Discussion: WOC - National Ranking

Well, I've run the calculations to determine a national ranking for WOC 2005. Approach is same as last year, i.e., 100 pts for 1st, ~0 points for last in each race, qualifiers and finals are treated same, relay points multiplied by 3 (see here and here for old threads). This year it is Switzerland on top, ahead of Sweden and Finland. Of greater interest here ... Canada is in 22nd and the United States in 24th.

Full results for WOC 2005 are here. Results from WOC 2004 for comparison are here.

Wow! New Zealand up from 27th in 2004 to 12th in 2005. What changed? A bigger women's team yes but mens results were much better too. France up from 14th to 4th. Japan up many positions as well.

New Zealand didn't send a full team to Sweden, iirc, choosing to focus on Japan instead. They can't afford to send a full team to annual WOCs and decided that a better use of their money was to continue to focus on a WOC every two years. And Japan is closer and cheaper for them than Sweden. I do not know which of Denmark or Ukraine they are focusing on but my guess is Ukraine.

An interesting approach (and it worked!).

For fun, I graphed the percentage behind the winner in the relay for the USA, Canada, and France. I figured it would be one quick way to look at the progression of team strength over time. On the men's side, early on the French results bounced around with us, then there is a very clear up and to the right improvement. I wonder what they did to get better?

On the women's side, their results were higher than ours, but relatively flat.

what they did to get better? how about, trained...

Actually, one thing that I think has helped them a lot is that there has been a critical mass of top orienteers in St. Etienne for a number of years. And now people who want to get better go there (for school or work). If all the best orienteers in the US moved to one place with good maps/terrain around, I bet the orienteering level would go up a good bit. Of course, they still would have to train, not just get together to party.

Yeah, thats all those guys up in Hamilton ever do - rock and roll all night...party every day! And look where its gotten them.

Steel-town baby!
Whitehorse is another option in the great white north eh'

Or BC's Interior...
with Brian and Abbi May now living in BC, that makes Kamloops the new hotbed of orienteering in Canada.
Let's party! Euh, I meant, let's train.

I've been making the argument about 'decreasing the geography' for years. We need a half dozen or so key areas with critical mass of young elite orienteers that live close to (or on) maps - ideally with a University for students to go to school. These areas are slowly developing in Canada and the Boston group is a great example of it in the US. The UK has this model. There are only 3 or 4 Universities that very good orienteers will attend now (e.g., Sheffield, Edinbugrh). This concept isn't new to North America for almost every other sport. The US and Canada have National Training Centres - and if you want to be good a sport A, B, or C then you move to places X, Y, or Z.

But it is more than just the elite orienteers that forms that critical mass. The local club/province needs to support it through map development, training opportunities, races, etc. It is a win-win situation when these synergies develop.

OK, gotta party I men train - Mr. Prither has arrived in the Steel City for 8 months of partying, I mean training, uh, yeah University at McMaster and we're off for our first training run together.