Discussion: 3 day USA Team Trials in MN now open for registration

USA WOC/JWOC team Trials - 3 days of great orienteering in MN- are now open for registration for all (team trial and others at all levels)

Day 1 (Fri Apr 28 pm) - Sprint courses- Como Park St Paul MN (a suburban park)

Day 2 (Sat Apr 29) - middle distance courses at Interstate State Park (WI) , St Croix Falls WI - about 1 hr NE of St Paul with bluffs, floodplain, and rock detail

Day 3 (Sun Apr 30) - regular distance courses at Mille Lacs Kathio State Park Onamia MN (about 1 hr 40 min N of St Paul) with awesome forested kettle moraine terrain

Register for one, two or three days of great orienteering at www.mnoc.org

Looks great! I'm looking forward to it.

Mille Lacs Kathio is a fabulous terrain, but ticks there are of the size of a small frog

It's the tiny ticks that you need to worry about.

sensible precautions are permethrin liberally sprayed on clothing and shoes (lasts a few weeks) , and deet products on the skin . Those 2 approaches seem to be very effective and the ticks stay away.

Orienteering Canada's High Performance Committee has chosen these events for the Canadian WOC Team selection races. It should be a good weekend with the best orienteers from both US and Canada competing.

Can the organizers comment on how the start time windows will work, both for those in the two selection races and for those, like me, who might consider coming but would not be competing in either country's selection race? Thanks.

Good question... but it sounds like it's now 3 selection races!

"has chosen"
Have you checked with the supreme leader? Just half joking :(

@fossil: I think @feet is referring to the two countries' selection races, not to the three days of races. In other words, for each day, how is the start window going to work for the US team, the Canadian team, and the rest of us?

US WOC Team, US JWOC Team, Canadian WOC Team

Thanks very much to MNOC for hosting the event! Could the Sunday start window be moved earlier to accommodate people trying to fly out of Minneapolis that event? At present, the start window is 11 AM to 2 PM, with courses closing at 4 PM. The park is two hours from the airport; allotting arriving 90 minutes early, the earliest flight that can be made given finishing at course closing time is 7:30 PM. This ignores any awards ceremony or team announcements which might follow the course closing time.

The events page at mnoc.org has the wrong dates in the headings (27th, 28th, 29th, instead of 28th, 29th, 30th). The correct dates are mentioned in the paragraph of description about each event. That is, assuming the dates @iriharding posted above are correct.

The registration section mentions Public White through Public Red, and OUSA Team Trials Women and Men. So no Public Blue? Is Public Red the same course as OUSA Team Trials Women? Is it possible for the public to register for and run the team trials courses?

The team trials courses ("Blue/Red only") are listed on the OUSA calendar of sanctioned events, but the MNOC registration page doesn't appear to be set up to handle a sanctioned event (no OUSA member number, no OUSA discount ...). I take it the Public events are not sanctioned, will not count towards OUSA ranking, etc. Could you clarify how sanctioning/ranking is handled for the Team Trials races (including non-team participants, if allowed)?

@iansmith and others :

Thanks for your questions. The exact logistics and timing of the 3 days of events is currently being finalized. There are several constraints that we are operating under:
1) Team trials folks have expressed needs for blocked start windows and good spacing for the team to ensure fairness for those aspiring to the teams (Canadian, US Senior and US Junior) (detailed requirements not finalized as yet)
2) we have 3 event sites which include a 2 hr drive from day 2 to day 3 site so that we can give 3 days of very varied terrain for the trials. ( we don't just move controls day 2 to day 3 by a few hundred meters , more like 100 miles)
3) we have hours of daylight to set controls (sunrise 605 am ; sunset 815 pm)
4) we have limited volunteers to support and at locations 2 hrs away from home for most
5) we plan to have prerunners run all courses on the day of to ensure no on course control issues (epunch fails, wayward animals chewing on flags etc)

Depending of course on how many folks register (60 people on a course with 3 minute spacing means 180 mins of start window needed) . Large numbers of folks may well be wanting early starts to "get back to the airport" ; we simply cannot accomodate all of them (especially based upon the team blocking requirements) .

MNOC are not planning an awards ceremony at this point. We expect to have preliminary results (by course only) on line live for each days events. The various teams will be deciding how they handle their ranking calculation and team announcements .

At this point we can only advise that start window will be 11 -2 (might be 10-2) on day 3 .

In regards to being back at MSP by a definite time : I know that air travel is tricky to manage (refundable vs non refundable, buy early or buy close to departure date). It might be best to snag that low fare now with Monday am departure and save a bunch of worry/grief later.

Details re sanctioned/not sanctioned will be available in next week or so

@ o-maps: Dates at mnoc.org have been corrected to April 28, 29 ,30 . Thanks

we plan to have the "public" run same courses as team trials (there maybe 2 reds:a red X and red Y ) . Blocked start windows for the teams have been requested so the public may not be running mixed in at the start with team trials folks.

@ o-maps: Full course offerings have been added for all three days also. White through Blue are available for those not competing in the Team Trials. I appreciate your note on this. The omission was not intentional.

I am pleased to announce that the Review Panel that will be selecting the WOC Team and deciding race assignments will be:
Peggy Dickison (QOC, former Team member, ESC member)
Kristin Hall (NEOC, former Team member, former ESC member)
Tori Campbell (QOC)
Glen Tryson (EMPO)
Will Hawkins (NEOC, former Australian team member)

Petitions should be sent directly to Peggy Dickison pdickison at comcast dot net.
Questions? Contact Linda Kohn wornerkohn at gmail.

What an excellent set of qualified panelists! Thanks for being willing to serve.

I'm really looking forward to following the results of the trials...exciting that all 3 teams will be competing, give us a chance to check out the Canadian competition. Hope everyone's training is going well!