Discussion: Category/Course allocation for Canadian sprints

COF has asked me to look into course guidelines etc now that we have settled on the three disciplines; and also now that F/M 75+ has been added. I will be working with Brent to put some ideas down prior to the COF AGM.

Presently we use 8 courses for middle and long, with certain RWT (Recommended winning times). RWT is defined as the time a Canadian Champion in that categoiry can be expected to do regardless of whether or not you think such a person will attend the meet -- this is meant to introduce consistency in what planners are aiming for)

As I see it there are the following things we need to deal with (and as far as I know certain things are not open for discussion at this time - like going back to 5 year age categories).

1) We need to allocate M/F 75+ to a course
2) We need to come up with RWT for the sprint for all categories (which may or may not be 12-15 minutes across the board)
3) We need to settle on number of courses for sprint and a corresponding category assignment - i.e. are 8 courses needed? does 4 work?
4) We need to rejig some of the current category/course assignments, esp. relative to the older age categories as some combinations of categories on the same course simply do not work.

To achieve the above we may need to go to 10 courses. (COC used 9; with a 7a and a 7b)

For sprint - here are the asssigments from COC2006 and the assignment we used for the Westerns:
COC:
1) F/M-12; F/M13-14
2) F17-19; F20-34; F35-44; F45-54
3) M20-34; M17-19; M35-44; M45-54
4) F/M15-16; F55-64; M55-64; F65-74; M65-74; M/F75+

Westerns:
1) F/M-12; F/M13-14
2) F55-64; M55-64; F65+; M65+
3) F/M15-16; F17-19; M45-54; F35-44; F45-54
4) F20-34; M20-34; M17-19; M35-44

Mike - how are you doing it for the NAOC?

Thoughts welcome -- have at 'er.

Why not just one sprint for everyone? That seems to work in the US.

I thought at your champs you had various courses?
F75+ cannot do a 12-15 minute winning time on the same course that M-elite can.

But it does raise a question -- Terrain issues aside -is it "sprint" because it is "only" 2.7 km or because it is a winning time of "only" 12-15 minutes. For elites the two may be equivalent but not for other categories.

Adrian Z used 6 courses for the sprint at Barebones and 6 courses at the BC Champs next weekend. I used 6 courses at the BC Champs 2004. Maybe that is a bit overkill, but I do think that, at least at championships, all categories should have a winning time under 15 minutes.

The problem with just one course is that for the lower courses, the sprint may end up being longer than the middle distance!
Alberta does 1 course for women, 1 course for men. Seems to work well, but we'd have to ask the 65+ age group and the 12- to see what they think.

If I may offer an opinion for the Candians... I think it's good to have at least one (call it JV level) sprint that is shorter, for the reasons mentoned above. A course approaching 3km is hardly a "sprint" for some of the older and younger runners. I think two could probably cover most age groups, but three would likely do it well: one for "studs" in the 18-40 or 45ish range (men, maybe younger for women?), one for the rest of the "advanced" runners, and one for the edges of the age spectrum.

The shortest course might end up being half the distance of the 'elite' sprint, but the winning times would be close across the board. And you wouldn't have 70 and 12 year olds out on the course for 1 hour+. I don't feel like it's necessary for every age group to nail the winning time - the women are tough enough to rough it out for a few extra minutes on the men's sprint. ;-)

Yes I personally like the idea of the elite men and women on the same sprint course. Obviously elite men and women often train toegther or there is coaching going on so it is good to have the same race experience to be able to exchange advice etc.

Two courses will not do! Three is the minimum. You need at least two to cover all technically advanced categories and then something for the young kids/beginners.

Actually at the Kimberley events they had 3 courses for the 1st sprint, with course 1 being for the young children. Well, for sprint #2 they reduced to only 2 courses because the young children all wanted to race with the adults!

Maybe there is some terrain where this can work, but in the general case it doesn't.

It depends if the terrain is urban (which is what I think of as "real" sprint terrain, thinking of the PWT that started the format before it got cloned by the IOF) or forested. The US seems to do a lot of forested sprints, but few urban ones (or at least the ones I've done or read about have generally been forested). Calgary does a lot of urban ones, because it makes our city events more interesting, though tomorrow's Alberta Sprint Champs is forested. (Next Wednesday's sprint is urban.) I think that having some urban sprints is a good thing. It can be a different kind of challenge. (And it's publicity of a sort.)

NAOC is going with:

#1: 1.0km F/M-12; F/M13-14
#2: 2.5km F55-64; M55-64; F65+; M65+; F/M15-16
#3: 2.7km F17-19; F20-34; F35-44; F45-54
#4: 3.2km M17-19; M20-34; M35-44; M45-54

I had the same classes as Mike mentioned here, I just regret that i did not test run the older age course ( I'm getting old too , so just slow down more ). I believe was a bit too long for the second eveny of the day, but on a day with the sprint alone it could be better the way COC went, and the length Mike is posting here

Is it really worth it having two courses that are 200 meters different? Just seems like extra work for the course setters...

It seems that with sprints there are more opportunities to use other people (or get confused by them), which seems intentional given the short start intervals. If men & women were on the same course then they may end up working together (rather than taking evasive action) since they are not being compared with each other for final medals, or for sprint series points.

So I'm leaning towards the categories used at the COCs and upcoming NAOCs.

The men and women in the top age group can easily have separate start windows that prevent any inter-gender clumping. Sounds a bit immoral anyway.

BorisGr: Is it really worth it having two courses that are 200 meters different? Just seems like extra work for the course setters...

Maybe the slightly longer course also has an extra 80m climb. ;-)

NAOC is going with:

#1: 1.0km F/M-12; F/M13-14

Is that a typo? The US Sprint Champs went with 1.5km for these age groups, and it was won in less than 9 minutes, which seemed a little too short, even for a sprint.

it was 1.5 k at COC for a winning time 10.06 - Ok, i believe since was the second race for that day.

It wasn't a typo but we will review this. Due to the lack of sprint standards for non elite classes it was suggested that we look at the distances and winning times of the Swiss Orienteering Federation sprint champs (sprint champs for all categories). This is what we based the masters and kids course legnths/winning times on.

Just a few random thoughts….

I wonder if rather than focusing on course lengths a better approach may be to produce guidelines about the ‘feel’ of the race. A particular consideration should be whether the terrain is appropriate.

At Swiss O week this year, there was an urban race one day, which felt like a Sprint although the winning times and courses were a bit longer than sprint standard. Personally this was one of the most enjoyable days orienteering that I have had this year.

In order to set a challenging sprint course for juniors you need an area with a labyrinth of trails in order that you can have a control at each decision point, within a short distance. If you throw in a few bogus controls that are in sight of the current control, you can give even very junior competitors a challenge. If you have a very limited trail network you’re just giving them a short version of their normal course. Some of them can run around paths very quickly! This is probably easier to achieve in a park/urban environment, rather than in a forest.

For the more senior competitors, I’m not sure exactly what they are looking for. In my experience a lot of them think that sprint orienteering is a waste of time. I would probably try and canvass opinion from people in this age group.

To a certain degree, a lot of this kind of stuff is discussed in the IOF Rules. Check out the 2004 Competition Rules on the IOF web page. There is some GREAT stuff that is kind of 'buried' in the document. Page 38 for example is a table summarizing the various competition formats. Then pages 39 - 41 give guidelines for the 4 disciplines. Here is an excerpt re. Sprint-
The profile
The Sprint profile is high speed. It tests the athletes’ ability to read and translate the
map in complex environments, and to plan and carry out route choices running at high
speed. The course must be planned so that the element of speed is maintained
throughout the race. The course may require climbing but steepness forcing the
competitors to walk should be avoided. Finding the controls should not be the
challenge; rather the ability to choose and complete the best route to them. For
example, the most obvious way out from a control should not necessarily be the most
favourable one The course should be set to require the athletes’ full concentration
throughout the race. An environment that cannot provide this challenge is not
appropriate for the Sprint.

Ross is this going into a re-worked Officials course? I found this IOF chart and brought it to my Level 2 clinic, but the current Level 2 manual pre-dates all of this.

I believe COF is either planning to or actively re-working some of the Officials Course materials (not just level 2) but that is a bigger project than the wee part I am contributing in the immediate future. I don't think any of the course materials even mention things like Sport Ident, course setting with OCAD etc.

Does the COF have a Technical Director, a technical committee, or is everything done on an ad hoc basis?
How were you and Brent selected to do this? It's great to hear the Officials Courses are going to be updated.