Discussion: North American Orienteering League (NAOL)

Results of 2004 season are available at
http://www.ctoc-boise.org/naol/index.htm

Please post your ideas and comments on how to make NA orienteering scene more attractive and competitive. What to include for the next year schedule of NAOL events?

So far what I got:
1. January 15 1 day WRE in Alabama (middle?).
2. April 1-3 USA Team Trials and USA Short Champs (sprint, middle, long).
3. July 15-17 COC Champs (sprint, middle, long?).
4. August 21 WRE as part of Western Champs during PNWOF (classic).
5. August 27, 28 USA Champs and WRE during PNWOF (classic, classic).
6. November ???, USA Long Champs (long), where when?

Your input will be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sergey Velichko, NAOL Coordinator

Congrats to Pam and Brian (and of course Canada!).

The formula of 12 (dirty dozen) races with 6 in each of Canada and US works well. I think the top 6 races would allow more competition. Should sprint be incorporated into this and how? How can we increase participation? How can we raise the profile/prestige? Only a few athletes raced in more than 6 events last year. No Canadians raced in the US Long Champs, few Americans in the Ontario Champs. Why?

Alabama is too early for Canadians (we have snow) but I like the idea of kicking this off at the US Team Trials next year.

The Ontario Champs conflicted, if I recall correctly, with the Hudson Highlander. Why would I miss running 26km in Harriman for the NAOL? Really, that was the problem - I almost considered not running the US Champs the following week since I wouldn't be recovered from the Highlander (glad I didn't).
I also think the 6 US / 6 Canadian races format works well. But since the COF website doesn't exactly list a lot of suitable races, maybe somebody can suggest something? This is not incidental - if important COF meets were easier to find out about in advance then maybe US meets would be less likely to be scheduled against them. I'm sure Sandy would be happy to put draft schedules for major Canadian meets on her calendar - if only she got told when they were. That would be a good start if you want Americans to show up.

Nobody seems that fascinated by this thread or by the idea, but I still think it's a good idea to try to focus elite competition in North America on a few weekends as priorities. With the Ontario Champs / Western Canadians / presumably the Hudson Highlander all scheduled for the October long weekend, I think all of those events should be left off the program if the idea is to attract strong fields. So we need another Canadian event in addition to the Canadian Champs. Or we could just declare one of the PNWOF weekends a substitute Canadian event and go with Sergey's 2-6 above. That's 12 races if you include the other days at events 4 and 6 along with what Sergey has listed.

NAOL should have an equal number of Canadian and US events but like Will says there doesn't seem to be that much interest in this. So perhaps more effort should be spent creating a North American elite Ranking system for middle and long distance races, then create regional or national sprint series to determine the top sprinters. ie., replace NAOL with a Nor-Am ranking system that is updated every 2 weeks to a month (a country competition could be included in that).

The goal of Sergey's NAOL was to focus elite competition. Last year the race with one of the best fields was the Billygoat. Non Championship, non NAOL, non ranking......

Equal numbers of Canadian and American races would be ideal but I see no sign of either the Ontario Champs or the Western Canadians ceasing to covet the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. I hope Western Canadians won't feel too hard done by with three NAOL events in Washington. Easterners will just have to make it to Flying Pig, which had quite a decent turnout of Canadians last year.

I think there is a basic fairness issue in decreeing so close to the date of the race that the WRE day in Alabama be part of NAOL. Why not use the results of the Sprint Series Final on September 10 instead? It would even things up a bit east/west and perhaps console GHO for the conflict between the US Long Champs and their adventure run.

Someone from USOF / COF could talk to the major airlines and present the problem facing a relatively small sport in a relatively large country.

With all the competition in the airline industry it's quite possible that an airline would consider giving discounts on flights to certain cities on event week-ends. How many people fly to the larger events? 200?

Maybe you could also get sponsored tickets for North-American team members to go to international events? It's much cheaper for a company to sponsor with services than with cash anyway.

If an additional Canadian event is desired, how about the Sage Stomp in Kamloops, BC? It's May 21-23, and the format is Saturday classic, Sunday 6-hour rogaine, Monday short. The terrain and courses are always good, the competition is usually good, and as far as I know, it doesn't conflict with anything.

We need to come with 12 top or so races that will be included into the 2005 NAOL series. Preferably equally spread East to West and USA to Canada based on the fairness principals. Another criterion is to have as many as possible in multi-day events to minimize travel costs. As a suggestion the following looks more or less optimal:
1. April 2-3 USA Team Trials and USA Short Champs (middle, classic).
2. July 15-17 COC Champs, BC (middle, classic, classic).
3. July 19-21 Barebones 2005, Alberta (classic, middle, classic).
4. August 21 WRE as part of Western Champs during PNWOF (classic).
5. August 27, 28 USA Champs and WRE during PNWOF (classic, classic).
6. November 11?, USA Long Champs (long).
These races compacted into 4 multi-day events (with 11 that you can make in 3 trips). 6 in the USA and 6 in Canada. Looks like we might get good crossover of elites from both countries at these events. I intentionally left sprints out of NAOL schedule as there is very good proposal on the sprint series next year from Peter. I hope that will motivate all to train more and show better results.

Your feedback is much appreciated.

Regards,
Sergey
NAOL Coordinator

If one is trying to make a "series" or "league", I don't think it makes sense to have all the Canadian races in one go (i.e., between July 15-21). I would suggest dropping the Barebones in favor of i) Sage Stomp, ii) Westerns, iii) Ontarios. Given that Westerns and Ontarios conflict, I'd say go for Sage Stomp. Rumor has it that that may also be part of Canadian Team trials, so another good reason.

May 21-23 Sage Stomp, BC (classic, rogaine, middle).

[Note the only mention of 2005 Sage Stomp on the web seems appears to be on Orienteering Alberta's schedule at www.orienteeringalberta.ca.]

Brian

In the above proposed list, 66% of the races occur during a single 45-day period (12% of the year), with just a single event in the spring and a single in the fall. While concentrating as many races as possible at a few multi-day events minimizes travel expenses, it maximizes the penalty for missing one of those events. Note that there are at least two other multi-day events during that same time period (Colorado and, er, WOC). WOC itself will likely be a 2-week hit for many of the people in this league. That basically crams 4 full weeks of orienteering into that 45-day period, and probably not many of us can manage even 3 weeks off during that span, so its likely people will skip at least one if not both of the proposed NAOL weeks there. The Yanks are likely to go to the US champs at PNWOF, and the Canucks to the COCs, which is understandable of course. This kindof defeats the purpose of getting us all running together at a single meet - the way last year's Pig, and, lamentably, the NA champs could have been. I'd recommend dropping either PNWOF or COC/barebones and spreading those races half in spring and half in fall.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Barebones is not an "A" meet. Although very cool and a ton of fun, it is based on the principle of minimal organization. eg. It may not be fully vetted

A rogaine shouldn't be part of NAOL but maybe sprint events should be. If the Sage Stomp is used as part of the Cdn Team Trials then it would have a sprint. So perhaps use 4 weekends of 3 events each:
- US Team Trials (S, M, L)
- CDN Team Trials (S, M, L)
- US Champs (2xC) plus a sprint?
- CDN Champs (M, 2xC)

That would give 3xsprint, 3xmiddle, 6xclassic/long.

Maybe you have to count points in at least one of
sprint, middle, and classic/long.

4 weekends/year. Most people should be able to
get to 3 and even if you get to 2, and we make it
the best 6 of 12, you can be compettiive.

If Sage Stomp is included (but not a rogaine) that would put all 6 Cdn races in BC. Not great for easterners. BUT the NAOC's and COC's are both in Ontario in 2006 and those would make the best choice for the 6 events for Canada in 2006.

Can anyone confirm that Sage Stomp WILL be Canadian Team Trials next year and program will be short, middle, long?
There is a disbalance in the schedule that Mike proposed above as all events are concentrated in spring-summer range. For the symmetry I propose to add USA Long Champs. So schedule might look like:
1. USA Short Champs and Team Trilas (S, M, C) - April
2. Sage Stomp and CND Team Trials (S, M, C) - May
3. CDN Champs (M, C, C) - July
4. USA Champs (C, C) - August
5. USA Long Champs (L) - November

In 2006 all CDN events will be in Ontario!

Nothing is official on the Canadian Trials yet, but Ted de St Croix has said the hope is to have one chance to qualify at the Sage Stomp and another possibly in Ontario in the spring, as was done with NAOCs and COCs in 2004. I believe the Sage Stomp format is classic, 6 hour rogaine/score-O, sprint (or was it middle, rogaine, sprint or classic, rogaine, middle?) so I don't want to guess whether there would be a special non-rogaine race for prospective qualifiers or whether qualification would be based purely on the other two races. It sounded as though this would be settled at a COF board meeting taking place sometime this month.

2005 NAOL Schedule:
1. USA Short Champs and Team Trilas (S, M, C) - April 1-3, OH, USA.
2. Sage Stomp and CND Team Trials (S, M, L) - May 22-24, BC, Canada.
3. CDN Champs (M, C, C) - July 15-17, BC, Canada.
4. USA Champs (C, C) - August 27-28, OR, USA.
5. USA Long Champs (L) - November 13, MD, USA.

2 Sprints, 3 Middle, 5 Classic, and 2 Long races.
More information and links available at NAOL Web site at
http://www.ctoc-boise.org/naol/index.htm

We hope it will motivate you to train more, to train hard, and achieve better results.

Good luck in year 2005!

Sergey Velichko, NAOL Coordinator

Can someone from Canadian team forward my last message to Osquad email list? My email bounced back. Sage Stomp dates are incorrect but will be corrected as soon as info will appear on their web site. Thanks, Sergey

T'is done.

Thank you Jon!

last year it was a classic and short, (as well as the rogaine). I am not exactly sure what it is this year... but I think they are being at bit slow on the information since the permision for using the pothole lake map is still pending.

Based on the information from Canadian coaches it should be sprint, middle, long for elites. I hope it is true. Anyway, it is officially Canadian Team Trials and we will change NAOL info accordingly to their schedule.