Discussion: Rediculous

At the very least a refund to buy your silence should have been in order.
Funny how orienteering events organised by amateurs can usually manage to get things right whilst big 'professional' events so often go wrong. Do you think the missing control on Day 1 was really stolen rather than missed out when putting them out? Certainly not enticing me to enter SLMM.

... imagine if they had qualified controllers who'd been on training courses like they do in orienteering.

Yes, but I suspect the Controller is a qualified BOF Controller.

Really? Never. He'd know the rules on flag placement then.

except the event isn't run under BOF rules...

God, you are, like, soooooooo literal. Whatever.

Yes, it's run under FRA rules, which treat the business of navigation merely as a necessary evil required to reduce the risk of the race organiser being sued by the dead participant's next of kin. There's no mention of an official such as a controller in either the FRA or the SLMM rules, and yet they have one ...

... and since he's a senior and experienced BOF controller you'd think he might have been aware of the various deficiencies and taken a more generous view when the person leading the event by a large margin wasn't able to actually find the flag at the end of the run-in tapes despite hunting, particularly given the other somewhat serious issues that had been glossed over in order to be able to publish a set of results and have a warm glow all round.

Of course less precision is expected of Mountain Marathons than orienteering but they still need to be fair. The various things the rules of orienteering have to say about both flag and control site placement are rather good guidelines that anyone planning and organising a navigational event might like to consider.

But then I suppose we shouldn't be that surprised. This event was planned and controlled by very experienced orienteers so randomly disqualifying the winner when they clearly visited the control site is very much in keeping with the zeitgeist.

Is "Rediculous" a Harry Potter spell?

how is it that MMs are normally planned/controlled by someone who's name you recognise from orienteering, yet there's still often fairly major mistakes that affect results?
Do they switch off, less pressure? Bit of a Busman's holiday? The control hangers aren't as experienced?

There is so much that I could say on this subject but I'll resist. Suffice to say the SLMM looks very very bad and it's extremely disappointing and grossly unfair result for Oli.

He should only enter your races Shane!

I can some it up in one word for you Shane: knobheads

@ba-ba
This is all supposition but ...
- controls spread out over a larger area and less "person-power per area"
- a bit of a busman's holiday since

there are no rules - they can just make them up as they go along

the expectation of the majority of competitors is quite different

maybe a bit of overconfidence - "we're experts so this is easy"
... not implying that is what happened at the Saunders.
- possibly lack of equipment. I'm sure LOC have plenty of gripples so that last control could easily have been grippled to the stile/fence ... but despite being movers and shakers in LOC are the SLMM officials allowed to use them?
- shoestring organisation ... could have had marshalls at (risky) checkpoints but maybe the number of entries/relaxed nature of the event doesn't really warrant it.

I've no idea really but I would imagine people like Shane bring a level of professionalism to these events that is rare outside major orienteering events. It would seem impossible to pull off something like the Dragon's Back without that.

That is not to say that there aren't many commercial events that are very well organised and that orienteering could learn from, but when it comes to navigation there is a reason why orienteering has so many rules, even if I hate that ... particularly as they are almost always enforced ruthlessly and to the letter against individuals but commonly ignored, bent or twisted by officials after each successive SNAFU in order to protect "the good of the sport".

There are only two rules in Rash-Route club:
- "Sporting fairness shall be the guiding principle in the interpretation of these rules by competitors, organisers and the jury." (IOF)
- No chundering on the 8-pint challenge.

It's a shame as I enjoyed the SLMM the couple of times I've done it - much more conducive to enjoyment than the OMM! I've only fallen fowl of slightly inaccurate marking up - thankfully I was only 100m out, not 1km out as some manage!

Whilst it's a fairly low key event, you'd think their budget would extend to a few gripples for stile/fence controls.

As great as Shane's events are I think stuff like the SLMM still need to exist in a their low-key format, but a little tightening up here and there never goes amiss! Basically, not asking for super-slick, but nothing untoward.

Most importantly - what's your stance on going for a slash during the 8-pint challenge?

slashes are fine but you need to be accompanied by a witness

Never stand up. It's fatal.

sound like good practise for a drugs test, pissing with an audience.

In respect of the SLMM as Planner it was my responsibility to make sure the last control was in the correct place. It was also my responsibility to make sure the Day1 Finish was set up in Tilberthwaite.

There were some speedy teams going off around 8am on the Saturday so once I'd watched the first 20mins of people starting I came off the fell and headed around to the finish. The Start Team volunteers - experienced orienteers from WCH - were delegated to leave the final control in place once every-one had started.

Once I'd watched the start on Day 2 (and got Ollie sorted and I agree the Start grid reference should not have a control number but you have to be part of the organising team to understand how that slipped through) I drove around to Torver to set up the finish.

Following the missing control incident on Saturday I was very nervous about all controls still being ok but first back were Lewis Taylor & Al Thomas of WCOC and then Nigel Bunn with son David and both reported all controls ok.

At one point in my discussions with Roger Smith (Controller) I thought we had agreed to reinstate Oli. But after further discussion with the event CoOrdinator (who has the final say) and Mark Hawker (long time SLMM volunteer) then his decision was reversed.

I'm sorry things didn't run as smoothly as I would have liked and that you don't approve of our treatment of Klets on Day1. Happy to discuss/explain more if you see me at the Scottish 6 Days.

Thanks for the explanation Richard. And thanks also for the course, which was much enjoyed.

That would explain why my name reappeared on the results, which led me to believe that I had been reinstated. It certainly felt as though you and Roger were for reinstating me based on the context for the dsq, which was why I was so surprised when the results list changed again (the more so because no one came and told me).

I emailed the coordinator@slmm.org.uk address on Sunday to ask for some clarification, but have had no reply.

I hope that as a result of this some understanding is gained that hiding flags is not fair - it's a navigation race not a treasure hunt. And consequently the argument that most people found them so everyone should have is not valid.

and maybe Oli gets reinstated?!

I thought controllers had the final say. But that is orienteering I guess, not dodgy "adventure" sports.

Does 26km really count as a very short day!? Clearly I'm getting soft and need to do more training since both days seem very long to me!

It's all relative. And that was what I actually ran rather than straight line distance. Supposed to be 10-11 for the weekend, but without the awol control on day 1 it would have been 7.

It's always been very variable distance wise. I remember my first klets was just over 7 hours combined both days. The next one I did getting on for 8 on the first day.