Discussion: Following

I have heard that following another competitor is generally against the rules of orienteering. Has anyone ever been disqualified for the violation? How would you ever prove such a thing?

We've had many discussions about this topic on A/P. Rather than rehash, here's the salient paragraphs from USOF's Rules for Orienteering:

35. Fairness
35.1 All persons who take part at an orienteering event...shall demonstrate a high degree of fairness, a sporting attitude, a spirit of comradeship and honesty...
35.3 A competitor shall not...intentionally run with or behind other competitors during the event in order to profit from their skill....
35.9 Competitors for whom the preponderance of evidence shows that they have broken these Rules may be disqualified from the event by the jury.

There have been cases where the following was blatant and witnessed by third parties, including meet officials. Off the top of my head, I can't recall any disqualifications.

We've disqualified some juniors for "teaming" at Washington Interscholastic Orienteering League (WIOL) events. Basically, runners from the same team would convene in the woods and then run the course together. Looking at data from WinSplits Pro, this sort of teaming/following is blatantly obvious.

Of all of the data I've analyzed, it's always been juniors from the same team following, not individuals from separate teams.

However, I can't find any rule on the WIOL website that prohibits teaming/following. (Though, I'm not the WIOL director, so I don't know what rules are received by the coaches and their teams.)

We had referees in the woods for the recent Interscholastics at West Point. We agreed that we were looking for the following criteria (which could trigger bringing the situation to the jury, along with info on splits):

1. Discussion that involved collaboration (pointing, talking about the map or control locations, yelling)
2. Two or more teammates that were together at multiple points on courses (of course, we split teammates up by start times so that would have been really hard to do)

We could also have looked for one runner moving with another without consulting the map, and checked to see if that was the case at the multiple observed locations, but that was a lot harder to track. I think if a competitor complained about someone doing that, then you could look at splits, but it would be hard to prove without some outside input.

We had very few issues, which resulted in warnings to coaches, and no disqualifications. Most of what we saw involved JV runners (Orange) who were at the bottom of the standings - clearly not ready to be running at that level, they were pretty lost out there.

Ah, perhaps that explains what I saw at your meet while shadowing my son on the white course on Sunday. At one point I saw 3 or 4 youngsters apparently from the same team converge and converse. The odd part, at least to me, was that they didn't appear to be in any particular hurry. One had been sitting on a rock for minutes at least, while others were arriving there and not departing. Whatever it was they were doing it certainly didn't appear like following or getting a competitive advantage, nor did I see anything to lead me to believe one of them had been injured. In over their heads on orange I could believe, though I didn't pick up on that at the time.

The Board of Directors received an after the fact protest from the Georgia Navigator Cup that was based on running together evidence from split data, but for a number of reasons the protest was withdrawn and never ruled on. No one was disqualified.

There are a number of "strange" situations where following is not really frowned upon, including relays (I think this is perhaps the famous "open admission" of following that whyjustrun is remembering). Also last year in France I saw an elite Mass start event - it was a strange sight to see many of the best runners in the world running in a pack - a bit like a basketball game where nothing interesting happens until the last 30 seconds.

That's the spirit, the kids have a great fun day enjoying the countryside and then the adults ruin their fun and find ways to impose rules and officaldom on their enjoyment. It's supposed to be fun (isn't it?), and one presumes a 'scholastic' is about encouraging kids into the sport and not being too serious about it? Or, as an Aussie would say "It's not like they're racing for sheepstations!".

By all means education of rules is good, but it all seems a bit over the top from my poor perspective down under. So what if 5 kids waste time waiting for a mate to come along and then they go round together - it's not like all of them will be the winner, or remotely 'competitive' Maybe they even have more fun that way? :-)

Bring it on.

True - but when teams have flown across the country to compete for a national title, following the rules should be important and encouraged in the spirit of fair play. The purpose of the referees in the Interscholastic Championship was to promote fair play, and I certainly believe it belongs at that level.

If athletes are not ready for an intermediate level course, they should not be competing at that level - and if they want to have fun and work together, enter them as a recreational group. But allow those who are competitive to participate on a level playing field. Cheating in such a competition just makes everyone more focused on a sense of unfairness rather than what we're really here to do - enjoy the sport and seek to better ourselves.

An example of following leading to disqualification

http://my.opera.com/chissick/blog/2009/02/28/cheat...

Are you allowed to grab a fellow runner to get an advantage in a cross-country race? Rules say No.

Are you allowed to throw the puck in the net in hockey?
Rules say No.

For recreational classes this rule kinda goes out the window, and should not be inforced. Get them hooked first, and then worry about poor etiquette.

In competitve classes, as with other O guidelines/rules, there is somewhat of a GREY area. A competitor who is accused of cheating could say "our routes just happened to match up....I was reading my map and making my own decisions....i attempted to pass but wasn't able to...yadayadayada.

Luckily, most competitive orienteers do not follow since it takes away from the challenge and enjoyment of a course. I personally avoid people when on the course, and make more mistakes attacking controls when I see other people.

There was a lot of discussion after WOC 2005 in Japan (including here on attackpoint I believe) because the physical terrain did favor grouping and the course was not efficient enough to avoid this. I think some elites did admit following but no official actions.

Since then the debate continues and you can find grouping analysis on Woo. Not that it changed the results, just helped to analyse course setting.
http://news.worldofo.com/2008/05/29/grouping-runne...

If I remember correctly, one of the lesson is that putting a forking system (like a butterfly) after the 2/3 of the course is the most efficient way to break most groups.

The link given by jcarr: wow, this is a really shameful case of intentional, planned cheating... Fortunately it led to disqualification this time.

There is also the infamous case of Sandvik vs Losman at Tiomila 2005, where Losman was specifically instructed to follow Sandvik at all cost and oversprint him, as the last leg was unforked. Raised a lot of comments at the time, but really having an unforked leg was the problem, not the no following rule.

I just can't understand the mindset of a deliberate Orienteering cheat (or cheating in any sport/game.)

Let's face it, our sport isn't exactly lucrative so what do they gain? Prestige? Couldn't be self satisfaction.

How do they feel when they get home that night and reflect on their great result? How hollow would that feel? Seems really weird to me.

I'm certainly frustrated with my own inabilities (in every endevour) but I still like to do my personal best and do it fairly.

Having said that I must say that we all get influenced by others we see out on a course and sometimes you do get an advantage if you have a similarly paced runner in front of you. The thing is you still keep evaluating your map and run as independantly as you can without being stupid and taking an alternate but less efficient route (which I sometimes used to do to my own detriment).

Even at my non-elite level I have had instances where I've caught somebody or they have caught me after a mistake and we have run many legs "together". Often we have run different micro route choices or even a high and a low route and have come back together at the control almost at the same time so I think proving deliberate cheating would be difficult unless it's the same individual that does this on several occasions.

> ...because the physical terrain did favor grouping...

>If I remember correctly, one of the lesson is that putting a forking system (like a butterfly) after the 2/3 of the course is the most efficient way to break most groups.

If I remember correctly, these were emphatically not the lessons, but rather that courses with major route choices are much more effective at minimizing group running.

The Japanese Long course was notable in squandering one of the greatest opportunities ever for great long route choice legs. Instead the course tried to maximize the limited technical potential of the terrain, with many relatively short legs, with competitors running close to the same route, therefore maximizing the contact opportunities, especially around control sites.

Once made, these contacts are nearly impossible to break, ESPECIALLY on short leg technical courses, where the running speed of the leader is further reduced and following is made even easier and more rewarding.

I am rather sure that the evidence on butterfly loops is that they are rather ineffective at reducing pack formation, unless the forks/loops are very large scale, or with great differences.

Anybody want to re- present the data? It sounds like we need it.

I wanna see MythBusters do a show about butterfly loops.

as a M14 i DNF'd the first day of a 2 day event. i was annoyed because i was a promising M14 and loved winning events. So on the 2nd day i just went out and ran hard as you do as a M14. It just so happened that i caught another M14 who was a suspected follower. he often got good results off the back of others. So as i had DNF'd the first day i thought id do an experiment and took this guy for a run around the forest that was no where near our course. he of course followed me and after 20 minutes i asked hm where we were and he just looked at me blankly and had no idea. i then completed that course quite staisfied i had proven my suspisions. he didnt follow me again after that day.

My point is that following does occur but i think it is mainly done in the younger age calsses and as leepback pointed out it wouldnt make to follower all that self satisfied (unless all they want to do is collect silver medals for following the winner.)

Seeing "Following" has been mentioned again I got to thinking about what we here term "Badge Hunting".

This is where people run down a class at major events so as to win. It's not breaking the rules and not as objectionable as deliberate following but is mostly frowned upon here in Oz. Even so it does happen. More often though we have older guys wanting to compete in younger classes (often sucessfully).

I'd rather run at the highest level I could (within reason) and come last than win a lesser class.

BTW: If you are ever running down because of "injury" then you could do what I witnessed at one event where an elite(that was still head and sholders above that class) deliberatly failed to punch the last control. What great sportsmanship. Bravo.

i thought id do an experiment and took this guy for a run around the forest

At an event here close to 20 years ago, there was a case where a notorious follower was starting near one of the better M21s. Another M21 had vetted the course, and colluded with the good M21. He said that there was a water stop where the course looped near the parking area, and if you're being followed, make sure you come in first and be prepared to take a few seconds drinking. The vetter estimated when the pair would arrive, and was waiting at the water stop. The good M21 arrived, nodded to the vetter, and stopped to drink. When the follower got there a couple of seconds later, the vetter took off, looking at some kind of paper that he had in his hand. The follower switched hosts and headed off following the vetter rather than waiting for the good M21 to drink. The vetter charged off into the parking area, still looking at his "map", then abruptly stopped next to a car and started chatting with friends. At least 10 minutes later, the follower was still running around the parking lot trying to figure out where he was.

mouse136 and jjcote - those stories are classics ha ha I would so love to do that to someone!

....but nobody would follow me

More analysis about the Japan WOC than you want to read...

http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0508/0508158.p...

Leepback - "Badge Bandits" happen for a whole host of reasons, often in my classes/age group because of babies...Should these women mispunch the last control just because their navigation is so much better than their fitness at a given time? I don't think so and they are in my class! I'd rather the result reflect what happened and who I did compete against. That said, following to get a badge is not the way to go if you want any personal satisfaction from your sport.

Fizzy, suppose I hadn't thought about this aspect but even so if they are dropping back due to pregnancy or recent childbirth then they probably have been running this class for a while (I believe its a longish process having a child) and this isn't really what I'm on about.

I take a dim view of those that drop back only for major events. Like Oz champs or 3 Days then return to their regular classes, not those that have a few events under their belts in that class thru the rest of the orienteering season.

Doesn't happen a lot but does occasionally.

Call me old-fashioned, or overly simplistic, but if one happens to be old or young enough to run a particular age class then they have a right to run that class. If they happen to have chosen to run a higher standard out of choice for a while(maybe for 'training'), or even occasionally, that doesn't preclude them for running their correct age group at Championship events!

Sounds like the issue is more in the minds of those who aren't quite the calibre of others in their age bracket and may not be used to being out done in their 'protected' class! ( I used to race "open" in local triathlons, and probably still could - but with 30-syndrome taking effect, why enter a small open field and be off the back when I can enter my correct age-group and strive to make top-3. Far more fun and motivating for me).

Sounds like the issue is more in the minds of those who aren't quite the calibre of others in their age bracket and may not be used to being out done in their 'protected' class!

Hey Tooms, you're a bit off the money when alluding to where I'm coming from. Nuh...I'm not good, but I do run the A class, not AS and always plod around about middle of the bunch so it never affects me results wise. Besides the A class is a bigger group and thus also has a better social atmosphere. (after the event of course).

Anyway I haven't suggested barring them or DSQ or anything like that, I just find it an option I would struggle to be comfortable doing myself. (Ha Ha....I may not win if I dropped to the AS class anyway)

I don't know your situation, especially with triathlon, and perhaps I may not be verbalising my thoughts overly well or have given a good example, but what do you think about a local "red" standard competitor running "green" at an overseas event and then taking a podium. Doesn't appeal to my Oz sense of fair play and I have witnessed this occur. Definite "badge hunter" imo.

Overall I think the orienteering community is fairly honest and fair-minded in regards to their chosen sport and it's only a handful that actually aren't.

what if SI/Emit units required separation of, say, 10 seconds between punches? I.e. if one person punches, they don't accept another punch for 10 seconds. Then if a 'good' orienteer catches a 'bad' one, the 'good' one just has to get into a control first (which he will, he's better) to have a chance to get away.

Obviously this wouldn't work at high-participation races where controls are used frequently by various courses, but it might in WOC and other championships.

I think dropping navigational standard is an entirely different kettle of fish leepback, I agree wholeheartedly that dropping a higher to lower standard of nav is just not cricket. But 'dropping' from 21E to 21A or to 35A or 45A even (if you're fit enough) or whatever is perfectly ok as you are actually returning to your own age group.

10 seconds wouldn't be a long enough time separation. You would need about 30 to 60 seconds to let the first person get far enough away.

what if SI/Emit units required separation of, say, 10 seconds between punches?

Wretched idea, in my opinion. I would probably refuse to participate in such an event.

wretched: wow. why?

I'm with jj on that.

How about electoshock collars triggered by proximity other racers? ;-)

wretched: wow. why?

An orienteer is gaining on and passing others. He has almost caught someone as he approaches a control, but since the other punches just ahead of him, he has an arbitrarily imposed delay before he can continue. And that's not even counting malicious manipulation where somebody waits at a control for somebody they don't like to catch up, and punch just before the victim arrives, grinning with the knowledge that he will now have to wait for the control to reset. Bogus.

If you are intrested... I developed a script analyzing splits. It does not only detect packs, it also calculates the effect of the packs. I used it on every WOC-Competition I could get the splits and I could show how big the influence of packs on the final result of such important competitions was. On main insight of my analysis is, the kind of 'following without reading map' is not the worst thing in regard to the results but it the mutal influence of two really good competitors. You can see this when the one catching up another performs better after that (means: they push and pull each other).

for ex. at WOC Men Long
1999 it was Valstad (1) and Berger (3) as Bjorseth (2) with Davidik
2003 Omeltschenko and Mamleev (these to openly admitted to following // They tried to disqualify them for that but it did not work)
2005 Lauenstein (2) and Khramov (1)

Here I wrote an article about my findings
Article (With all my analysis)

My actual favourite is to let them start with six minutes intervall an to take everyone out of the competition who got passed by another. This really would rock! :-)

an to take everyone out of the competition who got passed by another

How would that work (and what's the point) if someone gets ahead on a different route choice and the two never see each other? I can see that the controls could be programmed so that if a later runner had already been to the control, then earlier runners would get a tone indicating that they were now out of the race. That would be weird if somebody paces himself to start slowly and finish strong. And a runner taking controls out of sequence (or just inadvertantly missing one) could really wreak havoc.

If it was part of the game I would not be the wisest to start slow. :-)

Whitesheeps idea is not as bad, there even was a proposal from the organizers of the WOC 2003 to the IOF after the case with Mamleev and Omeltschenko. They just expanded the rule that you only can be blocked by a runner who started behind you... usually 15 seconds would be enough ( ~ 60m) . Addtitionally they proposed that you can only be blocked at the second control in a row, you approach together...

They just expanded the rule that you only can be blocked by a runner who started behind you... usually 15 seconds would be enough ( ~ 60m) .

Which means that two can still run together and cooperate, as long as they are careful to punch in the proper order, right?

Yes!

(but I doubt this would be a tactical option) There will be a big mess if three runners approach a control at the same time ... thats why I favourite to just take the slower ones out. :-)

take everyone out of the competition who got passed by another.

To do it we would have to check punches after each control.

the rule that you only can be blocked by a runner who started behind you

So if a favourite makes 2 min mistake at #1 the runner who started behind could happily follow all the way to victory, and even better if he likes to get some recovery time he could try puncining first.

To do it we would have to check punches after each control.
No problem with a slightly modified SI System

So if a favourite makes 2 min mistake at #1 the runner who started behind could happily follow all the way to victory
Who would blindly follow a runner who looses 2 minutes to the first control?

and even better if he likes to get some recovery time he could try punchining first.

Good idea. :-)

...follow a runner who looses it has happenned, several times. Just imagine TG making mistake at #1. It can happen.

I don't think there is any cheap tricks to fix this issue. 6 min start interval must be out of question. With 60 competirors race would last 8 hours. Just think of weather conditions. Even 3 min was too long for and we had to use 2 minutes. Small butterflies does not work and long butterfiels almost always turn long race in to a boring control picking course with huge amount of controls. And it may not work anyway.

Any cheap trick like suggested taking slow ones out out, punch unit tricks, "wait for 20 sec and punch again beeps" and so on will be protested a lot and it is very difficult to believe those would ever be accepted.

We must be able to have a have nice classic type of course and
ahletes just do they best without having to wait. And we must be able to use 2-3 min start interval to make event shout enough. And the fastest is the winner. There is still lots of less harsh methods still untested to make this work, one of those might work just fine.

BTW, I am amused to see 'no problem' and 'SI system' in a same centence.

6 min start interval must be out of question.

why? - make the qualification a REAL qualification, let only the top 15 or 20 enter the final and then let em start every six minutes. All problems would be solved at once. You wouldn't even have to spoil the competition with some less harsh and not working* separation techniques.

*You know the NOF Paper and in there you find not one really working ST.

I am amused to see 'no problem' and 'SI system' in a same centence.
Good point!

I can uderstand your point, but I am not sure would a race of only 15 runners with 6 min start interval be so intresting to spectate. And WOC is not the only race out there. We can't always have qual race in orienteering and packs are not WOC only problem.

And if we have 15 runers in final, and if we take 3 best from each qual race, thats 5 qual races. If we have same 6 min interval and max 15 runners we have 5 x 15= 45 runners. So we will need a quarter finals, semi finals before the actual final (?) or we should use shoter interval in qualifications and accept someone could follow his way to the final and get top 15 placing.

I am not sure have I read the final paper, but wasn't the final paper about methods we have already used and kind of already knew those does not work? There must be methods we haven't tried yet, some of those might work just fine. I even suggested one harsh method at the early stage of the project as you may remember, still never tested, no-one can tell would it work.

Using 6-10 min interval would work of course, but it would be also kind of giving up.

What has happend with macr-O idea and blind controls?
http://news.worldofo.com/index.php?s=macr-O

Control D should be/look like an O.K. control to me. I see it as a good chance to make additional orienteering problem for co-operating pairs of runners without spoilling the course.

would a race of only 15 runners with 6 min start interval be so intresting to spectate.

To me it would, for ex. there would be more time to stay in touch with a runners race history (intermediate times and live route analysis)...

I agree with your points about qualification races and that it is not working if you haven't any qualification at all. Still I like the idea that at least National and International Championchips are almost packfree. This would be a very strong signal down to the base. Because ...
someone could follow his way to the final and get top 15 placing. ... and would totally fail there. :-)

I don't see this as giving up but allowing a coursesetter to plan really though, championchips-worthy courses without to much compromises towards to the 'perfect' separation method.

>kofols: The method does not seem to separate: The controls stay to close and the macro-control is specially marked, letting every of the cooperating runners know, that he has to find his control by himself.

This would be a very strong signal down to the base

Now I don't understand. Signal of what and why?

Those may not fail so totally in final. Why would they, if they got to the final by getting 1 min advantage in qual it does not mead they are all that bad. Margins are not that big.

kofols: The method does not seem to separate: The controls stay to close and the macro-control is specially marked, letting every of the cooperating runners know, that he has to find his control by himself.


I agree that Macr-o in general is not acceptable (different courses,...), but I ask myself should we allowed blind controls only like in this example of Control D? For me it is probably the only fair Macr-o control.

You mentioned that they push and pull each other. As we all know, we can't split runners who cooperate so easily with existing methods when they come together. They probably gain some advantages, so in my opinion you get two problems; cooperating and following. As I understand at Elite level main problem is cooperating not following and understanding that cooperating runners could get a medal and very hard someone who just follow. That's way I don't see those blind controls in the function that should be good separating method but maybe only good method to get extra pressure on cooperating pairs. More as extra problem and hopping that they will spend in some cases more time to locate real CP than runners who run alone. At least both of them will be forced to make personal decision not just relaying on running partner and hopping that he will locate the correct control.

Can we put more pressure on both of them with this logic; punch correct CP or you gets disq.

jagge: I might be my bad english :-) ... What I mean is something like that: Every orienteerer will learn, that orienteering at the end is about performing 'alone', even if at most competitions you might meet others, but the best, they do it alone. (as for example Matthias Merz winning the WOC 2007). Every result in orienteering gained by following or cooperation might become less valuable, because this is not the kind of orienteering the best do. ...

jagge2: I agree with you, that no one qualifing for the Top15 final will fail totally. What I really meant to say is, that such a runner would lack the benefit, he had from following in the qualification, in the final. So he would be nominally be by far the weakest in the final and therefore his solo performance is to be expected not to influence the finals top ten.

kofols: I see your point but I disagree. The pressure to choose the right CP at a Macr-O (type D) is as high for runners attacking the CP alone, as for those attacking the CP with others. Once more the ones in packs have an 'extra-information', I use to define the term 'cooperation' by. (One sees the decision of his packmate). All what you have in the end is having introduced an element of precision (Pre-o) into orienteering, which I personally doubt that it's fun. To me it is making orienteering more complex until even the best start making mistakes and (in your version) get kicked out inmediately.

Looks like Swedes are making new rules.

http://www.orientering.se/Arrangor/Tavling/Tavling...

New 12 sec rule. I wonder who would they disqualify in cases like WOC 2009 sprint Ewels & Vinogradova. Or long Niggli & Kauppi. And what they think runners should have done during the race.

Yes, this sounds ridiculous. Curious to see what happens when trying to apply these rules in practice.

Okay, for the benefit of those of us whose Swedish is less than rudimentary, what's the summary?

The rules say that it is forbidden to run together ("samlöpning") - running together being defined by two or more runners visiting three controls or more in a row within 12 seconds.

Nothing there about who is in front. If the rules would have been directly applied, Hubmann did as much "wrong" as Mamleev during WOC Long.

So, if you run really hard for a few controls, you can force a disqualification of someone better than you?

So, if you run really hard for a few controls, you can force a disqualification of someone better than you?
Or you can at least force him to slow down and wait 12sec... In my opinion following should be addressed by intelligent event organization (start interval, separation techniques etc.) and not by a rule which is almost impossible to enforce.

a rule which is almost impossible to enforce.

How so? It seems like it would be quite easy to enforce - it's just a matter of checking the splits. Not that I *like* the rule, but it at least has the advantage of being objective.

If forced to adapt such a rule (and I wouldn't want to), it seems to me that 12 second is too long. With three short legs a faster runner could slowly but surely overtake a slower one with something like -12s, +3s, +12s, with really nobody thinking that anybody did anything wrong. The list of examples like this is likely quite long.

How so? It seems like it would be quite easy to enforce - it's just a matter of checking the splits

Probably harder than it seems except for the smallest of start fields due to the exploding number of combinations, tho someone could probably write software to go thru them all.

It would seem that any involved runner would be disincented to protest the specific splits (as they would themselves be disqualified if the protest were upheld), thus requiring the more brute force approach.

This is not yet a new rule. It's a proposal. Comments are welcome until 15 October. Then it and other proposed changes will be discussed at a leadership conference in November. Then maybe a second round of comments. Any actual changes will actually be voted on at the federation meeting in March 2010, to be effective in 2011.

So I'd say it's quite a ways from taking effect, at least in its current form.

How nice it would be if the IOF operated with this level of transparency and willingness to seek input from others.

I would have been disqulified for running together in all my 2009 individual races so far, except one. I did not know I was such a bad boy.

I was once followed by a guy who ran in front of me, looking behind to see which way I was going. He was running faster than I was and every time we got near the control he'd sprint up to it and punch. It was a six day event, day 4 and we were 2nd and 3rd overall: I had caught him at no. 1. I guess with this new rule we'd both have to wait 12 seconds at every control so I could have my turn punching.

why 12? seems rather arbitrary (not to mention rather stupid).

I find it hard to believe that Swedish rule will get implemented just as proposed. It would hold that Greg Khanlarov and I were running together from control 8 through control 12 of the COC Middle just past - we punched seven seconds apart at 8, 1 second apart at 9, 4 seconds apart at 10, 2 seconds apart at 11 and 9 seconds apart at 12. Probably Greg got some small benefit from punching behind me on those first three controls but I'm quite sure he was doing his own navigation since he then took a completely different route choice on the ~800 meter leg to 11 and I didn't see him again until about 50 meters from the control, which he punched two seconds ahead of me. No doubt there are plenty of similar cases in Sweden, some involving orienteers carrying GPS trackers, that will come up as this rule is discussed.

It (punching interval rule) will be a stupid and unnecessary rule.

Way back in this thread EricW thought the packs in Japan were caused by many short legs in the technical part of the terrain. I have to disagree, and my argument is .... Thierry Gueorgiou. One would think that if EricW is correct, then packs affecting the results would be even more prevalent in middle distance. Yet Thierry has won 6 WOC middle distance titles, starting from many different places in the field, and he has not really been in a pack, and nor could you really say that someone has followed him into a place.

My view - Long distance should go back to 3 minute start intervals and a random draw, perhaps with a small amount of seeding to ensure the top runners (ie top ranked over the year, not the top ones in the qualifiers) are at least 6 minutes apart.

Middle should stay at 2 minutes, and not go back to the former 1 minute interval.

Sprint - doesn't matter if there are packs as the ones in the pack who are 1, 2, 3 minutes behind the leader are out of the places anyway.

Relay - bring it (following) on! (But have better forking systems.)

Question: in mass start events like a relay, isn't following just part of the strategy? I would have thought it perfectly acceptable for someone to try to follow in a relay or goat event. And also, perfectly acceptable for there to be attempts to foil any followers - whether by the organizers using forking or individuals trying to outwit their shadows . I'm getting the sense though that this isn't true.

is the mass start one-person relay aka farsta aka hagaby method aka what we like to call O-Cross here in S. Ontario frowned upon as an alternative to interval start long courses?

Simmo: whether or not you are right, your argument isn't exactly valid.

Thierry has won the gold medal at WOC in the middle distance:

2009 Hungary
2008 Czech
2007 Ukraine
2005 Japan
2004 Sweden
2003 Switzerland

Hungary is the only time he did not win his qualification heat; he has certainly not started from many places in the field. He is most often the last starter. Anecdotally, I know he and Novikov ran together part of the course in Kiev. Novikov is no slouch at the middle and can generate results on his own, but anyway...

Incidentally, Ukraine and Switzerland were the only races he won where 3rd place was greater than 2 minutes behind, or, in other words, far enough back that the start interval could be overcome on the way to a medal. But again, I am not convinced that Novikov, Valstad, and Kristiansen couldn't do this on their own.

I say all this without looking at all what the start lists were for the finals--just the results.

My point is that the ratio of the winning time to start interval and the depth of the field in the middle are such that following, should it occur, is not likely to lead to a medal.

That may not be the case in the Long, such as in 2009.

For the long I just don't get it why they start the women+men fields seperatly. They waited for the women before they turned to the men.

Why can't they start "interleaved" with let's say a 6min gap?
Plus they could time the races, so we as the spectators don't have to wait for 1.5h after the women finish to know the mens winner. I don't really care for the places 30-45 if I don't know them "personally" and when I do, I still have the GPS and the live-results (given they work) and I could give them the proper attention.

Any thoughts?

It would be nice to start the men and women all together or interleaved. Since the winning times are different you would still have two separate moments of "who's going to win" excitement. But, even if interleaved to have 4 min gaps, you're still talking about a 3 hour start window for runners on the same course. Too much?

In the old days (e.g. 1993), the men and women started together in the long. But for some reason I'm still waiting for an explanation of, the specified winning time for the women was shorter than for the men (I suspect this is still true, though I'm not paying attention closely enough to be sure). I can understand shorter distance for women, but not shorter time. I blame this all on male chauvinism on the part of the IOF, the same mentality that kept women from running marathons for so long, and still keeps women's ski-jumping out of the Olympics. Why do the women start earlier? Because they are the pre-game show, and the men are the main event. The women need to be pushed aside before the real excitement happens.

Winning times are still different for the men and women in the long. It does seem rather silly.

The women did start earlier for the long, but not for the sprint, so it may be that the notion of women as the pre-game show is changing.

Winning times should be based on physiology. The whole basis for age-based winning times, as I understand it, is based on when the "typical X ranked runner in age group Y" becomes too fatigued to process the map and run at capacity. There is no reason the same though process should not be applied to gender-based winning times (as a general point). Perhaps it has, perhaps it hasn't, who knows? So, if the X ranked M21 reaches that point at 100 minutes, and the X ranked F21 reaches that point at 120 minutes, those should be the winning times.

As for interleaving, seems like a good idea to me. The main benefit would be to spread out the start interval in both genders, which seems like a good idea.

JMHO, of course.

My Swedish isn't even rudimentary, but aren't they suggesting a time penalty rather than disqualification?

Kap 7 ? Åtgärder vid regelöverträdelser
Beskriver hur regelanmälan hanteras och eventuella påföljder.
Nytt: 7.4.1 Tävlandes regelöverträdelse - Tävlande som gjort sig skyldig till regelbrott, som kan vara resultatpåverkande, ska ådömas tidstillägg om 1-5 minuter eller diskvalificeras.

aren't they suggesting a time penalty rather than disqualification?

No sign of that. What they are now saying is that under the proposal there may be extenuating circumstances and that disqualification is not automatic. Such circumstances might be (1) the runners actually took different route choices, (2) the terrain was such that the runners lacked different route choices, or (3) they were three short legs they were together on, and not a significant part of the course and the jury would need to see running together on more legs.

My guess is this is a long long ways from taking effect. And if it eventually does, who knows what the final form will be.

I wonder how long it will take before they think of the idea of letting runners skip one or two controls. It would make things much more interesting, mass start or not.

Nja. I don't know...
1) The way it is proposed now in the SOFT-Rules, every runner meeting another in the forest will be severly disturbed in his own orienteering by being forced follwing some additional 'keep your distance'-regulations. This is not fair.
2) Every runner can get into this situation without own guilt by catching up another runner. So an element of luck is introduced sincerly clashing the perspective of equal conditions.
3) By not making any difference between catcher and captive, they will be forced to disqualfy a Hubmann because of a Mamleev. To avoid that, they would have to reintroduce soft indicators again and by doing so they would be at the same point, we are now: We have a hard time to define 'independent' and 'not independent, so even strong evidence like in the Hubmann-Mamleev case is not enough to disqualify anybody.
4) By intervening AFTER the competition it will be hardly possible to extinct all the influence a grouping did to a final result. At least if you start making distinctions of the type mentioned above. If you do not disqualify both, the one remaining in the ranking will have enjoyed all the benefits a runner has out of grouping, even as permanent leader (pacemaker, back-up, control-pilotage a.s.o.)

5) The rules try to solve the problem of 'objectivly defining following' the wrong way (see points above) What I really am missing here is a more specified definition of how competitors should/could behave in case of meeting in the forest.

http://www.orientering.se/Nyheter/Hangningsregelns...

Following will be allowed from now on in international races / WOC?

Well, no one will be disqualified for following, which would certainly be a ch... oh wait, not so much. ;-)

http://www.aftonbladet.se/senastenytt/ttsport/spor...

It's interesting how SOFT and IOF keep going opposite directios. Now IOF just allows following from now on and SOFT makes complicated following rules. Few moths ago SOFT allowed gps use for navigation, IOF does't let runners even carry units with display. SOFT has had own mapping standards for long time, own form lines, north lines not allowed to be parallel to paper edges, no grey bare rock and so on.

I think IOF decission is good. From now on it's not competitor's fault if someone happens to run in front of you, takes same route choice. And you are not expected to spoil your race by taking bad route choices to make you not look like follower. But following is still not desired, so course setter is the one who makes sure following doest'n paly too big role here, meaning 3 min start interval and use of efffective spreading methods. 3 min start interval combined with my dead loop spreading method would work quite perfectly for long races.

that dead loop seems very good solution to be integrated in races that have sport arena and stuff.. 2*40 secs of pure running is very good solution ,especially given its description