Discussion: World Cup Sprint at O-Ringen

It was a breath of fresh air to see such a world class orienteer as Hubmann sail straight past his control in the Sprint last week. It's good to see that this happens to even the best athletes.

But surely he would have carried on even further had the commentator not announced to everyone that "Hubmann has missed his control!". The timing of Hubmann's u-turn and the commentator's announcement were too close to be coincidence, don't you think? He'd gone too far past his control to be competitive by that time, but still, poor show from the commentator.

Not sure what else you can expect the commentator to do in that situation. (As someone who ran in the race, the commentary became quite distracting at times, although it became an incentive towards the end because they were calling Mattia Karlsson, who started behind me, on a very fast time; my principal target henceforth became to stay in front of him, which I managed - just).

Those with longish memories will recall that there was a successful protest at WOC in Norway in 1997 when the commentator counted down the seconds that the last finisher needed to get a bronze medal (she succeeded by 1 second). I thought at the time, and still do, that this decision was misguided (and had I been the other party to the protest I'm not sure that I would have appreciated my team management implicitly saying that I wasn't trying flat-out in the finish chute).

With the Leibnitz convention and all that effort towards publicity and spectator friendliness, I think it was pretty good to have a commentator, and like Blair I don't know what else I would expect him to do.

At that point in the race, Hubmann was probably beyond even a top-20 result anyway. Besides, it was exciting and interesting to see, and I'm not sure that nearly as many spectators would have even noticed that Hubmann had forgotten the control if no comment had been made.

As another who ran in that race, I'd rather have Hubmann ahead of me at 43rd with the added excitement and drama of a "oops-forgot-the-control-and-have-to-run-back-in-full-view-of-the-public" blunder, instead of behind me as a DSQ. Better for the spectators, and probably better for the sport. My $0.02.

As a spectator that was there, it was clear right away to me and everyone around me that Hubmann had skipped the control. (The spectating and announcing was phenomenal by the way.) And it was also pretty obvious that the commentator was trying not to give it away and was choosing his words very carefully at first. We were all waiting to see what would happen and I was wondering if and when the commentator would say anything. And while I would need to see a replay to be sure, I remember the sequence as Hubmann slowing down and looking at his map repeatedly showing signs that he knew something wasn't quite right before the commentator said anything.

The Oringen Sprint was the most exciting Orienteering race I have ever witnessed. The spectators and competitors I talked with found it all quite exhilarating. The close race, expansive venue, big screen, multiple cameras, evening hour and Peter Forsberg's announcing all came together to make a memorable show. Now if we could only get this shown on ESPN.

Although It would be too bad that a great orienteer like Daniel Hubman would be remembered most for his mind blip made with about 1000 fans watching.

>Now if we could only get this shown on ESPN.

Which makes me wonder why there hasn't been an IOF push to have high profile sprint races in the US.

>>Although It would be too bad that a great orienteer like Daniel Hubman would be remembered most for his mind blip made with about 1000 fans watching.

I don't think Hubmann will be remembered most for this :-)
I think there were more than 1000 watching. It certainly seemed so looking down towards the stadium from the start at any rate

Which makes me wonder why there hasn't been an IOF push to have high profile sprint races in the US

The push can only come from the inside, the IOF has no money nor contacts in the U.S. entertainment world to make these things happen.

more than 1000 watching

Certainly - Newspapers and organizers in Sweden said there were as many as 12000 spectators at the Sprint race! Personally I think that may be a bit exaggerated - but even half of that is quite a crowd...

I would have guessed 5000 (not counting those, of whom there were many, scattered around the later part of the course which went through the ski lodges). Certainly the biggest crowd I've ever run in front of.

Wow, it only seemed like a few hundred from the hillside. I'm impressed.

Now if only we could hold a spectator-friendly sprint at one of our 20,000+ participant American events...