professional. They have a team, probably normally double the numbers actually on the field/court and part of the paid coach's job is to select which of the highly paid professionals to use that day and when. Actually the coach is mainly paid to provide leadership, help train and motivate the team.
As a team sport it is full of considerations like passing and position play as well as appropriate skills. There are almost no completely "objective" measures to use because things like number of baskets and assists are dependent on who passes you the ball and who is on your team. So the owners pay a coach (They all do, even the team that finishes last) to use his "gut instinct" to pick who goes on court, when.
And when the coach gets it wrong he gets shown the door and they hire someone else. I'm not seeing any parallels here.

I think comparing coaching basketball vs orienteering is somewhat stretch similar to teaching math vs teaching English. In orienteering athletes is on his/her own from start till finish, no interaction with coach. Coach cannot call time-out during orienteering course after athlete makes consecutive navigational mistakes, pull aside and say "you seem to lean left today, pay attention to compass". Coach cannot substitute athlete on orienteering course if athlete is having bad day. Coach cannot make half-time adjustments on orienteering course by saying - "today bushes are meaner then any other day, try avoiding greens for second half of the course"

(100% for some of the late-1990s and early-2000s JWOCs).

Yeah, the Walkers, Boris, Ross, Sam... any one of those alone is worth sending five teams to JWOC.

JWOC teams from 2006-2008 had Jr Team coach Erin Schirm, so that was definitely worthwhile.

History (I don't have info for 2002-04)

Yes I shouldn't have been as categorical with 100%, there isn't any one in the late 1990s/early 2000s with 100% attrition. Still, the trend is there; from 100% retention to <20%.

http://orienteering.org/calendarresults/foot-orien...

2002
Suzanne Armstrong
Samantha Saeger
Ashley Smith
Corinne Porter
Hillary Saeger
Katharine Jensen

Daniel Walker
Ross Smith
Carl Sack
John Fredrickson

2003
Hillary Saeger
Ashley Smith
Viktoria Brautigam
Corinne Porter

John Fredrickson
Daniel Walker
Ross Smith
Robert Paddock

2004
Anneliese Steuben
Hillary Saeger
Viktoria Brautigam
Siobhan Fleming

Leif Anderson
John Frederickson
Robert Paddock
Martin Hawkes-Teeter
Frank Worsham

Thanks, Valerie!

John Fredrickson is certainly worth a team or two!

I do actually realize that basketball and orienteering are quite different sports ;-( That is quite missing the point. I'll try to be a little more clear:

In this thread (and others) we are talking about how make athlete selections. The debate revolves around using purely objective information or including human subjectiveness. (aside - there is obviously a continuum, and I've been carelessly using the word "discretionary" to refer to anything that has any human subjective input - i.e. that isn't 100% according to a forumla - but my sense of "appropriate discretion" does actually involve quite a lot of objective data. Anyway, back to my main point...)

I personally don't like an absolute objective measure for many reasons, including that often the measures we use don't necessarily predict the outcome we want (see bshields article for a beautiful example of that).

So I give a counter example of the basketball team which has massive resources at its disposal and can (and does) build a massive bank of objective data. Yet, when it comes to selecting which athletes to put in the game, they choose to go with a discretionary approach to selection - ie give control to the human coach.

My argument is that in orienteering we don't even have the amount and quality of data that they have in basketball. So relying solely on this data to make selections seems to be dangerous in at least two ways: a) we won't necessarily achieve the goal we desire (either because we're measuring the wrong thing, or because we have poor and/or incomplete data, and b) we're not maximizing the potential of the system (since obviously there is some value in allowing basketball coaches to make discretionary choices, I infer that there would be some similar value in allowing human discretion in making orienteering selections).

I really doubt that is any more clear, but I gave it a go.

Do you in US really have so many competitive runners for JWOC team that selector is under huge pressure before he/she make the final selection? I didn't find any post about 5k or 3k test. Are there any time limits which are necessary to be suitable along with good o-technique?

Our problem here is that we still speak mainly about o-technique but very little about speed. It changed a little bit over the years but still if you do recruiting based on people first interest - scouting you get maybe only 1 to 2 people out of 50 who are really interested also in sports and athletics. And the most orienteers here are scouts:). It is so damn hard to say: Hey we will do also a promotion among people who are interested in XC running, mountain running, sports.... and nobody has real interest to balance this recruiting process. 1) reason is that everyone has its own child in orienteering and 2) scouts don't like to be measured solely on sports achievements. Sports people see the whole system (training plan- commitment-motivation-goals) much different than scouts.

@bshields - fantastic article. Lengthy but good. Player that came to my mind while reading it was Dennis Rodman who was voted defensive player of the year many times but was still not a household name before he started to color his hair. Also wherever Rodman went - his teams were winning (except stint with Lakers late in his carrier). As pure basketball player Rodman was one of the most underrated players. I know AZ loves PJ as coach but @AZ - did you know that PJ had a talk with MJ and convinced MJ that Chicago needs Rodman when he became available from San Antonio (Spurs tanked big time after Rodman left even they still have publicly admired extremely overrated player by Nickname Admiral however people fail to recognize that Admiral never could get winning record by himself)

@Janet: Erin declined in 2007

Thanks #JanetT and #vmeyer for the data. I think it's fair to say that there is decent retention rate of former US JWOC team members and the ones who actually stick around are quality runners.

Cause and effect is not obvious in this circumstance.

Looking further back into the depths of N.A. junior history ... before we went to JWOC at all. (Well, some of us are still around.) Without commenting on JWOC selection method, rankings and so forth, which have been covered very thoroughly already, I would just like to say that it is fantastic that we have enough juniors to make this discussion necessary!

May good names have been mentioned.

However, don't these names and other unnoted lists for the past 20+ years indeed support the point that the retained juniors come almost exclusively from the top 3, and that these "good names" were already prepared and competitive in their JWOC's, not created by simply having been there? Weren't these retained juniors clearly deserving to go and not very difficult to select whether by committee or formula, and that the 4,5,6,(7,8) positions, the positions in debate, have been, unfortunately, inconsequential?

I am sure there are some exceptions, but I'm looking for a preponderance of the evidence.

"...we have enough juniors to make this discussion necessary.."?
I guess we have different standards.
Looking at last year's JWOC results, it looked to me like one of the teams didn't even fill any of these 4,5,6 positions, and the other had a very wide range of % behind, within the team. Did I miss something?

I don't think anyone is proposing to "trade in" JWOC support, a position which seems to be argued against by some of these comments. I certainly agree that JWOC is worthwhile, if not essentia,l for the top level of US orienteers.

I am asking for a reality check on priorities, some common sense reflection on cause and effect, and hoping to hear discussion (and work?) on more vital and productive pursiuts.

On the subject of priorities, the original USA Juniors thread is a little purer with respect to discussions of directions for the program and allocation of resources. It doesn't digress into rankings or selection as much as this one.

http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

Perhaps these two threads should be considered in concert.

@carlch Mar 19, 2013 9:43 PM #
"How do the atheletes feel about this?"

I feel like it is unfair, biased, it de-motivates, and it should be replaced by a fair ranking system or selection races. If one or two out of six places are discretionary, then it would be all right, but all six should never be solely on discretion. The people who select the athletes can make whatever choice they want regardless of performance and training.