Discussion: 'modern approach' to Nor-Am Jr. Development

Out of respect to the US Jr. team announcement please discuss what yurets wrote (on a separate thread) here instead...

"The emergence of 4 juniors, “out of nowhere”, in quite an unexpected place—Georgia—is indeed worth noting, and analyzing. As someone who occasionally observes local meets in that state, here is the main reason I see as why these guys got to this level, against all odds: Competition. Somehow guys of this age do need to compete and strive to be number one. In GAOC, a very conservative club, they were allowed to practice classical orienteering, and to compete against each other, as opposite to ‘modern approach’, now mainstream in Boston, Toronto and other places, with “teams” of “smiley kids”--using their vocabulary, going to forest holding hands, having happy time, then posting copious reports on FB, with photos of flowers and wildlife, writing essays about their wilderness discoveries, all that nonsense that has recently prevailed in US junior orienteering, and now is being spread around as unquestionable good practice."

I'm not aware of a junior program in Toronto and I'm not aware of a program using "smiley kids" but i am aware of junior programs in other locations in Canada including Ontario's Golden Horseshoe, Calgary, Ottawa, Yukon, Vancouver, Kimberly, and Edmonton. These progams are gradually increasing junior participation, training and athletic performance. Many (all?) of these programs are based on Sport Canada and Orienteering Canada's LTAD (long-term athletic development) plan which is based on both experienced international orienteering coaching knowledge and sport physiology foundations. The result are now over 1000 kids enrolled in programs nationaly and don't forget the over 200 coaches and volunteers that make these programs operate.

The 'modern approach' of 'smiley kids' must be doing something right here in Canada since Emily Kemp won a bronze at JWOC in 2012 and she did so with a positive and happy attitude to the sport.

Just send them all to Siberia, or other Georgia. That'll teach them quickly now to fend for themselves.

Smiley kids? That must have been a misprint because the only way these kids get good is by working up a sweat, busting their guts going over hills and through swamps becoming smelly kids only to shower off and do it again the next day.
And yes they can smile and have fun while doing it.
Problem is that in many areas the next day is not for another month. In the southern states the clubs' once a month event schedule does not serve the up and coming kids very well.
In Florida I've instituted a ranking system for the JROTC competitions to help recognize the top performers and to encourage their team leaders to get the kids to more competitions. See here and click on JROTC and look for rankings by course and the rankings report. Competition is alive and well.
Another problem we have to overcome is the 'graduate and they are gone' syndrome. It happens everywhere but here is an example. Last year one of the schools in Florida had two boys on the team. They were brothers and leagues ahead of everyone else as far as running ability. They were good navigators who were also middle distance runners on the school's track team. I asked the school team leader why they weren't participating this year. They've both joined the Marines was the response. True they'll be lost to orienteering while they go through basic training but after that they may be within reach of SDO or QOC, for example. There needs to be a system to track the talent where they are going and help them bridge to orienteering in their new environment.

Time for another remake of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26cq16X7kq4
except with yurets as the main character complaining about the kids holding hands, etc.

***The 'modern approach' of 'smiley kids' must be doing something right here in Canada since Emily Kemp won a bronze at JWOC in 2012 and she did so with a positive and happy attitude to the sport.***

Well I don't see anyone in Canada ever winning a medal at JWOC again unless LTAD is changed. I don't believe Emily would have ever won a medal if she did not go to JWOC when she was 16. Under LTAD the earliest you can try for JWOC is 17 which is too late for anyone to perform well in there later years of eligibility.

I hope yurets considers opening his own orienteering dojo. Then we can have his Cobra Kai Kids curmudgeonly contest Mr. Miyagi's smiley scrum.

Hey Dman what % of JWOC participants (let alone future medallists) run JWOC at the of 16? I look forward to seeing real data to prove your point.

That would be interesting to find out exactly. Its kind of different for Europeans since they have more high end racing experiences over there compared to us.

Hate to be pick on ya D-Man but again I'll call bullshit. ;-)

It ain't that different at all. The Euros have more depth so until they are in the very top they race in other high end races. So what is stopping Canadians from participating in many of the same non-JWOC high end races that the 16 and 17 year old Europeans are racing in?

It also suggests that Canadians should take the chance to train and race in as many domestic race opps they can get. So if you are serious about sprint it kinda makes sense to do the Vancouver Sprint Camp don't ya think?

I can take it ;)
I really don't know what to say...there is no way there are as many competitions in canada as there are in european countries, just no way. I call bullshit on that. A plane ticket to europe is probably the main reason.

Ya I am serious about the sprint and not going to sprint camp makes me not serious, not at all. Ya it makes sense to go but I rather spend the money I have to fly to europe in the summer where I can have multiple sprint camp training opportunities.

Well, I am not really familiar with the examples Yurets was referring to. I can only speak to what we do in Whitehorse. For younger kids (like up to 10?) we do the Kids Running Wild Program (thanks Hamilton), which does involve (heaven forbid) fun and games resulting in the kids enjoying themselves and getting more comfortable being on trails beyond the playground. But that progresses in a fairly logical fashion in to 'serious' technique training, real courses etc. We must be doing something right as 4 of our club's juniors were on Canada's 2013 JWOC Team. Orienteering is a sport for life. Investing in a young kid's enjoyment of our arena (woods, natural areas) can have a better long-term return than over emphasis on training and competing at too young an age, which can result in burn-out by age 21.

Leaving aside some of the other issues discussed in this thread, if you get a cluster of good people emerging at about the same time they're going to push each other on - this is something which occurs across a lot of sports. We've seen it happen several times in Australian orienteering, most notably the group of juniors who came through in Canberra in the early-mid 90s which went on to form the core of a lot of Australian teams over the following decade - the likes of Rob Walter, Tom Quayle, Jo Allison and, before her injury issues, Cassie Trewin. (feet was a product of that group, too).

So the difference-maker in achieving a JWOC medal is running 3 particular races at the age of 16? Really?

Not devotion to training and racing orienteering on a daily basis, perhaps?

Obviously you have to be devoted to training and racing but you also need the experience at a young age to be successful in following years. Without experience at very competitive competitions early on you won't be as good as the runners who did. Since canada does not have very competitive competitions you either have to get that experience at JWOC or at another competitive competitions outside of canada.

I think that if you are devoted to training and racing orienteering in general, the chances to win a JWOC medal at 20 has nothing to do whatsoever if you ran your first JWOC at 16 or 17.

@j-man

More here

I hope yurets considers opening his own orienteering dojo. Then we can have his Cobra Kai Kids curmudgeonly contest Mr. Miyagi's smiley scrum.

Yes, you need to train well and regularly. But something needs to encourage the motivation to train hard and regularly. My observation of our juniors is that the taste of believable winning provides that motivation. That means you need competition you consider makes a win meaningful. Clusters really help that.

It's true I'm a very smiley person.... especially when I'm doing what I love: orienteering, training, racing...!! I was able to win a JWOC medal in 2012 but that was after moving to France and training as a real elite athlete with mutiple world champions for 2 full years. The learning curve was something impressive and I had some really successful orienteers to guide me along the way. I ran WOC when I was 19 and numerous other international events before I ran that long distance race at JWOC 2012. Since I started competing at the age of 12 in W15-16 category I've always searched for tougher competition and racing in europe is some of the toughest I've ever experienced. It's definitely an valuable experience to race in europe just to be able to see the scale of competition and see how the elite runners race. It was by racing JWOC at the age of 16 - where the french runners remember me as a little shrimp of a girl- that I suddenly saw the International level and how far away I was from it. It's also there that my dream to be on the podium was born. I haven't experienced any of the new youth training groups in canada but I think it's a spectacular start to bringing up the level of canadian orienteering. Perhaps it's just the beginning but from what I've seen and experienced in france it's definitely beneficial to have a group of youth training together and regularly competing against each other to push the overall level even higher. Those are just my two cents :)

gordhun said: There needs to be a system to track the talent where they are going and help them bridge to orienteering in their new environment.

Here here! While young athletes have a huge informational advantage these days thanks to the internet, outreach of some kind by 'receiving' clubs could really make a difference in youth-to-adult transition/retention rates. It would be interesting to know if there are these kinds of mechanisms in place in Europe. Anyone?

Speaking from personal experience (I enlisted in the US Army at 18, stationed in (then) West Germany, then was off to college in NH at 20, then more college in CA, and working after that), I very well might not have taken a 15-year hiatus from O if I had received a welcoming communication from a local club in West Germany -- with an offer of transportation assistance to events. Of course who knows how I would have responded; I can barely remember that 18-year-old and his motivations.

We have two California products on the list. To date I haven't seen either one of them smilily holding hands in the woods. The most impressive part of their achievement is that they seem to have managed to improve within the abundance of all those overpriced fluff non-real formats that poison the young and old alike, steal the firmness of will, and bring instant gratification for barely breaking a sweat. Not only do they beat the crap out of eveyone around on those non-real courses, they also do the same regularly in real orienteering. (And beat some other people on the list regularly, too.)

Another note? neither LAOC nor BAOC (currently) has a functional junior program. It doesn't mean that California wouldn't be represented in higher quantities on the list if junior programs existed or were functioning, just means that one is not a prerequisite for improvement. More competition seems to be better, no matter how lame your orienteering format. And you can certainly make more competition if you don't insist on having a seven-course meal with a side serving of poison oak as your one and only true path.

It would be interesting to know if there are these kinds of mechanisms in place in Europe

If there is a true interest from the side of the athlete (i.e. junior or older moving to a new place) they usually seek up a club in their new whereabouts or find training partners in their school or whatever. Quite naturally that would be a problem if there are no clubs or organized training activities available, which is seldom the case here in Sweden.

As T/D stated above - you can still get quite far without a junior program or club activities if you only have the ambition and an inner drive of your own.

So - to answer the question - I don´t think there is a 'mechanism' in place to take care of this. There are so many orienteers around though that we usually know when and if someone moves in or out and they are always welcome to any activities in a new club - very often without the pressure of becoming a member.

Does anyone find it curious that DVOA and QOC have such meager representation?

Maybe T/D is right: a surfeit of 7 course events--there is no region in the country with a denser or more extensive slate--does not foster junior development. As an aside, the competitive intensity is at least at least fair, week in, week out.

The problem with the high school JROTC junior based programs in Georgia, Texas, and Florida is that there is nowhere for the kids to continue orienteering after high school. That is why we lose so many kids after high school and why I applied to MIT. I wish to continue orienteering after high school. Another problem often found in JROTC based programs is the lack of interaction between teams. All JROTC unit orienteers' connection to the orienteering community is through their coach and thus lost as they leave high school. Their only option to continue orienteering as they did in high school is to go to West Point -- which has a 13% acceptance rate.

love the Karate Kid references.

a surfeit of 7 course events does not foster junior development.

CascadeOC has had several US juniors through our WIOL League, which is essentially just a league, and not a junior development program. Each league race has 7 courses for kids (basically 1 white, 1 yellow, 3 orange, 2 brown/green).

a surfeit of 7 course events

My point is, your club can be busy self-gratifying putting on a 7-course event every weekend, or it can channel its energy (volunteer time, financial resources) in different directions. The choice is yours.

Matt Stout: thank you for your post which comes with experience behind it. I don't necessarily agree that there is no place to continue orienteering after high school. Instead I contend that there is no mechanism to link the graduating high school orienteer with resources in his/her new area. As to 'no place' I agree that the state of university/ college orienteering in the States is currently pretty poor.
This was brought home to me recently through Facebook when I discovered a former top JROTC orienteer from Dunedin was now studying at UNC Charlotte. Charlotte happens to have a very active orienteering club and although they don't currently use it they have a map of UNCC. Hence the Dunedin lad was doing no orienteering. What if they happened to have a couple of other JROTC orienteering grads from other states at UNCC? They would have the nucleus of a club and probably the resources to map their own campus for training and to make some money putting on events. At least they could beg rides from Carolina OK members to their monthly meets. That's only an example.
I'll help with Florida if other areas are interested in charting where their graduating high school orienteers are heading next year.

and why I applied to MIT. I wish to continue orienteering after high school.

Whoa, wait, what? You applied to MIT because of the sports opportunities? That's awesome! (And full disclosure in case anyone thinks I'm being sarcastic, I got my start orienteering due to the fact that I was going to MIT, although that didn't influence my decision because I had no idea that the opportunity would exist.)

Aerospace Engineering + Orienteering

When I went on a campus tour of MIT, I was told that they offered more club sports than any other university.

That is true (about the club sports), or at least used to be. Not that that is a big reason to go there, I mean, who picks a college based on the fact that there's a wide variety of low grade sports teams to choose from?

(Aerospace engineering, on the other hand... yeah, the orienteering is better in Boston than it would be at CalTech...)

T/D--I apologize to you as well to any innocent bystanders here whose senses haven't yet been dulled by what I feel is a merry-go-round of a conversation, but I keep missing the point and I want to understand.

What are the specific things that some clubs are doing outside the 7-course paradigm that are producing other (I think your implication is better) results? I.e., what are the things that the 7-course paradigm is crowding out? I know there are some canonical examples (Dontgetlost), but even that is still in its infancy. It will probably do great things soon, as high participation begets more competition, etc., but let's take one step at a time.

[This thread is about NorAM junior development, but this argument is repeated in other threads, so either illustrate with examples germane here, or provide broader example(s).]

So many times in North American orienteering we are want to appeal to idiosyncratic examples to prove a general point, e.g., our successful women, Emily and Ali. With all due respect to everyone here (especially Emily, since she shared her thoughts, above) it is hard to see how their success is derived from a particular coaching, competition, or other structure in the US or Canada. They both have bountiful drive and talent, but what program identified or unlocked that?

West Point -- which has a 13% acceptance rate.

and MIT acceptance rate last year was 8.2%

They both have bountiful drive and talent, but what program identified or unlocked that?

Perhaps it's against my better judgement to wade into this conversation but since you've asked j-man and I came through the program at the same time as Emily I'll weigh in.

The thing that made the difference for me and I'm sure for Emily as well is that there was a key group of us at a similar age in the club that became friends. Then training partners. Then team mates. I can say with absolute certainty that I would not be a competitive orienteer if it weren't for Emily and Eric Kemp and Robbie Anderson over the past 12 or so years.

The catalyst though was that Cherie Revells (then Mahoney) had the foresight to recognize that there was a group of young athletes in the club and brought us together with a new junior program. By today's standards the program wasn't much at all - we met every once in a while for a group run - but it was enough to bring us together and get us going.

Cherie also convinced my family to attend our first 'A-meet' in 2006 - the North American Champs in Hamilton and when I finished in the middle of the pack and my younger siblings got medals we were hooked.

It's the friendships and community that make the difference at a young age (though getting good results doesn't help). If junior programs do nothing but create friendships and instill an enjoyment of the sport then they've still succeeded in my mind.

It was probably incorrect of me to solely link Emily's success to Canadian junior programmes although Emily was part of the Otttawa OC program [edit: that Canadian just wrote about above] before university. My mentioning Emily was merely to demonstrate that a Canadian has won a JWOC medal while Yurets feels (I believe) that things are not progressing properly in jr. Development in North America. When in fact Many young athletes (like Emily) are training and racing hard to achieve better results internationally!

I wanted to make the point that The Canadian LTAD is designed to provide as many kids as possible the opportunity to begin at a young age of learning the fundamentals of a sport. Key word is FUN. The more kids that are introduced to the sport the more likely some will move up the development ladder through training and competition to the world class level. I think that is what I was trying to mention earlier in the thread. There are many ways to achieve greatness but having a larger base increases the chances of top performances (more competition,
More training opps and
More social opps which are important to maintain interest in competitive sport). That is what many programs in Canada are trying to do. Ultimately an individual needs to choose how much training and racing they want to do and under the LTAD it is the clubs that get kids through the first 3 or so rungs of the LTAD ladder.

Nevertheless, basing the relative success of a jr.
Program based only on int'l results is likely not ideal. Results are only one aspect of
Jr, programs as upnorthguy mentioned so nicely above. Getting kids outside and learning to navigate and become stronger runners outside of competition has its own merits.

There is no single 'magic bullet' of a junior program that is going to work in all places, since different areas have different strengths and weaknesses. Orienteering Canada's LTAD (Long Term Athlete Development) provides a very good structure. It can be found here:
http://www.orienteering.ca/resources/long-term-ath...

I think it is more about identifying the various components that need to come together in some fashion for a program to be successful:
Dedicated, energetic, knowledgeable coach(es)
Core group of kids that enjoy each others' company and have fun together
Good quality maps of good areas, relatively close by
Age and skill appropriate activities and training sessions
Others?

Thanks Canadian and Hammer--I agree with everything you said. Thanks for sharing.

But, I really need to know what T/D thinks, because I suspect he may have additional suggestions, as his repeated, trenchant critiques may be grounded on well-conceived notions (supported by data) about how to do things differently.

I have an event to put on, sorry. Only two courses.

Cherie also convinced my family to attend our first 'A-meet' in 2006 - the North American Champs in Hamilton...

I remember talking to some of you there. Little did I know...

what are the things that the 7-course paradigm is crowding out?

Open relay category.

Certainly my opinion is not as simplistic, and is more along the lines of the appropriateness of event-focused clubs (which are almost all of them in North America) vs. clubs focused on development, such as DontGetLost and to much lesser degree OCIN and Cascade. But as Clem points out, this lack of appropriateness is a late-coming epiphany that has not much high-performance data so far to support it.

My other post completely agrees with Clem's in that it's pointless to fit two or four data points into a theory. Both "Classic orienteering makes great juniors" and "lots of Sprints make great juniors" are equally unsubstantiated. "Lots of competition makes great juniors" is perhaps better, "lots of training makes great juniors" is clearly closer but it's based on other continents' data, not ours. Clubs should be thinking about how to provide the lots of training; absent that, about how to have more frequent events. Bashing low-key and alternative-format events, which has been going on in spades lately not only where I sit but in many other places, doesn't seem to serve the purpose.

Don't forget LROC. LROC are exquisitely focused on high altitude short grass prairie despite the tempting distractions of the pine tree, and even the pine beetle! High altitude short grass prairie is wicked fast and funner than a fun house. Just try saying it real fast 24 or 25 times--that's fun, too! The Laramie Range are wide open spaces all tangled up in blue (with apologies to BD.)

10,000hrs approach.
If you want to master anything its going to take 10,000hrs.

If you want to develop, you have to orienteer. As Emily said, her big jump came training with the French on technical maps.

Basically agreeing with TD

Pre-apology for shamelessly touting NTOA/TX/TX-GA-FL's own horn a bit, but I'd like to defend a bit our often denigrated region(s). We have some good terrain but not much great terrain. We have a decent number of events, but not a lot of events. Nevertheless, we develop some good orienteers, some who have been on JWOC and UWOC teams, a number who have been active on the USMA O team, and regularly do well at interscholastics.

What do we have or do?
* The JROTC programs provide regular training in physical fitness and orienteering (map study and map "games" because they generally can't get to terrain other than on event days.)
* Very enthusiastic commanders and teachers who put in many hours beyond what is required by their job description.
* A strong social/team atmosphere where the kids root for and support one another.
* A built-in command structure that fosters mentor-mentee relationships and collaborative learning.
* Every NTOA event has an assisting school where they help with the start, finish, registration, results and take care of collecting all bags from the terrain (more training!). (NTOA makes a donation to each program every time they take on this chore.)
* A season long inter-school competition called the "NTOA Cup," which really does motivate the kids to earn points and challenge themselves at each event.
* TX Jr O Camp. A week of both physically and technically challenging orienteering in rough terrain, run by commanders and instructors who don't cut the kids much slack as far as always putting in their best effort.
* etc.

After working with hundreds of kids over the last 11 years my general opinion is that to develop JWOC level athletes, the kid's family or program needs deep financial resources so that the junior can regularly get to high-quality competition and high-quality terrain (independent of the format of said competition). There really is no substitute for that continual experience. That financial support for a niche sport that is not part of our regional culture is rare. I have seen a lot of boys in particular who are flat out fast and have the head for the sport, but they don't have the resources to really reach their potential; they drift away once the school support system is removed.

Nevertheless, as a whole we have a large number of kids participating in orienteering and a large number doing quite well at it. To wit, the 4 juniors from Georgia on the Junior standing team were neither out of no-where or a surprise, nor are the strong scholastic teams from FL, GA and TX. I have worked with and raced against these very kids every summer at TJOC for the last few years. They work hard at their O! Perhaps what they lack in orienteering resources they make up for in devotion and plain old toughness. State and club boundaries not withstanding, I am very proud of them.

Perhaps I have not answered the original question directly enough. Thus, some factors that I believe are important for junior development, particularly in a region that is relatively orienteering poor:
* Hard work.
* Creatively maximising all available resources.
* Strong social and orienteering support structure.

Does anyone find it curious that DVOA and QOC have such meager representation?

In light of the quite small number of active juniors in QOC (leaving aside JROTC - great things may come of the growing JROTC orienteering in our area in time but right now most of the programs are fairly new) and my hazy impression that DVOA's demographics aren't all that different from ours, I don't really.

Maybe T/D is right: a surfeit of 7 course events--there is no region in the country with a denser or more extensive slate--does not foster junior development.

I don't think even T/D ("...absent that, about how to have more frequent events.") believes there's such a thing as offering too many 7 course events* but sure, this is obviously true in somewhat the same sense it's true that lots of flour doesn't foster bread development in the absence of the other necessary inputs.

More thoughts on this but I need to go do some training if the various inevitable moments when young whippersnappers become faster than I am are to be delayed a little longer.


* Provided resource limitations don't mandate that the large number of 7 course events be organised at the expense of other efforts that would be more productive and attendance doesn't drop because you've sated everyone's desire to orienteer and no doubt some other caveats I won't attempt to list exhaustively .

Tom - great post - thanks.

@jtorranc, if you have JROTC interest, I would do everything you can to support it. JROTC (particularly Navy JROTC) is driving GAOC's junior participation. Connor and Noah are both products of Navy JROTC (and TJOC).

Navy Area 12 JROTC schools put on several B meets a year with 200 - 300 juniors (with GAOC support). In addition they have the Area 12 championships and the Navy National Championship. This gives these kids access to 5 or 6 high level competitions a year - in addition to the ~20 GAOC local meets.

In Texas, I believe the JROTC meets can have close to 1000 runners.

JROTC teams have won the last 3 US Interscholastic Championships, 4 of the last 5. These are quality programs.

We do have major issues that Matt Stout and Tom Carr identified: 1) How do you keep the kids engaged after high school; and 2) how do you provide support for promising kids.

As Tom pointed out - this is not cheap. We have some fast kids, with knack for the sport, but their parents can't afford to get them decent orienteering shoes. How do we help these kids? GAOC provides travel grants, but that is really not enough - some of these kids need help with everything...

If you want to increase the competition level, expand the demographic beyond just those that can afford it.

QOC does have three, at least, active JROTC club teams and we see many kids at most of our meets now. As Jon said, the teams are mostly still pretty new, but if you look past the Jr. Standing Team to the Development Team for 2013, you'll see several QOC kids. So there's hope! I do think we could do more to nurture that segment of our club.

One of our local JROTC teams hosted the National Naval JROTC Champs last February. I had the honor of setting the courses for one of the days, and it was really exciting to see the enthusiasm of the hundreds of kids, from all over the country. There was some really good orienteering going on. And a month later, I saw several of the same kids at the Interscholastics in Kansas. I think this is all a great trend, and I hope we can do the right things to encourage and retain these juniors.

I've started a thread on college orienteering. If you are at or know of a college or university with a great orienteering scene, list it here. I hope we can provide a resource for our high school age juniors who want to know where they can best continue orienteering in college.

"I look forward to seeing real data to prove your point."
"Hate to be pick on ya D-Man but again I'll call bullshit. ;-)"

Please look at just one example (and I am sure one could find more of them).
Emma Klingenberg from Denmark won JWOC at the age of 16.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Klingenberg

It certainly does not look like that her first gold burnt her out. An early start and allowing kids to orienteer and progress at their pace and level is critical to the success in the future. LTAD is an amazing program and it does not say that early developed 14, 15, 16 year olds shouldn't participate at JWOC. As a matter of fact LTAD establishes a difference between "chronological age" and "developmental age" so that the early developed and talented athletes do get the opportunity to develop and are not held back by chronological age categories. It even points out that there can be as much as 4 years difference between Chronological and Developmental ages. Consequently according to LTAD, an exceptionally developed 14 year old will successfully race at the level of 18 year olds. I believe that LTAD is not far off as we have all seen a 13 year old winning M18 middle at NAOC 2012 and a 14 year old winning M20 sprint at COC 2013.

I must also give credit to D-man for understanding LTAD, following it and as a result providing fantastic coaching of a talented junior athlete who would not orienteer today without him, because he was so discouraged by being repeatedly held back and wanted to quit.

Minor point: Matt Stout, although not ever a member of JROTC, was able to receive all the benefits of a JROTC coach (Amy Williams) and attended TJOC three times. It has been a boon to his O career that he was allowed to "audit," so so speak, the orienteering portion of the JROTC program.

If I am not mistaken, Connor joined JROTC for the orienteering...

@GuyO - true (at least partially), Connor started orienteering in 8th grade.

@bugabooo: I watched a good show on 'exceptionals' in hockey the other night. The Canadian Hockey League has a rule at what age a player can be drafted into OHL, WHL, etc. I assume that the rule is also based on hockey's LTAD. The rules were changed to allow for John Tavares (following a petition) to be drafted at a younger age into the Ontario Hockey League as part of an "exceptional athletes" clause. In his first year inthe OHL (a year younger than all other players) he was rookie of the year. In his 2nd year he broke one of Gretzky's goals records. He was clearly exceptional and is a franchise player with NYI today. The exceptions clause has only been used 2 times since which shows that the hockey LTAD is sound but allows some flexibility for 'exceptional athletes'.

So if you look at the Orienteering Canada rules for JWOC participation you will see that while OC has an age rule which they rightfully link to LTAD they also permit athletes to petition this rule. I guess one can call it an 'exceptional athletes' rule as well.

So kudos to Orienteering Canada for understanding the LTAD and for allowing some flexibility (similar to what is done in hockey). I fail to see why this is an issue and I fail to see why orienteering shouldn't build policy around athletic development science so well studied throughout Canadian sport.

Finally to your example of Emma Klingenberg. Yes she is an exceptional athlete and your example is a good one but it doesn't really counter my disagreement with D-Man's point. His argument was summarized nicely by pi earlier in the thread with the comment "So the difference-maker in achieving a JWOC medal is running 3 particular races at the age of 16". That is, if an individual can't run JWOC at age 16 their development is pooched.

My point is that is complete nonsense. Allow me to cherry pick my own example. I present the case of Simone Niggli nee Luder. Looking at JWOC results it doesn't appear that she ran JWOC at age 16. OMG, her career must have suffered! ;-) But then even more astonishingly it doesn't appear that she ran JWOC at age 17 either. Hmmmm.

:-)

Simone Niggli did not grow up in an area with a shortage of competition or events...

Best Training Plan for a US Junior: Move to a European country whose name begins with Sw.

As a former DVOA junior (and still a DVOA senior!) I'll comment.

Firstly there was a huge batch of juniors when I came through. Yes there were maybe only 3 girls ever my age. but we had guys a few years older than me that I became friends with as well. I think a huge thing that got me into orienteering was not only the fact that it was a father-daughter day (which was great!) but also my best friends were there. I had susan Cornish and Gswede as my main friends and then became friends with juniors all over the country once I started going to a-meets. That was a big thing for me! I LOVED going to events during my younger junior years (maybe <15) to see friends. Then a younger group of juniors came to DVOA through coatsvill and became friends with them as well.

Then JWOC... Well I was actually told I shouldn't go to JWOC at the age of 16. I was "too young for what goes on there", but I was on the border of the rankings list and I believe 5th female. All my friends were on the team and I had worked so hard to try and make it!!! This motivation to make the 2008 JWOC team was sparked however from going with my family to race the 2007 Scottish 6-days. It opened my eyes up to actually the level I should be at and I had a long way to go. Not making the team was horrible. So i'm very glad that Janet Porter instead made a junior trip to sweden and that allowed me to go and race Oringen at the age of 16 instead. But I think i could have handled JWOC at 16. That being said I think it is a tough call when someone is just below a standard in actually allowing them to be in over their head. We cannot be sending people to JWOC just to fill a team if they are only going to come last and then never want to do the sport again. That is why I'm sooo happy to see the Europe Junior trips being planned again. I think USA juniors need another event that ISN'T JWOC to show you what real elite competition is. Because i'm sorry USA is not at the same level.

Now as for college. Again it goes back to the individual I think. I knew i didn't want to give it up. Heck I wanted to get to WUOC and WOC and now wanting to not just make WOC but do well at it! So I reached out to any orienteer around me! I'm now in Edinburgh and have close to two orienteering sessions I could go to a week, on a decent map, with some competition (they are local events during the week which has a short/long course). But not many of the juniors in my group kept orienteering through college. I am however every happy to see a few of them coming back to the sport :) So I think a bit of out reach from the clubs to the college age students would be nice if you know they are around. Even just offering transport! We don't have to take it but sometimes its nice to be asked if we want a lift from a new club member, instead of having to bulk up the courage to ask. remember there is only one of us for the club to remember a new name, there are MANY of you we have to meet and remember.

Just my two cents.

@Jan 7, 2014 5:46 PM # Hammer

D-Man did not say that "if an individual can't run JWOC at the age of 16 that their development is pooched". He said: "I don't believe Emily would have ever won a medal if she did not go to JWOC at 16". Emily responded: "It was by racing JWOC at the age of 16 - where the french runners remember me as a little shrimp of a girl- that I suddenly saw the International level and how far away I was from it. It's also there that my dream to be on the podium was born."

Consequently, Pi's argument "So the difference maker in achieving a JWOC medal is running 3 particular races at the age of 16? Really?" is not exactly right and D-man's argument is not a "complete nonsense".

Participation at JWOC can be a huge encouragement and can have a consequence that a young athlete is so encouraged into orienteering that they may train way harder and win a medal at a later age. The fact stays that JWOC experience can be gained only at JWOC. For some athletes it was a game changer - including D-man. He believes that he started too late and after revelation how far behind he was, he started training really hard. However, he did not have enough time to close the several years long gap between him and the Europeans and as a consequence he ended up 1 second away from A finals when he was 20. Possibly JWOC one year earlier could have helped him to get there - who knows?

In case of Emma Klingenberg the difference maker would had been a loss of 2 golds 2 silvers and 3 bronze, had she went to JWOC say, at the age of 20 instead of 16. Pi also did not take into account that if someone qualifies for JWOC and perceives that she or he was unfairly rejected, the discouragement and demoralization could be so big that an athlete who dedicated her or his entire life to orienteering may move to another sport where the leaders are more encouraging and supportive. Such athletes will definitely not see orienteering as FUN any more. In addition, those 3 races could had been linked to a massive training opportunity which the athlete may never get again. Every athlete, who is up to the level and has the desire, should be given a chance if there in an opportunity. There is no need taking opportunities away from anyone. North American athletes do not have that many of them. Dedicated and enthusiastic athletes should not be pushed out just because of stereotypes. Attendance of JWOC can be much more than "just 3 races". There is a reason why some European countries that won medals in the past are sending some of their kids to JWOC at the age of 15 and they have certainly more training opportunities than North Americans and produced better results.

I really like the US approach where instead of sending just say 4 arguably best athletes of each gender to JWOC, they saw it as an opportunity to build a team, provide experience, encouragement and motivation to a maximum number of juniors of different ages. They used all the training opportunities in Europe and their trip was simply spectacular. Some of them even teamed up with D-man's Canadian group and there were medals won. This is how great teams are built, international friendships born and high performance orienteers raised. In the end unlike many other sports orienteering is primarily about experience and the main job of coaches is to provide encouragement and enthusiasm into the sport. This is exactly what D-man understands and what stands behind his argument.

Storm in a teapot.

Yeah I was wondering what's wrong with me, I've got all this motivation but I didn't start running till I was nearly 40

Growing up in Romania, in an area with not much orienteering, I was blessed with a club that supported me and took me everywhere early on. I was the only girl in our club, and I am glad there were no age limits or other limits set by my club, or I would have not continued. We still had way more juniors to train, and travel and compete with, than my sons have here, in the Midwest. Having peers and friends in the sport is overall not just a plus but a must.
Having juniors, no matter the age, experience JWOC ultimately raises the bar they "bring" back for competition at home. One may snicker at this, but I prefer to look at the development of Chinese, Japanese or HK juniors over the years rather than those who have been at the top for years and years. It is their progression that I wish I could learn from. Especially China, which would also have to bridge large travel distances to get to competitions, and they might even have much fewer maps to train on than in the USA. They throw the max of eligible athletes at it, and one can see they have consistently bettered their top athlete, and are also slowly moving out of half being DQed or at the bottom of the list. They pull their best, promising athletes, no matter the age and the internationally perceived ability or lack thereof and send them to JWOC, ultimately so as to improve the base line every year from which they train, a base line determined by those juniors that just gained international experience and who made friends with top athletes in the world to which they look up to. And then they go back and share that enthusiasm, increasing the motivation for the generation of school clubs or other youth clubs to include orienteering in their programs.

@bugaboo
Apologies for misinterpreting this D-Man quote earlier in this thread:

"Under LTAD the earliest you can try for JWOC is 17 which is too late for anyone to perform well in there later years of eligibility."

Which I misinterpreted as D-Man suggesting that anyone that didn't run JWOC before 17 wouldn't perform well in their later years of eligibility.