Discussion: US WOC Team selections

A more serious note: after looking over the results from the Team Trials, I have deep reservations about the process, and wonder if we have really ended up with the best possible team. I have been skeptical about the current system for some time now, but would agree that it has worked well enough in past years. This year, however, what I believe to be flaws in the system have bubbled to the surface and have influenced the ultimate named team. This does *not* mean I believe any of the named athletes are not worthy to be included on the team. That is clearly not the case. Rather, I am thinking about people who were not selected, and, potentially, team size.

It's clearer on the Men's side, but questions can be raised on the Women's side too.

Taking a quick look at the raw results from the Trials by discipline, on the Women's side the best 7 of the best 9 results (3 best results by race) were selected, the 2 results not selected were 3rds, and all the winning results were selected. That looks reasonable enough; worth noting that the same runner--Suzanne--had those missing 3rds and that Suzanne's potential selection was disadvantaged by her having no ranking score.

On the Men's side things don't look as good. Only 5 of the 9 best results were selected, and missing in action were *two* of the winning results. It is in the Men's Sprint where the problem is most glaring. The winner, Michael Sandstrom, was not selected even though he completely crushed the field, and the only selection out of the top 4 results was 3rd--John. In the Classic, Wyatt won very clearly and also was not selected. Note additionally that Wyatt was 3rd in the Middle. Also of note was that Erin Shirm was 4th in both the Sprint and Classic, in both cases only a few seconds behind 3rd, but that his potential selection was, as with Suzanne, disadvantaged by no ranking score.

I contend that if you were to hand the race results from the Trials to randomly chosen groups of selectors and have them select a team--cognizant that 3 runners (almost surely not the same runners in each discipline) will be running in each of 3 very different disciplines at WOC (plus the relay, of course)--using whatever methods they elect, in an overwhelming number of the selections Michael Sandstrom would end up getting named. And I imagine it's more likely than not that other names would change. Names changing at the margin does not bother me, but a clear and obvious omission does. It should be a matter of concern for all who care about the selection of the best possible group of athletes to race at WOC with the various disciplines in mind.

I will return to the flaws I see in the overall selection scheme but I have an additional question in mind about the Women's selection, which is to wonder if even the selection rules were correctly applied when selecting the women? I hope they were, and I imagine they probably were, but for the purpose of this note I do not *assume* they were. My reading of the rules--not knowing how they might have been intended to be interpreted, or if such intent even matters more than the actual language/drafting of the rules as they stand--is that they have not been correctly applied. It appears to me that by the rules, Suzanne should have been selected, having finished 4th in the original scoring list. The rules specify that the Review Panel may make up to two exceptions (adjustments by insertion) to the scoring list, and that only *one* of the insertions can be made in the top 4. Hillary was inserted as #4 on the list, bumping down Suzanne to #5. Sandra was then inserted as #5, bumping down Suzanne to #6. The rules do not say that the insertions occur sequentially and do not stipulate that an insertion into the top 4 creates a new top 4 list to determine further allowable insertions. Sandra's insertion ahead of Suzanne would be a second insertion into the original top 4, and seems to me it therefore is not allowed. (After Hillary's insertion, Suzanne should still be selected as the 5th member of the team per the rules since she does have a score of 90 or more in at least one of the scores.)

Returning to the selection system itself, what we have today is a mechanical, deterministic process (an algorithm) subject to limited modification (by changes in the scoring list, petition). The system would have worked well enough even with its flaws back in the 70s and 80s, when the WOC consisted of one discipline (classic) plus relay and when the Team Trials consisted of 2 or 3 classic days. And it's worked well enough in recent years since the system was implemented. But with the evolution of the WOC into a multi-disciplinary set of competitions, the selection process has not adequately evolved along with it, and this year's Team Trials selections expose flaws in the system.

The first significant problem arises from using the rolling rankings as an absolute input as a 4th score. It makes a great deal of sense to me that the selector(s), while taking the hardest look at results from the Trials themselves, would also be interested--and maybe very interested, in individual cases--of performances in other races in the past year or so, including perhaps even unranked races. (In the case of petitions, of course that would be all they would have to go by.) However...

The rankings number is a noisy number--it becomes even noisier with the inclusion of sprint events in the mix--at best, and at worst can be highly misleading. Runner rankings may or may not have been significantly affected for a race, several races, or an entire season or longer for reason such as illness, injury, time stress (family, job, school, whatever) and so on. Event quality may have a significant affect on rankings. Runners' decisions about which races to compete in--maybe one runner only races in terrains where they typically do well, maybe another has raced mostly in terrain types where they often do so well--or how many races to race in or deciding whether or not to continue racing after achieving some good results, whether or not a runner bothers to ask for and take an sporting withdrawal in certain circumstances, or a whole variety of other things can yield a rankings score which can vary considerable from what an "idealized" score might be.

And then there is the additional flaw in using rankings score in cases where runners don't even have a score at all. Obviously when folks go overseas to improve through better training/racing opportunities that's a good thing, but just as obviously it makes it much harder for them to get a good ranking score or maybe even a score at all, so the current system perversely makes it less likely that some of the people you would most like to consider will end up getting selected. We have a case in point this year--Suzanne--and there's every reason to expect that from time to time we will have other runners going overseas.

The same thing arises when really good, and/or rapidly rising juniors or first year seniors--and it would happen for other folks who, for whatever reason, didn't race during the previous year--compete in the Trials without a ranking score, because they've been racing their age group. It is, again, a rather perverse way to set up a system that some of the most promising runners have reduced chances of being selected even before they've taken the first step out of a start.

This is not to say there's anything wrong with the USOF rankings list itself, rolling or otherwise. It is what it is, and it's neat to have some rankings and see them change and so on. But it was never designed as a team selection tool, and there are some serious problems with using it as such.

Problem two is that while 3 individual runners will be running in 3 different disciplines, we are first selecting a group of runners from results of each of those disciplines that are then all mashed up together, and then the runners are parceled out to each race as best can after the fact, in a way that means maybe you get the best runners for each event, or maybe not. The technical differences between Middle and Long disciplines are perhaps not so much to think that a given runner isn't going to do about equally well in either based on O' technique, but the physical demands of a Classic distance course are fairly significantly from Middle distance. Middle distance is much easier for most people to handle, and it's an obviously easier transition for juniors and younger senior runners who have moved up from the junior ranks.

Sprint is an altogether different animal though. It is physically and technically much more different from Middle and Classic than Middle and Classic are different from each other. It is an ideal transition for younger and newer runners who are in the process of developing, getting better, and moving up. Because of the special nature of the Sprint, it makes a great deal of sense to think hard about setting up some different criteria for Sprint selection and not have it hinge on Middle/Classic, and vice versa. If you were setting up a system from scratch would you really say: "Ok, in order to pick our best Sprint distance runners, lets base 3/4's of the evaluation on how they do in Middle and Classic distance," (recognizing that the 4th score from rankings is mostly Classic with some Middle.) Very doubtful!

With the present system, you might end up selecting the best sprinters or you might not. There is very good reason to believe that with this year's selections, we did not select our best Men's sprinters.

None of the above is meant--or should be taken--as criticism of any person, whether it be Team Trialer, selected athlete, organizer, Review Panel member, rules drafter, or whatever. And it sounds like the Trials themselves--the races--were topnotch in every way! But it is certainly worth thinking about whethor not there are some problems with the selection process, and if it can not be improved in some way. We all want to see things get better: better athletes, sound selections, and, ultimately, better WOC results.

If I were the decider (ha!), I would not delay a moment in adding both Suzanne and Michael to this year's WOC Team.

Mikell, I think it's great that you have comments and thoughts about the US WOC Team selection process, however I do not think that Attackpoint is the proper forum for this discussion. We have a US Team mailing list, as well as a US Team ESC mailing list. This seems to me to be a matter to be raised there, and not here.

Isn't Decider supposed to be Capitalized?

Yeah, with a capital Swamp.

boris - hiding problems from public discussions into "private rooms" historically never produced good results.

Neither does pissing off half the federation with misinformed interpretations of results. Perhaps we should use the sour lemon ranking list to pick the team. Or roll dice.

and this is exactly what public discussion is for: to make things clear.

I was wondering how long it would be before someone brought this up for discussion. Glad someone did so eloquently.

I think this is as good a place as any for such a discussion, especially given that it might be interesting (and useful) to get input from interested and informed parties not directly involved with the US team and thus not on the mailing list.

Perhaps it's reasonable to consider having selections for each event rather than general selections. At least it's worth a little mental experimentation. Those who are strongest in the other events would most likely make the best "reserves" in case one of the selected 3 can't race on race day.

I think Mikell is raising, in a public forum, two questions:
1) Do this year's selections come out the way that one would "expect" them to, and if not, should the method used to crunch the numbers perhaps be reexamined before the next Trials?
2) Were the procedures that are in place right now implemented improperly (with no implication of whether or not it was intentional), in which case could someone (not Swampfox) have a right to challenge the implementation of the procedures?

These are both reasonable questions to raise, in my mind. And I will point out that the overall procedure that is in place right now was adopted by the USOF BOD specifically to make sure that the WOC Team selection is not an "internal" operation of the Standing Team or the ESC.

It's hardly Swampfox's fault he doesn't have perfect knowledge of all possible circumstances that may have affected performances - I was there and I only vaguely know that some trials eligible sprinters encountered horses during the sprints. I think it's also a bit beyond his reasonable research burden before expressing his thoughts based on the information available to him to have expected him to notice that Michael Sandstrom and Erin Shirm ran the sprint essentially together after converging at the first control. Plus, recalling the fuss over the men's WOC long in Japan, it's a bit hard to decide whether and to what extent that ought be viewed as detracting from either of their performances.

In any case, the US Team ESC is clearly the essential forum such a discussion must take place in for any change in selection procedures to take place but I can't see anything wrong with a discussion here, assuming people can remain civil (as I'd say people have thus far though eddie's tone doesn't strike me as quite pitch perfect).

Doesn't a jolt of citrus juice aid in hitting the higher registers?

JJ, I'd like to stress that "expectations" had no part in my thinking, and it is manifest that judging athletic performance by expectations about who will or should win going in, is just plain wrong. That's the whole point of competition. Otherwise you would just work out the results on paper and say, ok folks, here is our champion, and this team made it to the Midwest final four, and this team lost in the play-in round for the 64th slot into the tournament and so on, and never play the NCAA Basketball Tournament--always a great and interesting place to compare expectations, hopes, and dreams with the final box scores.

I didn't carefully scrutinize the registered runner lists or the start lists, nor study the race results from runners this Spring, or anything like that. I was just sitting here at home, and when I had a chance to look at the results lists from the Trials and compared them with the selections, some stuff jumped out at me.

To Mikell's argument about whether Women's selection Rules were correctly applied—

"Exceptions to the Scoring List

The Review Panel will be allowed, under certain circumstances, to make a maximum of two exceptions to the scoring list (two men and two women). In such cases, these people will be inserted into the scoring list in positions designated by the Review Panel, and the rest of the names will be shifted down. A person already on the scoring list may be inserted (moved) into a higher place on the list, but may NOT be moved to a lower place on the list. One of the insertions may be (but need not be) in the top four. The second insertion (if made) must be below the top four."

According to this rule, Hillary was inserted into the scoring list at Position 4. The rest of the names were shifted down. Sandra was inserted into the list at Position 5. The rest of the names were shifted down. I think the rule was clearly followed.

We have selected a team by the rules that we currently have in place. If you want to consider modifying the rules for the future, that's great. The ESC will happily listen to your suggestions, and changes may well be implemented. However, questioning the legitimacy of athletes' being selected (all while saying that no questioning is taking place), in my opinion, has no place in an open forum such as this.

By "expect", I mean what you'd expect from looking at the results, not what you'd anticipate before the races took place. For example, based on the results lists from last weekend, you wouldn't expect a formula to pop out the answer that J-J is on the team, and if it did, you'd sure wonder whether somebody hd crunched the numbers wrong. Similarly, if somebody finished second in every race, you'd sure wonder what was up if he didn't wind up near the top of the scoring list.

Boris, I explicitely did not--and do not--question the legitimacy of the selected athletes. I stated that in the opening paragraph of the original post.

JJ--we're on the same sheet about "expect" in that case.

Boris, I respectfully disagree. I find opening this issue up for public pondering and debate, vs keeping it in a closed bureaucracy, rather refreshing. Especially in this day and age of Deciders and such.

Mikell, I find your points very interesting and I thank you for sharing your thoughts, many of which I've shared in. Especially since I've recently given great thought to taking the sport of Orienteering more seriously in my own personal agenda.

Let me also take an opportunity, for the sake of encouragement, to say that Sandstrom and Shirm (saw them run at west point) whether on the team or not, are seriously impressive runners. They are young and their O skills are not fully developed(although better than mine) but they *can* sprint. If the sprint race carries the same weight of importance on the competitive stage than I'd say their abilities should not be overlooked or put on the back burner.

Look, my point is that we have already selected a team. Whatever you guys may think about it, the team that was chosen is the one that will compete at WOC, so I don't see much point in rehashing what might have been, and hurting people's feelings in the process. Of course, if changes to the selection process are to be made, then this forum is a perfectly good place to discuss them - but for the future team selections, not past ones.

I have no qualms about chosen teams whatsoever :) Just think That Mikell to the time to bring up very interesting points and was perhaps a little brave in doing so and should not be shot down for doing it.

Gotta go! I'm late for soccer...

1. As far as to whether we followed the rules in where we placed Hillary and Sandra by petition, we placed Hillary in 4th and we placed Sandra in 5th. We were not allowed to place more than in the top 4. We didn't. We followed the rules.

2. I'm happy to have lots of discussion about how we choose a team. I have set up a process the last couple of years where this discussion, and any decisions regarding changes, take place in the fall. That allows some time to pass after the Trials and WOC, and therefore time for more reflection and wisdom, and also plenty of time to implement any changes before the next Trials. I anticipate this happening again this fall. I will start the discussion on the Team mailing list (which is open to anyone); if a parallel discussion takes place on AP, that's fine.

Two years ago we decided to go to a team size of 5 + 5 under certain circumstances. Last year we considered, but rejected for the time being, going to 6 + 6. We also have considered, but rejected for the time being, selecting "specialists," i.e. the winner of any event or maybe just the winner of the sprint. I expect these issues will surface again, and I expect our rules to slowly evolve. The extent to which they do or do not change for 2008, well, we will see in the fall.

Peter
Chair, ESC

Dan, I do not see how the sentence is meaningless. The second insertion may be made, or it may not. We've had years with zero, one, and two insertions after the close-to-present Rules were put into effect (2003).

The reason to have an insertion below the top four or five is that some top people sometimes cannot go, and we end up sending alternates. The alternates are also taken from the Scoring List. Before there was the Scoring List, there was just the Team and the named alternates; one year there were so many cancellations that the alternates were exhausted. If this heppens now, we just keep picking from Scoring List beyond the named alternates.

We all know that the day will eventually come when selecting runners for any of the individual disciplines should be done solely based on results in those disciplines. I hope we can all see that perhaps that day is closer than expected.

I, at least, read Mikell's closing as being what he would do if he were in charge of selecting the current WOC team based on the results he saw, not as a suggestion that the WOC team ought to be changed. Perhaps he could have made that more explict but nowhere do I see a suggestion that the result of the selection process that was announced in advance ought to be changed, merely that it appeared to him to be flawed with the implication being that consideration ought to be given to changing it in future go arounds.

Regarding the meaning or lack thereof of the requirement that any second insertion occur below the fourth position, presumably athletes' positions within the selected team have some impact on who runs in how many disciplines at WOC and/or on the level of funding each athlete receives from USOF, etc. - I certainly don't know the details of that but I assume it's explained somewhere on the US team web site.

yep, that would strange if not ridiculous to select marathoners for the national team based on 1 mile performance...

Peter and Boris are right about giving it time to settle though. While it may be easiest to discuss it while it is fresh in everyone's minds, it will be much better to wait until the Fall to really rehash everything.

I was at the meeting at the US Champs last Fall where many of these things were discussed and decided upon, and I was very happy with how it was dealt with. There are often more things to consider than immediately meet the eye, and so I would encourage anyone interested in this matter to make sure to take part in the discussion when the time is appropriate. I am sure that everyone from the AP crowd will be invited to join in.

On a personal note, there were enough A Meet Sprints in the time period covered by the rolling rankings (eight, if you count the Frozen Pig which would have been ranked had about two more Blue people showed up) for someone to get a really nice score with the kind of performances we saw on May 4th, while still having enough Middle and Classic results on another course, or breaking the bank on airfare.

A little historical background and discussion about the "top four" clause:

The rules on the USOF site say that four men and four women (a relay team plus one) will be picked to go to WOC. Peter said at the announcement that "we met the criteria for sending five". I don't know what criteria he was referring to, and I don't know whether the USOF rules on the web site are up to date. But the rules there were written in the context of four being chosen. The rules listed on the Team page are different, and say relay team + 1 = 5 of each, but this is not correct (3 on a WOC relay team according to Bulletin 2).

Prior to the current procedure, three were chosen based on Trials results, and the remaining slots (others going as well as alternates) were discretionary, picked by a selection committee. So the historical precedent was that there were three people guaranteed places based on Trials results.

Given that the current rules were written in the context of four being sent to WOC, there are two ways to view the "top four" clause: 1) That the top three were guaranteed WOC berths, or 2) That at most one person from the scoring list could be pushed out of a WOC berth by a petitioner. It is possible to make a case either way as to what this clause means in the current context.

I can't see where Swampfox's post should hurt anyone's feelings. He hasn't said that anybody selected shouldn't be going to WOC. Seems to me he's saying that the process we have now omitted some people who turned in admirable performances, and that warrants some scrutiny before the next Trials. (He also mentioned team size, but didn't get back to that point -- I'm wondering if he meant to suggest that more than five should perhaps be sent to WOC.)

Also worth noting is that when the current rules were adopted, ranking was not initially part of the scoring. That was added at a later point.

Note: I did find another page that references the criteria for sending a fifth team member, although I haven't yet found the original source of these criteria. One improvement I'll suggest is that there be a cleanup of the rules as posted on the web (this may be the responsibility of the Rules Committee chairman, currently Steve Shannonhouse, but it surely requires coordiation with the ESC).

The criteria for taking a 5th person is that at least one of their scores was 90 points or greater (up from 88 in 2006). This is waived if the 5th person is there by petition from an overseas athlete (this was added for 2007). Note that this makes it possible to send a 5th man, or a 5th woman, or neither, or both.

J-J, the rules on USOF site are out of date because USOF does not act quickly, or at all, on Rules submissions, and does not enforce some of the existing Rules (former: see e.g. Rule 30; latter: see e.g. Rules 17.5 and 39). The selection Rules applicable to the 2007 Trials were published well in advance. I don't know what criteria he was referring to: Do CTRL-F for "fifth" .

One improvement I'll suggest is that there be a cleanup of the rules as posted on the web

Sorry, this suggestion is as old as the Rules, and based on USOF history does not appear to be implementable.

Jon, you have understood my intent as clearly as it could be understood.

JJ, I did get around to my reference to the issue team size--albeit indirectly--whenI closed by saying that I would add a 6th woman and a 6th man based on this Trials results.

Peter, if you say the rules were followed correctly, that's good enough for me and, I should imagine, just about anyone else too. Your word carries a whole lot of weight.

I will point out though that it is indisputable when you compare the original scoring list to the final scoring list, that two insertions--not one--occured in the original top four women's list. Suzanne moved down two places. So there's something there the language in the rules is missing.

What about Wyatt?

I did get around to my reference to the issue team size--albeit indirectly--when I closed by saying that I would add a 6th woman and a 6th man

Well, I read what you wrote again, and I still didn't see that, but now I think that you must be referring to:

I would not delay a moment in adding both Suzanne and Michael

which I now interpret as your saying that if you had the power to add sixth members (which I assume you feel is an idea that would have merit), that these two would be excellent choices. I'm not sure that was clear the way you wrote it.

Regarding your central points:
1) Women's discretionary: Given that I know the history of the way this was worded, I'm pretty sure that "only one in the top four" was worded that way in order to guarantee that the top three on the scoring list would definitely get WOC berths, as had been the case previously. And the top three (Sam, Pafi, and Viktoria) did indeed get their guaranteed WOC berths. It is true that with five being sent, this clause loses its significance. As I noted above, it could be interpreted as "no more than one person gets pushed out". Should this be clarified for future years? Sure.
2) Men's scoring: Yep, the system currently in use selects generalists, not specialists. Scoring could be done differently in order to select specialists. I'll point out that this was the case at least once, in 1993, where the scoring was done in a manner intended to guarantee that someone who was stellar at one discipline would be selected (although the specifics had a flaw that unfortunately cropped up, and arguably a runner who should have had a berth — by earning it — didn't get one). Should something along these lines be adopted for future years? Could be, that's probably worth discussing.

Interesting discussion.

A few days ago when I saw the results of the US Team Trials I almost posted this comment "Has the age of specialists (finally) arrived in North American orienteering?"

I think it has.

At last year's NAOC on the men's side there were 7 different people taking the 9 medals in the sprint, middle, and long with 3 different champions. Add in our non-champs O-Cross (relay like format and distance) that weekend to the mix and there were 9 different men taking the 12 medals (with 4 different winners in the 4 races).

All of this issue regarding a single particular result in *this years* TT is moot. Most of us (I would immagine) were playing towards a best 3 of 4 score as dictated by the rules, not necessarily a stellar result in a single discipline. I certainly wasn't trying to win all (or any in particular) of the three races. I haven't run a sprint or so much as a level 5 interval since November. Hardly specificity of training for sprint. If you want a meaningful result in any single type of race you need to say so ahead of time, and with the small number stats that this whole thread is based on you need more than one race to do it.

The fact that I won the middle means nothing. History shows that I'm generally crappy at middle. Look at the NA champs. I did very poorly indeed. Fredrickson won that race handily, but here at the trials - not so good. The NAOC race was arguably more difficult and with a stronger field. So do you select the middle specialist based on the TT race or the NAOC race or the average of a bunch of races over some time period? Which is the more significant result? The average, of course. Inclusion of the rankings in the TT score is *the* most statistically significant measure in the scoring, yet swampfox claims it is flawed because it can be manipulated and should not be included. As opposed to a chance good or bad race on a single day? I don't buy this.

Two (hopefully short) comments.
- The two female insertions into 4th & 5th places on the Scoring list were done according the Rules as intended - there's ESC & Team list email that backs this up, and JJ explains it well too. Sorry the rules description isn't crystal clear - some of the rules were written when only 4 were sent. When we expanded this to 5, we did discuss & decide that the insertion-rule would thus allow two insertions to make the WOC team, keeping in mind that the Top 3 at the Trials are still "automatic" and cannot be bumped off by committee (the same as it was when we sent 4.)

- I'm really happy we've got a well-defined numerical process to decide, e.g., between Clem & I. We ended up with very close numerical scores, which I think is indicative of how close we are performing right now. I suspect IF it were up to a committee, it would depend _a lot_ on the individual preferences of who was on the committee whether (a) I was picked (for a decent Middle and a TT Long win (not by a huge margin)), or (b) Clem was picked for pulling off 3 very solid results in a row - some people prefer single day results (e.g. pick best 1 of 4 scores..), some people like consistency (e.g. add all 4 scores.). IF it were up to a committee, there'd be a lot more chance for me (and supporters) to be rather upset at the committee (or Clem (and supporters), had the hypothetical committee picked me.) Because we don't have a committe for that close decision and because we do have clear rules, it just makes it clear that I missed beating Clem in the Scoring List by a number of points that's equivalent to X-seconds worth of results - just as we often miss beating each other in an individual race by a few seconds, one way or the other.

There are a lot of selection decisions that can be very hard to make, like the one in the previous post (ie the decision between a person between many moderate but consistent results vs. someone with either very good results or mediocore results).

Here are some other hypothetical ones: what if there was a person who was older, who had qualified for many WOC's, but had never had better than medicore results at WOC, who was slightly ahead of someone who was 20, who has many years of competition ahead of them and would benefit from the experience to improve their results in the future? What if someone comes to a trials, has some really, really good races for the first time ever, and finishes just ahead of someone who was just coming off an injury or otherwise had poor races, but has a history of really excellent results in the past? Who do you pick in those cases? I would probably give youth a chance and pick past performance over one weekend of good races, but that's just me.

There are probably other examples, but since most team selections in any sport are basically subjective, why not just do it the way that most professional sports do. Have a coach/GM who acts as the Decider and has all final say in who makes the team and who runs in what event (the same way, for example, that the head coach of an NFL team decides who starts at quarterback in the superbowl, or how the GM decides who they will select with their first round draft pick).

Let this person select the team. Whatever decision they make will probably upset someone, but life is hard, what are you going to do. The final wisdom of the decisions would be how the team performs in the WOC. If the team does well, the coach/GM did a good job and gets to pick them team again the next time. If the team sucks, then the coach/GM gets fired, and you pick someone else to be the Decider the next time. It would clearly be in the best interests of this person to take all possible information into account before making their selections, including past results, trials results, training history, physiological and psychological test results, advice from other coaches that they trust etc., since their position would depend upon it.

jmm, the whole reason we have gone to an objective system from a subjective one is precisely to avoid having a person who makes these decisions. We do not have a paid coach who follows the athletes' training full time and whose job security depends on picking the right guys, like an NFL coach's job security does. I think Wyatt's post does a great job of explaining why those of us who helped create the current selection system tried to make sure that it is as objective as possible.
As a number of people have said, it does appear that "the age of specialists" has arrived. However, I would like to bring up another possibility, and that is simply that the age of inconsistency has arrived. While, yes, the sprint is quite different from the other two disciplines, the people who are winning medals at the sprint at WOC are not too bad at the other disciplines either (Wingstedt, Hubmann, Niggli, Allston...). I think Michael Sandstrom's race in the sprint was a fantastic one, but I simply do not believe we should be naming someone to the WOC team based on one run. He would simply have had to run two other solid days to be selected, and I am sure that, not too long in the future, he will do just that and earn his spot.
In terms of people like Suzanne being disadvantaged by not having a ranking due to having lived abroad, I agree that this is something we need to address for future years. One thought that has popped up in discussions is trying to convert WRE results into US ranking points (or vice versa) so that someone who has a world ranking would automatically get a US ranking. Hopefully, some version of this will be implemented in time for next year's trials.
Finally, having talked to members of a number of WOC teams about their countries' selection processes (by and large, subjective ones), I have heard everything from mild grumblings or puzzlements to outright threats to walk out on the team. It is hard to keep people happy and, as Wyatt said, it is a lot easier to be upset at a selector who may be, even unintentionally, biased towards one runner or another in some way, than at a computer that spits out the results objectively.

I'm not supporting or objecting to the use of Rankings as part of the selection formula, but I'll observe that the people who came into the Trials without rankings would have needed pretty high rankings to have put them far enough up on the scoring list to get on the team (Schirm: 96.29, Sandstrom: 99.25, Armstrong: 96.94, Johnson and Didisse: stratospheric). The same applies to Campbell's missing Sprint score, he would needed an unrealistically fast Sprint run to have made the team.

(Of the above, I think the most likely would have been a high enough ranking for Schirm. but one could argue that somebody should at least run a few "elite" races domestically (enough to get a ranking) before heading off to the most elite race in the world.)

Reading Wyatt vs jmm's posts I have to say - good on ya Wyatt. A subjective single selector sounds great as long as they get it right; but they don't, by and large and there is enough evidence out there to back that up. Congrats to USOF on their system.

You should just get Ted to pick your team...

A single selector requires the hide of an alligator, the politics of a Hitler and the ego of a Paris Hilton. An example that Eoin could have given was the Australian Track cycling team during the 80s/90s. The selector was the national coach, and he very obviously had favourites. Some of them won Olympic gold medals, but some other people who could have, missed out. (Eventually, he got the boot and the system was changed for the better.)

A single trial doesn't work too well either. The Aussie triathlon team used to have a single trial, and was plagued with appeals and court cases, but they have now moved to a two trial system, with scope to pre-select a current world champion in case they fail in the trials.

I don't need to tell you guys about the many glaring selection omissions that have occurred with the US Athletics and Australian Swimming single trial systems.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the best selection systems are complex, eg a combination of trials (more than one), rankings, previous international performance, etc. However, there will always be someone who disagrees with the selectors.

Finally a comment about specialisation. I think it's still a long way off in Orienteering. Look at Simone and Hanny. Simone continues to dominate all the distances, and Hanny didn't even want to run the Sprint in Denmark. Merz has just won the sprint and long at the NOC. Holger aimed for the long, but won the middle at last year's WOC, and Wingstedt runs the anchor legs in relays. True, Thierry appeared to have a mortgage on the middle, but he's also almost always a chance in the long.

The skills required - fantastic aerobic capacity, natural orienteering (navigation) ability, and concentration skills are required in all 3 disciplines. Sprint is not really that - it's more akin to 5000m, and we all know that 5000m champions can also win at 10000m and marathon, and sometimes even at 1500m.

Quoting Vlad from above, "there were enough A Meet Sprints in the time period covered by the rolling rankings (eight, if you count the Frozen Pig which would have been ranked had about two more Blue people showed up) for someone to get a really nice score with the kind of performances we saw on May 4th, while still having enough Middle and Classic results on another course, or breaking the bank on airfare."

I feel someone ought to challenge this statement. Looking at the 6 sanctioned sprints that actually were ranked, an individual would have to have made five separate trips to attend all of them. On the male side, these six sprints were won by six different individuals. The best ranking points score any of those winners obtained was 92.12 points (Marten Bostrom crushing the field at the 2006 trials). All the other winning scores were between 85 and 90 points. Supposing one person had turned in all those performances and run no other M-21 races in the period in question, I don't think his adjusted ranking for team trials purposes would have been better than any of the best 3 of 4 scores for any of the men to make the team.

I don't know what ranking points score Michael Sandstrom will get for his winning performance in the sprint on May 4 but I'd be willing to bet a moderate sum of money it will be less than the score I get for coming third in the middle on May 5.

I think we can add avoiding sprint races (at least sanctioned ones) to the possible ways one might game the rankings system to do better in the US Team Trials. I hope most people would agree that it would be somewhat perverse for avoiding sanctioned sprint races other than the one at the trials to be a viable way of qualifying to run the sprint discipline at WOC.

Simmo, on the world elite side you are probably right that specilization is not quite here yet, although I sense it is closer than you imply.

However, when it comes to making the US Team, which is what we are discussing here, it is much easier to be able to specialize in a specific discipline and excel enough in that discipline to be consistently in the top 3 in the country in that discipline while still lacking the consistency to earn a spot on the US Team under the current system.

But enough about that for now. I'll keep thinking about it and hopefully come up with some good ideas for discussion in the Fall.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that the best selection systems are complex, eg a combination of trials (more than one), rankings, previous international performance, etc. However, there will always be someone who disagrees with the selectors"

That is true. Life is hard, especially for those who don't get selected, but I am sure they are better people for the experience. If somebody takes responsibility for actually doing the selection, though, I agree that they would have to have a bit of thick skin.

I also agree that it is complex. My point is that there are two ways to take all this information into account: (a) some mathematical algorithm, or (b) somebody takes it all into account, makes a judgement and picks.

My hypothesis is that (b) would get better results, but that the people who don't get selected under system (a) would be less upset. I would think that the purpose of a system for such selections would care only about results at whatever you were selecting people for, and not about whether or not they hurt the feelings of the people who weren't good enough.

You can probably come up with anecdotes for the success or failure of any talent selection system, but that doesn't make them any better or worse than another without a thorough analysis. I am too lazy to look up if anybody has actually quantitatively analyzed this sort of thing.

WOC results use system (a), where the algorithm is [time when you finished] - [time when you started].

Yes, and in this case, the purpose of any selection system is to determine what the best predictor(s) of that result at WOC would be, based on data collected prior to WOC. That system can either be based algorithmically on one or several numbers, or a system based on judgement that takes these numbers into account as one, but not the only, factor.

In any case, I am just speaking hypothetically here. I am sure whatever system got used here is probably just fine and I wish only the best of luck to people everywhere, though I will be cheering for Canada in any case :)

I just have somewhat of a personal interest in systems for talent identification. (It is a bit of a lazy interest, though)

the whole reason we have gone to an objective system from a subjective one is precisely to avoid having a person who makes these decisions

Recognize that the system is only *partially* objective. When petitions are presented and considered, it now becomes subjective. Any modifications/insertions made to the scoring list are necessarily subjective.

Fair enough, Swampfox.

Mostly objective. Petition berths are limited to a maximum of two men and two women, and there are criteria that people must meet before they are allowed to submit a petition.

it is much easier to be able to specialize in a specific discipline and excel enough in that discipline to be consistently in the top 3 in the country in that discipline while still lacking the consistency to earn a spot on the US Team under the current system.

The reason such specialist is not guaranteed a team berth is partly because there are at most 7 people allowed on the WOC Team whereas there are 9 individual race slots. Therefore, picking at least some generalists is required. The current system selects for generalists—aside, possibly, for people who are inserted by petition.

Maybe a proposal to consider for the next year is that individual Trials race winners receive WOC Team spots in addition to the runners selected by the current method, if they already aren't in the top five. These winners should then only get to race in the one discipline they are best at. In the extremely unlikely case none of the three race winners are in the top five on the Scoring List, there should be some escape clause because no country can send eight.

I still really don't think that winning a single Trials race without having shown prior results of a similar level is sufficient cause for a WOC team berth.

Then amend my above proposal with being in top 3 of the rolling rankings for the specific discipline. Valerie can most likely do the rankings by discipline, although that may mean more and larger chocolate cakes.

Having been fairly close to making the national team in several sports, but never quite making it (unless one counts the old-guy US Cycling Team), I have to say it is far easier to accept getting rejected by an algorithm than by a selection committee. While I don't think there was anything remotely improper in accepting the petitions this year, if I was the person being bumped, I'd be mighty upset that I wasn't afforded the opportunity to beat them on the field. Yes, that's life and the life of an elite athlete is hard, but the whole notion of competition revolves around the idea that if two people both want the same thing, they settle it on the court. One of the things I liked about the Team Trials for US Cycling was that even though I was clearly not a favorite, there was always that chance that I'd get in the right move and make the team. A selection committee wouldn't have picked me even if I won a qualifier - it would have been (rightly) considered a fluke.

One of the upsides of WOC going to annual format is that missing the team is half the blow it used to be. If one assumes that an elite athlete has 5-10 years at the top of their game, there are enough chances there that I don't think a petition process is needed to make sure the very best team is selected every time. If the process becomes so "good" that the best team is always selected, I would expect the interest in Team Trials to drop considerably. Why go to a race when you know you have no chance? The possibility of an upset is what makes sports interesting.

On a different note, I am very much in the camp that would like to see sprints treated as an entirely separate entity. The correlation between middle and long results is very strong and it makes sense to lump them together, especially given the fact that there is a lot more separation in ability among the top NA orienteers than in countries that have greater participation. In contrast, it is entirely possible for someone in the US to become a very good sprinter, maybe even WOC medal contender, without developing the skills needed to be competitive in the other two events. Further, as has been noted, sprints tend to rank the top end of the field low since the distribution is compressed toward the median. Thus, such an individual can't hope to get much help from their ranking score, either.

Why go to a race when you know you have no chance?

Well, why do I go? (Or I could be more impolite and ask why the US Team bothers to go to WOC...) There doesn't have to be a realistic chance of winning to make competing worthwhile.

I think those are some excellent points, ebuckley.

JJ, yes I certainly know that there are many reasons to compete beyond the chance of winning. However, Team Trials has historically had a significantly deeper field than your average A-meet. Surely some of this stems from the thought that if things break just right an up and comer might break into the top ranks. I would say that the quality controls on the course setting over the last few years would be another fine reason to attend.

While driving home today, I remembered a story that illustrates my point. In 1999, I was approached by a local runner who asked me how fast you needed to be to make the US Orienteering Team. As this guy was an accomplished cross country runner with a 10K PR under 30 minutes, I told him he was already faster than anybody on the team. I also told him that despite the advantages he might bring from his day job (he was a cartographer for the defense mapping agency), it would probably take several years of pretty intense technique training to acquire the navigation skills to match his fitness. He came to a few local meets and reached the same conclusion. He returned to running.

Suppose that conversation took place today and the TT format made it possible for an underdog sprint specialist to make the team. I'd be telling him that if he worked hard on sprint technique, he could have a realistic shot at making the team next year. Within a few years, we could very well have an American scoring wins at the highest level of the sport. It might not work out that way, but it could. Right now, there's no chance.

ebuckley, precisely!

Very true. I also once pointed out a distantly related effect, having to do with consistency. At the time, we had two people of note on the standing team, one of whom was rock-solid consistent, but simply not fast enough to ever turn in anything but a truly mediocre performance at WOC. The other was quite fast, but an erratic navigator — if everything went smoothly, the result could be excellent, but it could just as likely be a total disaster. I think their rankings were very similar, averages being what they are. So, if you were designing an algorithm to pick one of these people to send to WOC based on the year's results, who would you want the algorithm to select, and how would it work? You could look at the average performance from each, or the best performance from each, or the worst performance from each, or something else. Just something to think about.

If it was truly an objective algorithm, it would pick the person with the best chance to succeed, irrespective of input data. Otherwise, if you "design" the algorithm to pick consistency, you have subjectively decided that you value consistency. Or if, you "design" the algorithm to pick single excellent results, you have subjectively decided that this is what you value. Either way, it is subjective, and you are just hiding your values behind a seemingly objective method, and therefore shielding yourself from the criticism of those who aren't selected. This isn't very courageous, in my opinion.

I go back to the point I've been making all along: just get somebody with enough balls to say "I value consistency, therefore I am picking the person with consistent results", or alternately, "I value single excellent results, therefore I am pick the person with single excellent results". Of course, this upsets the other person and their supporters, but they would need to get over it.

In order to decide which strategy was successful, you would have to have some defined standard for what constitutes success. Does the US orienteering team have a standard for what constitutes success in WOC? For example, would it be more successful to have someone who just barely misses the final in every event, or someone who makes the final in the middle and comes dead last by a significant amount in their qualifier in the other events?

This has been a very interesting discussion. I'm glad to see there is so much interest in how the U.S. Team performs, and it's nice that we have so many talented runners that the selection process is competitive. I don't have much to add to the excellent points that have already been made, but I will say that I strongly support the fine, mostly objective system we have to pick the U.S. Team.

jmm:

Life is hard, especially for those who don't get selected, but I am sure they are better people for the experience.

I think that statement is almost always false when selection is done by the discretion of a committee or individual. People become better through life experience by learning and integrating into their character useful lessons about how the world works. There are no (or at best very few) useful lessons to be learned from the tastes and biases of a committee or coach.

Or if, you "design" the algorithm to pick single excellent results, you have subjectively decided that this is what you value. Either way, it is subjective.

This statement clouds a topic that can be understood very simply. There are two factors at play in the selection process, both of which can be labeled "subjective":
1. values: The performance characteristics we wish to select for. Someone must decide what these are, no matter how selection/qualification is done.
2. bias: The prejudices or misconceptions that will inevitably creep into the process when a coach or committee chooses between athletes (especially under time pressure right after trials races, and in the context of a large number of athletes with many, many results to consider).

We must deal with values, but we are justified in controlling bias (or the appearance or possibility of bias).

Two things that the U.S. Team selection system does right with regard to these factors:
1. values are decided well in advance of the trials (by the highly knowledgeable and concerned team Executive Steering Committee, and, if necessary, the USOF board and are codified into the rules, which are there for all team hopefuls to read.
2. bias is severely limited by restricting the pool of athletes which are eligible to petition for placement (or a higher placement) on the scoring list.

Of course, discretion and bias come into play at WOC itself, where the coach must decide which runners to enter in each race. The scope of this problem is much more manageable, however, partly because of the limited field and partly because the coach has close contact with the athletes at the event and can much more easily consider the currently relevant conditions. As an athlete, I find it pretty easy to accept this discretion, partly because all athletes on the team will have the honor of running something (barring injury, illness, or other unforeseen circumstances). I have heard some people say that runners should qualify for specific events at the trials. I think that idea has some merit as well as some problems.

jmm: Either way, it is subjective, and you are just hiding your values behind a seemingly objective method

I would say that openly discussing and deciding upon values well in advance and codifying them in a published system that everyone can see for themselves is just the opposite of hiding values.

If a coach/manager picks a team, that person is under no obligation to announce in advance what values s/he is using, and there is no accountability for following through on using these values.

Why the assumption that the coach/manager would be biased? I would assume that their goals would also be to choose athletes with the greatest chance of success, otherwise why would they be in that position?. Isn't that also the athelete's goal? Or is there an athlete out there who would run in an event when they know that someone better is out there? That wouldn't be very honourable either.

Also, who decides what "values" get put into the system for selection?

To go on from the previous examples that I have posted, in cases that are close, my "values' would be to choose people with single excellent results over consistent mediocore results, choose youth with potential over people who are older but have never shown excellence, and I would choose consistently excellent (not mediocore) past performance over first time excellence at a trials, unless those results were so exceptional that they couldn't be ignored. I would not be able to define before hand what that means.

What would other peoples "values" be?

Of course, I am never going to be in a position to test whether or not I am right, so I really should get a life and stop posting. As I also said before, I don't really particularly care about the US WOC team or what the rules or whatever are right now, but this is an interesting discussion in an of itself and I like to see myself type.

jmm I think you misunderstand the whole process here. Consider how an athlete views the situation. They want to (a) make the team and (b) do well at WOC. So they need to first understand the selection system and specifically train to get the required results. Now have a look at your Supremo's "values" system. How is an athlete supposed to train for "single excellent" over "mediocre" - how do you define that - how excellent is excellent, what is mediocre? Now, how young is youth, how old is older? You even say you can't define your third "value". So, how does an athlete train to make your Supremo's team? And that is before you factor in your Supremo's knowledge, ignorance and bias (everybody has them). I suggest that's a recipe for disaster. Far better to have an easily understandable system, where athletes know the results they need and even better if you can get a few over the line early so they can concentrate on WOC.

Interesting to read this discussion from a foreign perspective. It seems to me that the person (and I've forgotten who it was) who commented that an individual selector is likely to pick a team which will perform better, but one which is less likely to be accepted by those who missed out, is pretty close to the mark.

The specialists issue is well-identified, although it's questionable as to how many genuine specialists there are - in particular, we talk a lot about people from a running background who might be able to do well in a WOC sprint without the technical skills to do well in other events, but in practice, how many of these people have actually got as far as a WOC, from any country? I'm struggling to think of too many other than the Chinese woman last year.

The biggest problem I can see with the U.S system is that it makes it difficult for people who don't live in the U.S. - something I would think you would be trying to encourage if you want people to develop to genuinely world-class. (Do I understand it correctly that it effectively makes it impossible - given the role of the ranking score - for more than two non-residents to be selected?). This issue, and whether or not people would/wouldn't have to come back for selection trials, was one that caused a lot of discussion and quite a bit of angst in Australia in the 1990s, but the concept of having separate trials overseas and in Australia seems to be reasonably well-accepted now. It helps that the men's team (and most of those currently overseas are men) is currently pretty clear-cut, and also that the World Ranking score provides some sort of measure of how an international performance compares to a local one.

We have a selection panel of three or four members, and no 'automatic' selection criteria - rather it is based on overall performances in specified events. For the junior team it is normally based mostly on performances in the multi-day at Easter (with provision to consider previous JWOC results, and other major events if someone is injured/ill at Easter), although this year we're also running another set of trials the weekend after next. For the senior team there are trials but a longer-term perspective, particularly international results, is taken. I don't think this works too badly (disclosure of potential bias: I chair the selection panel for the junior team), although there are obviously marginal cases where whoever misses out is going to be aggrieved. Probably the most significant one that I've been on the wrong end of was in 1997, when I wasn't selected despite coming 2nd and 3rd in the two official trials (and beating Tom Quayle, who was selected, comfortably in both of them), but subsequent results have proven that the selectors got that one right....

I wouldn't be comfortable with a single selector, but with a panel of three or four you should (hopefully) greatly influence the potential influence of individual bias.

Blair - how do you not know that 1997 could have been your watershed year? You might have blossomed with the recognition that WOC selection gives. Hindsight should never be used to justify selection decisions.

I still really don't think that winning a single Trials race without having shown prior results of a similar level is sufficient cause for a WOC team berth.

OTOH, I'm not convinced that a system that automatically disadvantages someone in their first year of running M21 is entirely fair. (As a possible solution, DVOA manages to normalize club rankings against all age groups to a single score; it is not inconceivable (tho obviously more work) that USOF could normalize M/F20 ranking scores against M/F21 ranking scores for a single score).

I'm a proponent of if you win a selection race, you make the team. I guess my bias is to favor specialization/volatilitity of results over consistency. I believe the former has a better chance of reaching the stated goal of making an A final, and also provides up-front incentive for training/recruitment for a particular discipline (i.e., the sprint, as I agree with other comments that the specialization potential w.r.t middle/long isn't that great, but I think it is still there; I wouldn't dismiss "Tero owning the middle" out of hand).

I''ve advocated normalizing WRE scores to USOF ranking scores to help with the living abroad issue. I'm convinced that this is possible, but unfortuately I haven't had the time to actually see if it is.

I do like the overall framework of the US system, a well-described algorithm up front, backed up by a limited subjective system which only applies if you can demonstrate extenuating circumstances have caused the algorithm to misrepresent your abilities. Getting back to the first point, tho, perhaps I would tweak it to allow petition for zero ranking score for any reasonable reason, not just the reason of living abroad.

For North Americans getting into the finals at WOC is still a big goal. For some individuals the goal is certainly higher than that but for our teams in general getting as many into the finals is a big goal. If the average person is say 10-15% behind getting in at the moment then (if you take JMM's approach - that I like by the way) a manager (or a selection committee) needs to think whether entering three consistent people is the best approach or adding in (at least) one person that while inconsistent has in the last year or so (or at the selection races) thrown in the quality of race necessary to make the "A" final (ie., they blew away the North American field). Because that is an important measure to look at. An example of this would be Johnny F's NAOC '06 middle distance. A minute ahead of 2nd, 2 minutes ahead of 3rd in a 30 minute race.

A relay team decision is a different story.

Anyway....
We see this all the time in sports - granted they are mainly team sports - but at times a manager has to take a chance and live with that decision. Using hockey as an example: Do you go with the goalie that has 2 Stanley Cup MVP's but has let in a few soft goals recently or the young guy that has put in some solid wins recently but is inconsistent but is on a roll at the moment?
I'm a big fan of Gretzky but many Canadians realize that the Wayner made a bad decision going with age and experience for the Olympics in Italy instead of young guys like Crosbie, the Stalls and Nash (sounds like a band).

So this specialization vs inconsistency is an interesting point.

Do I train and race to be in a position to win in one discipline or do I train and use a racing style to be in the top few in multiple disciplines? I agree that the very best in the World can do well in all disciplines but for me anyway, if I'm balancing family time, a full time job and volunteer efforts my time is best spent focussing on getting very good at one or two disciplines.

When I was in Sweden in the early 90's I had a very tough field work schedule that made it hard to put in the hours necessary for classic training. So I focussed on short distance but could do well but never was in the top (note I was living in a region of Sweden that had limited depth). The coach of the Swedish women's team at the time took me aside and told me my race style was good for
being among the top few but not aggressive enough (those weren't his exact words) to win. I had to change my race approach and be willing to be far back once in a while if I wanted to win a few events. And that the race inconsistency would improve with time and those poor results would dissapear. This was probably due to North America's 2-day classic format that to do well overall you were better off
not being agressive. I started to win a few short distance races in Umea and looking back at '93 race results was on average 2% behind the winner in short distance and 19% behind in classic. I would say that for WOC that is better than being 10% behind in both (but alas I was not chosen to race for Canada that year because we had a system that only used a selection race that I could not attend).

So to make a long story short I like the Aussie system.

Given that NA is starting to fill out the WRE schedule (we'll have 6 this year), I'd be in favor of dropping the USOF ranking score altogether and replacing it with a WRE score. That would shift the bias to those who make the attemp (at home or abroad) to attend "big" events (and perform well at them) while still leaving open the possibility of making the team by turning in 3 solid performances at trials.

There is still not enough racing by North Americans outside North America or by outsiders in North America to be confident that a score at a race in North America is comparable to a score at a race outside North America. It currently appears that scores in North America are a little low, though this could change in the future to be the other way around. With this in mind, I think replacing the USOF ranking score with the WRE score for team selection is fraught with danger in the short term, though in the long run it is probably an improvement.

Requiring our Europe-based team members to come home for trials (I'm not aware of any Olympic sport that doesn't require this) and making at least 2 trials days WRE's would certainly help that situation.

Interesting discussion to follow even from a foreign perspective. Some points from me:

I very much agree that the selection system should not disfavor people moving to Europe. I think USA and Australia are quite comparable as O nations, but the Australians have been much more willing to move to Europe, which shows in their results - far above what US runners have been able to achieve.

I think some people underestimates what it takes to be a good sprint runner. With all respect to the course setter and the people who were successful at the team trials sprint, but that course looks extremely easy (I didn’t run it myself) and probably don’t have much relevance. International championship sprints are generally more technically challenging than the sprint course last weekend.

If you live in Sweden and are running at my level (which I think is not very far below the level of the US national team) it is almost impossible to qualify for WRE events in Scandinavia, so if you are a student for example and don’t have a budget for flight tickets it can be difficult to get WRE points as well.

I agree on each point, but there are some other factors to consider. First, any quality US runner living in Europe is on the US Standing Team and can get WRE points by attending world cup events. Second, while the replacing the rankings with WRE points is hardly foolproof, it surely lets the Europe-based crowd come to trials with something more than zero in that column.

With respect to the sprint; I think last weekend's course was quite easy from a decision/nav standpoint, although still fun to run. I have run more technical sprints in North America. While techniques for sprinting certainly require development, the challenges are (according to IOF guidelines) more about quick decision making than feature recognition. I think the former skill can be developed easier in the US since anybody can study maps and train map reading on the run. Not everybody has daily access to high quality middle/long terrain.

Great points, Hammer (also enjoyed the brief peek into your early O history) . Also, all the foreign perspective adds a whole new level of interest to the discussion for me.

ebuckley says: "Requiring our Europe-based team members to come home for trials (I'm not aware of any Olympic sport that doesn't require this)"

It is very dangerous to compare American orienteering to Olympic sport in the US (having the head of the Endurance Sports sections and coaching division of the Olympic Training Center as a visitor at my work for the last week, I am even more aware of the differences there are between Olympic sport in the US and the US O team).

Are we really at a level where we can say it is more important to have an athlete based in Europe spend the time, money, and energy to travel over to the US for the trials, rather than staying in an environment where they can train better (avoiding jet-lag and possible illness by traveling) and have the possibility for specific orienteering training and racing? If we are at *that* level, then why not make the whole US team travel to the location of WOC for the trials. Then we would no doubt select the best athletes for that up coming WOC. The problem in our selection process is not that there is a small subjective part in the process, the problem is that non American based US team members are at a disadvantage if they come to the trials. It was certainly a challenge for me last year, coming from Europe to not have a ranking to fall back on. In fact in 2006, every runner in the top 5, except for myself used there ranking instead of one race result at the trails. I am not saying this is wrong, I agree that a ranking can give additional information about the ability of that athlete and allows for a better selection, but it is certainly disadvantageous to the Europe based runner.

I'd be in favor of dropping the USOF ranking score altogether and replacing it with a WRE score.

Since the trials are ultimately about competing with the world elite, world rankings seem like a good benchmark. Next year NA qualifies for even more WREs.

I think that doing well in one race is, overall, underemphasized in the US. Winning a WOC involves winning a race. It's not best 3 of 5, or a complicated score, or two day total time. Things like the two-day classic format tend to play down a single event win. Maybe more should be made of exceptional one day results. Maybe they should count for more, in a lot of ways. Maybe this discounting of a single win is rewarding too cautious an approach. We can all be consistent if we hold back enough. Maybe basing our championships and trials and rankings more heavily on single wins would raise the game.

When I came to Switzerland I was surprised that all the events are one day. But like you said, to be successful in orienteering at WOC you have to be able to win one event, of course only once your in the final. You don't have to win the quali, that is where the best runners run a little more conservatively to make sure they are consistent enough to make the final, in the final they are aggressive. We need to learn to be more aggressive. I think winning an event at the team trials should carry some sort of weight, yet maybe not as an automatic selection.

All sanctioned US races are counted as single wins in the rankings. If your probability of a good race (1) or a bad race (6) is equal with each start, a throw of the dice at the TT is the same as a throw of the dice at WOC.

a throw of the dice at the TT is the same as a throw of the dice at WOC

Except that at the TT, it's the sum of three rolls of the die. At WOC, it's one roll.

(Who has a better chance of winning a race...someone who occassionally has a stunning winning run, or someone who is consistently second?)

Rankings could weight wins and great runs more by, say, squaring each day's points. Gaining a few minutes on a great run is harder than saving those same minutes on an average run...but has not dissimilar effect on the rankings.

totally agree with feet comments. I scored better points in a qualif event last WOC , even though I was 23 min behing winner ( 83 vs 60), and my performanceIMHO was far bellow then last weekend. events in Europe WRE are overated due to the complicated formula. I watch them from various countries, and maybe are 10 % higher then if you would race here (if unrealistically all condition were the same). so having a decider for 1-2 spots in the team probably should be the way to go.

The ranking algorithm throws away half of your scores beyond 4. Shouldn't this encourage people to adopt "risky" strategies? So why is ranking not already a measure of single-event success? Should we throw away even more scores?

The Norwegian WOC selection criteria this year are:

1. Team Trials 13. - 14. juli
2. World Cup race in Sweden
3. Coach's judgement

Final selection is July 26th.

The coach can pick 60% of the team based on personal judgment of:

* Previous international merits.
* Physical condition and form curve
* Injury and sickness history

I sense a cultural difference between Scandinavia and North America regarding the extent to which the head coach is expected to pick the best team based on subjective judgment. This may have something to do with the average American posessing higher self esteem than the average Scandinavian, meaning that one would expect more disappointment among athletes who don't make a subjectively chosen team.

That's of course a generalization intended to explain the choice in system of selection, and not a commentary on the athletes themselves.

"Why not make the whole US team travel to the location of WOC for the trials?"

In 2004 Australia did exactly that. We picked a team based on trials in Australia, then they competed in a trial in Sweden against the Europe-based Aussies. However, we've evolved a bit further now to the system described by Blair above. For the record, our 2007 team (http://orienteering.asn.au/home ) includes all 5 men from the Europe trials, and none from the Australian trials. For the women, the Australian trials really only confirmed what most people thought the team would be. Hanny did not compete in any of the trials, but how could you leave her out?

Hanny was actually pre-selected, so had no need to compete in any trials.

hold on a second, Easter, as well as last weekends WOC trials, were selection trials for the Australian team, while Hanny was pre-selected she still turned up at these trials to race against other potential team members. She also won every race, by a good margin, so as well as being pre-selected also earned her spot.

Dave Shepherd, Julian Dent and Troy De Haas also all competed in the Australian based selection trials at Easter, so there was a direct comparison between how athletes performed in Australia and overseas. It is a very important part of the Australian selection system that we have as many athletes as possible competing in our domestic trials, and if not that they do race in australia at other times.

So of the entire Australian WOC team, only Reuben Smith and Rob Walter did not compete in the australian based selection trials.