Discussion: Swiss O Week to Use Master Maps for Day 6

No, this is not part of some "think up an interesting headline about orienteering" contest.

Yes, this is for real.

What a joke.

The details --

It might rain tonight and or tomorrow. They are nervous about the stability of the road (the only access) leading to the meet site, given the landslides of several days ago. So they have decided there is too much risk, and have canceled the competition there.

I don't like that, I'm sure they don't like doing it, but I'm also sure it's the right decision. And at that point, they should cut their losses and we all go home.

But they want to have a day 6 (or day 5 for the very old and very young). So here's what they are doing --

We are going back to where we were today, the same crappy dangerous terrain. Seriously.

They have enough blank maps. They have (or will) design new courses (I'd guess just reshuffling the controls we used today). They don't have time to print them on the maps. So they will use master maps. Seriously.

Bring your own red pen. Seriously.

A major international orienteering event? What a joke.

I take my hat off to the Swiss organisers. They've had everything thrown at them this last week. I'm surprised that they're actually going ahead with putting on a Day 6 (how do you happen to have 3000 spare blank maps lying around of the Day 5 area?). I also don't envy the planner and controller crew who presumably have to draw up 40-something courses with about 24 hours notice.

The biggest appreciation however must go to the chief organisers who could so easily have cut and run. With 1 race already cancelled for many courses earlier in the week (Day 2 due to stolen control / 3 due to flooding rivers), it would have been a bit of a hollow feeling (especially for the foreign competitors) to have only run 4 days when everyone had original planned on 6.

The organizers should make the "6th" day optional. Seriously.

Furthermore all attendees who made at least two starts should get steeply discounted entries for any future Swiss O-week. The people who were stranded on Day 2 -- those who don't die of pnuemonia, that is -- should get free entry.

Just my not-the-least-bit humble opinion.

Now you're just being hard on the organizers. It's not a joke, it's impressive and a valid effort to redeem themselves. They have not had a good week and I guess they didn't just want to give up at the end. Even if a lot of things went wrong, at least they kept working their asses off until the end.

Weather related issues are not their fault, leaving people out in the rain because of missing transport is.

Given all that they have been through -- both of their own making and that of mother nature -- I think the organizers would have been more than justified if they had simply cut their losses and cancelled the 6th day.

The effort to provide a 6th day is commendable. However, I can't imagine the courses being of top quality -- and error-free. I wonder how much time the competitors had to copy their courses. What about young children? Did they have to copy their own maps? I pity anyone who in their haste miscopied controls -- more likely with complex terrain.

The best outcome would be a major post-mortem being conducted, at which mistakes are acknowledged and chalked up as learning experinces. Oh, and that future O-weeks are hugely successful.

H/D 10 and 12 had maps preprinted for them the night before. All other courses were given 10 minutes in which to copy their maps from under tented cover. The organisers had also provided printed control descriptions, so we didn't have to copy those and pens were provided for those who had forgotten.

The final day controls were placed out in the terrain early in the morning before the first start at 9am, many of them at sites that had never been visited by the organisers and almost all of them unvetted or tagged. Mistakes were thus unfortunately made, with 2 controls placed incorrectly. Further, 1 control on some of the easier kids courses was also stolen during the day. All courses affected by these were nullified.

I haven't seen any of the other courses, so I can't comment on their level of planning, but the HE course was well thought out, on a par with the previous day and maybe a fraction more interesting with route choice on some legs due to longer leg lengths. Although I recognised some parts of the area when running, all our sites and route legs were new.

The organisers also reversed start locations for the various starts, so that Start 1 now began on the west side of the map and Starts 2 and 3 on the east side. There was also a new finish arena in the small village. This meant that most of the shorter courses were in a completely different part of the map from yesterday.

Overall, a good recovery from the organisers. I'm glad that there was a Day 6 and that I ran it. If the organisers have a fault, I believe that they are probably a bit too ambitious in many ways. Their transport routes were extremely complex for 3000 competitors and were always going to suffer under the slightest stress. The race locations, although brilliant for the scenery and the unique terrain, were very inaccessible. Although the longer courses had great terrain after some good long walks to their starts, the shorter courses had to make do with shorter, less enjoyable parts of the map.

Upfront I was as well very sceptic to organize an event overnight for 3000 people, but it turned out to be an absolutly worthwile event.

The map is challenging and tough also for two races and the courses were (at least the ones I saw) very good.
You had to copy the course 10min before the race which is more than enough also to avoid miscopying and D/H 10 and 12 had printed maps.

But looking at the orginally planned stage 4 it's really a shame that we couldn't go up there (Short courses would have been not that interesting there neither....)

Edit: you were faster:) - I wasn't aware of many new spots on day 2 - most of them seemed to be the same as day 1

I haven't been checking Attackpoint enough recently, so I'm just now seeing this. Wow. Congratulations, Hill!!! Seriously, that's awesome.

I guess all's well that ends well.

That said, I will reiterate my earlier suggestion:

All attendees who made at least two starts should get discounted entries for any future Swiss O-week. The equivalent of 2-3 free days seems fair. The people who were stranded on Day 2 should get free entry.

that could get really complicated... people could let friends enter under their name if they were going to the Swiss O-Week and get cheap entries
Or other people could claim they were one of the ones left in the rain..

You enter these things with the express understanding that there are no refunds, no matter what. The organizers spend all the money up front. That's just the way it is.

You also enter these things with the knowledge that orienteering is an outdoor sport, and that the weather can be anything from wonderful to horrible. You try to be prepared. You understand that days can get canceled. Nobody's happy, but it happens.

And when they say Go, you try to get to the finish as fast as you can, no matter whether you like the course or not.

None of the above is anything new.

I have been running events in Switzerland since 1977, including the 5-day in Burgdorf in 1980 when it rained every day, the campground was mostly underwater, there was mud everywhere, and it was still great. The ultimate was 3 years ago in Zermatt, wonderful event, and I'm talking about the terrain and the logistics, not just the weather.

This is the first time I have been disappointed at a Swiss event. I think the primary reason was that on 4 days they used uninteresting little corners of the map for my class (M65), mostly guys who have been orienteering for decades and don't need something dumbed down.

If you ran out of starts 1 or 2, you had a quite different experience.