Discussion: The Finish shute

yesterday looked like a slalom course - people ducking and weaving trying to work out which side of the tapes they should be on. I'm thinking of suggesting that OOB tapes/competitor area tapes should be a different style or colour to Finish shute tapes.

I like that idea as I have often become confused with the multitude of taping at the finish.
But that wasn't my issue today - l haven't been orienteering for so long that l forgot the finish chute was taped at all, and went through the one patch of green on the whole map. I will remember to check out the finish chute before running at the next event.

A brief funny story - at our son's 1st Aus Champs at Dragon Bones the finish shute for the Relay was parallel to a quite thick patch of very green reeds like Pampas Grass. I think his last control was behind the clump then run around to Finish and hand over. However the bunting didn't quite join to the control and he struggled through the patch - we could see the reeds moving and note his progress then suddenly he burst out. Poor thing was a little distressed - but he was only 11 or so.

Sounds a reasonable route to me, especially if you had taught him the straight line technique.
I have had this trouble before, usually where there is one line of tape and it in on the inside curve. I mistake it for OOB (such as l mine shaft). Next time l will check the finish arrangements..

Good idea! Going to Easter?

Eventor says she's not entered.

There is no more classic finish chute fail than Tove's at the 2015 WC long in Tas where she went the wrong way around almost the entire thicket of marsh grass & teatree - presumably following the OOB/spectator leg tapes instead!

P.S. I won W14 at Dragonbones :)

AP says I had a decent finish split yesterday, catching one second back on Bruce. If only there were 16 more chutes after that I may have just got him.

tRicky - I know I can look at Eventor for entries but that has 2 results. One is that I wish I was going and the second is that I then check every age group searching for people I'm interested in - hence the loss of about an hour.

I would like to go to Easter, but am not. I have a big work project to finish that will keep me tied to my desk, and l find l no longer have the energy to do everything. Also, if l went to Qld l would want to stay on and travel a bit.

Jenny - Tove still won in Tassie, didn't she, despite her deviation, and returned looking as fresh as though she hadn't yet started. She was amazing.

We are in much the same position re Easter, with a few extra constraints on top of the ones you mention. If you are in Bendigo over Easter, there may be a couple of informal orienteering consolation activities on some of my mapping projects.

We’re in Bendigo for Easter, with my parents assuming they manage to get here. It was only after I booked them somewhere to stay that I realised that Bendigo Easter Fair is a big thing.

I will keep the informal consolation activities in mind.

I'm going to have to generate my own "informal consolation activities" :-((

Ride all the MTBO events, one for each day.

Better placed to walk them. No - I'm planning on doing the Autumn oiling and staining with one day for Easter Egg hunting. Can't go to our Beach House at Wanda as someone else there! See you over the weekend - for about 10 minutes each event.

Is that to hand Tim each of his four championship trophies?

I'll be extremely disappointed if you don't win at least 1 event. I'll wager Tim will have 1 DNF.

Well between Steve and Tim it'll be hard to wrench anything away from them but I'm more concerned about whether my bike will stay in one piece. I've just not been able to get the gears to align properly no matter what I do.

Looks like my parkrun aspirations for the weekend won't be happening either. We're staying in Maitland but the Maitland parkrun has not been operating since early Feb. It's not really worth driving to the next nearest one and we'd be cutting it fine to get to the event on time anyway.

Yes you would - but an outside chance Nulkaba? It's reasonably close - but don't take my word for it and don't be late. The Start officials are fierce! Just check Nulkaba is on - has had water problems recently.

Sorry - got my days mixed up. Nulkaba is close to Neath but Neath is tomorrow.

The start officials can't be any more fierce than the download officials at the knockout sprint at last week's MSW. I'm pretty sure some people were turned off orienteering by some of those performances.

Yes the Saturday morning MTBO event is smack bang in the middle of three different parkruns with Blue Gum Hills being the nearest to the event (16mins) but another 25mins from here. I dare say I could make it - I did it in 2019 at Maryborough but that was a 10min ride between the two and I was already on the bike that was setup for the event...

If parkrun was tomorrow it'd be no issue with a 1pm start for MTBO.

Coincidentally BGHp had a congratulations to Carolyn Matthews last week for completing her 200th. I'm only just nearing 100!

Sorry Prue for hijacking your log - tRicky - Nulkaba is cancelled tomorrow - just read. Thought Carolyn M would have been higher than that, unless it was for 200 at BGH. I've got 2 to go for 250

Thanks, Nulkaba was never really an option anyway. I only brought one pair of shoes with me! It's not a good sign when the parkrun nearest to today's MTBO event is underwater.

CM 200 parkruns total; 127 at BGH.

8 secs! and you were leading with 2 controls to go

It was the mass start race. I caught Tim with three controls to go because he stuffed it up worse than I did. If I'd got that one cleanly he'd not have latched on and I'd have had a solo ride to the finish. As it was we rode the last three together, I figured I'd not get him in a sprint so took the alternative longer (but moderately safer) finish option hoping he'd mess up the other route. He did not.

I did too many dumb things today early on. I didn't expect to get that close.