Discussion: I hear you...

Sometimes I feel as though I am the only person fighting to keep compulsory provision of water still within the OA Rules :(

It can't be too hard to carry water if instructed to do so in organisers notes. It seems to work for rogaines. What makes orienteering so different? All I can see is a cultural difference.

I once had a controller for a long course, without naming names they are a professor in sports physiology with a particular expertise in heat tolerance. Their response to a complaint that I didn't put out enough water on a hot day.

"Carry your own next time, or run a shorter course"

It's not a dig, but as a health and safety coordinator for 20+ years, responsibility lies with everyone, not just organisers and managers.

There is no sensible reason for not putting out water, the chances of COVID transmission at a water stop in Australia is so small you may as well call it zero. You just need to have a supply of clean glasses and people take a fresh one. If people are worried about using the water they can skip it, but we should be providing the option. There is a duty of care to ensure water on the courses and Bruce is right there is a greater chance of a heat related illness than COVID transmission.

While we can suggest that people carry their own water I feel very strongly that we should not mandate their doing so. It's not that difficult to make provision in the entry system for people to order "water service" if they won't be carrying their own.

Jim's solution, of having individual 250mL sealed bottles of water at controls, is my preferred COVID-Safe option as you can easily save any unused bottles for the next event!

Maybe rogaines will provide water for long events (24hour). Plan for NOL at Renmark is 250ml bottles (but order as a service) for the longer courses

Onya Bruce! But why are we still having this debate? There has to be water on courses, and IOF/OA are NOT going to change the rule on this. If it is factored in right from the start of course setting, there shouldn't need to be any real carrying burden on the organisers. Of course you would carry your own water in rogaining, 90% of participants are walking and carrying packs. While some people can carry water when running/orienteering, many others find it a huge distraction to both their running form/gait and an even bigger one to their navigation.

We are still having this debate because so many states are insisting that their COVID plan prohibits provision of water on courses - the decision not to provide water at the Australian 3-Days had been made and advertised by Easter organisers before OA even became aware that they were considering not doing so.

And there is a very real risk that I will lose control of the water debate at technical committee level, because so many people are looking for an excuse to avoid the annoyance of providing water - I have already been accused of "only mandating water on courses because you don't want to carry it yourself".

It seems the water debate (like many things in O) is a cop out by a subset of organisers trying to cut corners. Walking or jogging with a camelbak or similar is fine, but trying to run fast with one sucks.
That said, I think we could do a lot better with how we put water out - I have no issue with putting water drops on tracks to make things easier for organisers, and a lot easier to find for tired runners. If there was a rule change this is what I would be working towards.

Have a manned water station on a track when the people manning the station fill fresh cups with water and get rid of the requirement that the water be at a control.

Personal choice to visit the water station or carry your own.

With sensible planning the water station does not need to be a diversion away from an optimal route.

Of course some areas / maps make access for a water station easier or more difficult depending on the track network and vehicle access.

Agree with Jenny and Bomb. I am a person who carries their own water, but agree for safety reasons it needs to be provided.

Well, I will stick with my view. The worst experience I have had with water was when I relied on the organisers on a hot day and it had run out when I got there. If its a hot day I will carry my own as a safety choice. Running out is not an unusual occurrence at national events.

On the other hand, to stand up for organisers, implying volunteer organisers are lazy is a short cut to a volunteer shortage. If easing the burden on volunteers makes it easier to recruit them, then I fail to see what the problem is. When we pay a real wage to organisers and they do not meet our expectations, then we can justifiably use the word "lazy". Until then, I think anyone who puts up their hand to organise a major event has a strong negotiating position with the rest of us.

Putting water out is a tough job, but a necessary one. Personally it was my 2nd least favourite job, at event organising, but it needs to be done.
Pre-entry means you can calculate how many people will be going through each water control and make provision, so running out shouldn't be a problem.
Picking up on Bomb's comment, having a control site very adjacent to a track to make a water drop easier should not be beyond the wit of course setters. In a long event this could be at the end of a route choice leg, with he emphasis being on route choice and navigation.

Nobody alleged laziness. None of us who have commented are asking other hardworking organisers to do anything we don't do ourselves - and we have all been responsible for major carnivals - but we are saying that complete deletion of water from courses is an unacceptable shortcut to take.
(Sorry Bruce, for hijacking your log.)

If you are delirious / dehydrated then a track is a lot easier to find than a control. Organisers should have the option to put water on tracks (if there are any).

To continue the hijack. I have trouble with the logic here.
Proposition 1: Requiring competitors to carry their own water is unsafe.
Proposition 2: Requiring organisers to supply water is safe.
The only way I can square these two propositions is by inferring that you do not trust orienteers to follow a "supply your own water" rule. Have I missed something? If not, then I come back to my initial claim that this is a cultural issue.

It's a sport issue. Orienteering is a sport that involves running at high speed and intensity through terrain. Carrying a water pack makes running at high speed in terrain difficult.
Carrying a water pack is fine if you're bushwalking or rogaining or going on a training run, but not racing orienteering.
If your version of orienteering is more like bushwalking or rogaining, then I guess you'd be fine carrying a water pack, but that doesn't mean everyone else should.
We shouldn't compromise the nature of the sport for those who actually make the effort to be good at it.

Who said carrying water is unsafe? Not requiring organisers to provide water definitely is unsafe.

Guessing I'm no faster than IL (probably slower given I'm older), but even at my pace the feeling of carrying water limits my concentration as well as my running ability - I just can't orienteer with the knowledge/sound/feeling of water sloshing around on my hips or back and it detracts from my otherwise reasonable navigation skills. If the rule ever changes and I'm forced to carry water that will be end of orienteering for me.

So no, it's not a cultural issue for me - it's a core issue for my orienteering skill set.

Oh boy - my turn to vent.

As course setter on the upcoming long day of Easter I resent suggestions that course setters are opposed to putting water out to cut corners or because we are lazy etc. I was fully expecting to put water out last year (and planned accordingly) and I was ready to do it this year if appropriate. Thanks for those sticking up for hard working organisers.

Just to clarify. On my day we do have one manned drinks control with bottled water for the Elite classes only.

It's not that much of an inconvenience carrying water as a racing orienteer. (Especially with the sort of gear you can get now). I know, I used to be one. Even if the bush is thick.

It's the same for everyone so there should be no major disadvantage.

Having water controls would require manpower (to supervise them) way in excess of what we have available. We could of course hire help and add the cost to the entry fees.

In UK it can be quite normal for competitors to be required to carry safety gear on some o races in exposed areas (eg thermal tops, rain jackets).

Directing blame on the organisers when competitors fail to provision enough water for their own safety is the real cop out.

We are not encouraging removal of the compulsory OA requirement to put water on courses (there is no way I would support this), just obtaining an exemption in these extraordinary times.

I do agree on one thing, the COVID risk for one event is miniscule, however if you ask all sports (and other) events to take precautions at this time, regardless of the sport, it does make a meaningful difference to the overall risk across the country. And the consequence of risk realisation would be catastrophic. There's also the reputation risk even if nothing happens.

I'm very disappointed in a few of you. I think you haven't thought the issues through well enough.

And finally I reemphasise that these are not normal times. When COVID is history, I look forward and expect a return to normal times where water is provided in plentiful supply while on the course.

I've got to admit I'm not 100% on top of all the rules/guidelines that have been imposed on sports at the moment, but is there any reason why we can't just have a regular drinks control with some big hand sanitiser stations and you're only allowed to drink if you sanitise first?

It's not like supermarkets have taken away all of the trolleys/baskets and told you to bring your own, they just have hand sanitiser available first. The NOL events on the weekend did a similar thing with control descriptions and it worked fine.

I think the issue from Ecmo is that such a station would need to be manned and there is not the resources t do that.

Does it need to be manned though? One year into COVID, we’re all pretty good at using sanitiser on our own without being supervised (pretty sure Coles/Woolies don’t have anyone manning the sanitiser any more)

And its empty most of the time at the local Woolies.

patjaffe - not convinced that people in a stressed/competitive situation would spare the time to hand sanitise on a course. Even if supervised I'm guess they might even forgo a drink requiring sanitiser.

Just because Woolies can't manage their Hand Sanitiser doesn't mean we can't

Of course we could do better, by manning the controls.

A bit off topic but from a waste perspective, could we try something similar to trail runs like Two Bays where you are required to carry a vessel with the capacity to carry e.g. 500ml and the onus is on the runner to decide if they stop to fill it (so organisers would still have to provide water, but we'd save on plastic cups / bottles)?

Obviously not practical in the current COVID environment, but maybe in future? Not hard to carry a soft flask or similar. Maybe provide filled cups for elites at the highest level of comp. It could be a suggestion to begin with (with cups still provided for those that don't carry) and if the uptake is good, it could be made compulsory.

Having recently picked up the water and associated rubbish from an event, I think this could be a good thing to explore.

An alternative to single us plastic cups would be a great option to explore. Reusable collapsible soft trail run cups take no space to carry.

Having very recently competed in a race with a large elite contingent (MTB), I have first hand experience that (some) elites will not take a few seconds extra to do a task that will add to their race time. Some didn't watch the compulsory race briefing (and then asked countless questions of the organisers that had been answered in the briefing) and at least one was officially warned for not dismounting to cross a major road that we were warned about in both the briefing and in signage prior to the road. There was also a compulsory bike wash to remove a fungal virus before entering the next stage of the race that one competitor was nearly DQed for but spat the dummy and came back to wash his bike after a warning.

Slightly off topic I admit but protecting the environment/community is not high on some competitor's radars when race time is at stake.