Discussion: USA Champs

I want to start this new discussion thread about USA Champs schedules and schemes. Since 1998 when I re-started my orienteering passion at the USA soil, I constantly deciding what USA Champs to attend and what I can afford both from monetary and availbale vacation time stand points. Also it is very hard to be always in the top form for numerous USA Champs.

What everyone think about the idea to combine all USA Champs into 2 groups. 1st group: Sprint (hopefully it will come), Short, and Open/Classic Champs. 2nd group: Relay, Night, Long. Each group can be awarded to one or many clubs willing to put multiday Festival that would include all Champs from the group. I even would favor to have all Champs from the group in 3-4 days! Of course the groups should be rotated among the regions and conducted in different sesons.

I can mention the following pros for the aforementioned scheme:
- Saves lots of money and time for competitors.
- Streamlines USA Champs bidding process.
- Only 3 form peaks during the season for the elite competitors: 1st group (spring/early summer?), WOC/WC (summer), 2nd group (fall?).

What are your thoughts?

Cheers,
Sergey Velichko

That is a fabulous idea. This would mean that people could focus on US Champs events, and make it their biggest event of the year instead of just another A-Meet they hope to get to. This would mean more competetion making the award more valuable.

Interesting idea - I for one would be more likely to travel to another region for 3-4 days of competition versus just a 2 day A-meet (even if a champs designation lies on one or both days).

However, would enough folks travel for the extra couple of days of competition or would you have to have it on two back-to-back weekends and then try to fill the intervening week in a full blown festival?

I could see the Sprint (as in Park-O?), Short & Classic (would the classic still be a two day?)getting a big draw, but it seems to me the night/relay/long might be less of a draw since some folks might not be as apt to travel for the night/relay events. Maybe a couple extra A-days in addition to the three champs.

Would you try to include Interscholastic and Intercollegiate champs in one of those groups as well or leave them separate?

Would it lessen the incentive for clubs to hold regular A-meets? Just playing devils advocate...

Dear Sergey: A part of your proposal has already happened. See http://www.mindspring.com/~rshannonhouse/042702BOD... , search for "separate".

I think that would be an excellent idea, that would certainly improve my chances (and I think some other peoples' too) of actually going to more Champ. events. It's a lot easier and cheaper to travel to one place and stay there a couple of days as opposed to making three or four separate trips. I'd also be more willing to travel further from home if I could stay longer than a weekend. I would even love it if there were a few "A"-days thrown in there also to extend the trip.

A problem with this idea could be that the meets would obviously have to be over some weekdays and are held in spring/fall. Juniors/younger people who want to compete might not be able to get the time off from school to attend all 3-4 days. This wouldn't affect me anymore, but I can see it being a problem for some.

I'm a Canuck so probably shouldn't share a view on this but I will anyway because I like it. Why? I am not a fan of the 2-day classic event. As far as I know North America is the only place that does it. In October 2003 my club is hosting the Ontario Champs at a new map of Hilton Falls (the Pawtuckaway of Canada). We plan to hold a 2-day classic total time for all categories except M/F 17-19 and M/F 20-34. These junior and senior elite categories will instead race short (30 min) on Sat. AM, sprint (15 min) on Sat PM, and long (90 min) on Sun AM. Note the spring, short, long is equivalent to the WOC short, medium, long designation (I think). The sprint provides an opp for others to watch (or participate if they so wish).
This would be 135 minutes of racing for the winner over the weekend instead of 2 x 65-70 minute 'classic events' (130-140 minutes). The other option is to hold the sprint on Friday evening.

Sergey's idea is excellent. If the night champs in spring were on Friday evening and the sprint on Friday afternoon in autumn (likely the least popular of the events on each weekend) then races on Saturday afternoon (with an optional training on Sat AM) and Sunday morning would be a great weekend of orienteering. Most people have to take Friday off to travel anyway. Giving them the option to race Friday evening or late afternoon would make travellling all that more worthwhile (like the Flying Pig).

I realize that this idea may be seen as torpedoing the separate idea of USA Team Trails/Open USA Champs (more champs!) to somewhat degree. I am sure that having them as 3rd group would be optimal for some. I also would like to see these Open USA Champs reflecting WOC structure (Sprint/Short/Long). As Mike W. pointed it will be easy to fit all groups in 3 days each so it will actually save for competitors big time. Organizers could also add couple-more A meet days and extend it to a week (with 2 weekends) and make it full blown Festival aka APOC, 1000 Days, or PNWOF. I would even request to have at least 1 relay event per such Festival as I like relays :)

Major point here is to have all USA Champs compacted in 3 days opposit to spreading them over 2 weeks or so.

Another issue that should be touched - for prime events only newly mapped areas should be used. Too frequently I come to the competitions only to realize that most of the old ones (sometimes myself included :) already had opportunity to be here some time ago.

So in my oppinion 2 major requirements for hosting club(s) would be:
1. USA Champs conducted over Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
2. Newly mapped areas used for the USA Champs (ate least not used for the last 15 years).

One little thing at a time. One must realize that USOF is run by recreationals, for recreationals. Recreationals love glorious-sounding names like Championships, and want more of them. They also like medals. If there are many Championships, and a swarm of age categories, then there's a chance for medaling for anyone.

The Open Champs is not "more Champs". The Open Champs will be scheduled with regard to a sensible athlete's training schedule and the international calendar, while recreationals can have their Champs whenever. The Open Champs are a replacement for the M/F21 categories at the "other" Champs and the Short Champs.

It is way too early to include Sprint. It is not a popular format yet, and no A meets have been held.
Without having the format established and the competition taking it seriously, sanctioning a Champs is just a recreationalist joke (see night-O).

I hope to conduct first USA Sprint Champs in 2004 in Boise, ID. We have couple parks perfect for this. In conjunction with Short/Long USA Champs, of course, at Idaho City, ID :) Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Idaho City is 40 minutes drive NE from Boise. That should reflect WOC scheme and give some publicity.

BAOC will hold a Sprint A meet (not a Champs) in 2004 at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Date TBD, most likely in October.

> One must realize that USOF is run by recreationals, for recreationals.

Then join the BOD ;-) I've been around 4 years, and every election I can remember
has been unopposed. They beg people to run, and I took my seat well after the
nominating period was over, because otherwise it would have been vacant. Elites,
AttackPointers, or dog lovers, for that matter, could run USOF if they really wanted
to ... but stop dissing the BOD ... vote us out if we're not doing the right thing ... :-)

As to the proposed formats, my biggest concern is on the course setting itself. This
is antectdotal, but it seems too often that the course setting under the _current_
(simple) guidelines comes no where close to spec. I've seen "classic" distance M21
at A meets won in 54 minutes. I've run it in 60 minutes. (and this isn't counting when the
meet announcement says they will be out of spec on purpose). The spec says 75-90
IIRC (and that seems like too big of a target to hit). If we can't set to this simple spec,
can we expect people to adjust to the special demands of setting the new formats,
especially if they've never even run at a meet using these formats? I never have. I'd
be uncomfortable setting courses in these formats until I spend some time running
them (when they are known to be of high quality). And can we count on clubs
finding appropriate maps/terrain? Possibly, you would need to map three different
areas to put on high quality races in each format for an A meet, rather than just one.
I'd worry about corners being cut here, just like trying to read bubblejet on xerox
sponge paper printed 1:15 maps ... (I wouldn't want to spend $600 to travel to an A
meet for a 20 minute short and 75 minute long on ho-hum terrain on a lame printed
map :-))

This isn't an argument against the proposed formats, only an argument that, IMHO, a
higher priority for USOF should be learning to consistently set high quality courses
to spec (or just quality control in general), before adding more specs. I don't know
if I'm right, or how to do that, just a thought ... and a concern about making things
harder for the course setters if they don't have the expertese ...

(and yeah, this looks like FUD, but I'm not great at articulating my concern of: 'don't
make it harder without proper quality control')

> One must realize that USOF is run by recreationals, for recreationals.

Then join the BOD ;-) I've been around 4 years, and every election I can remember
has been unopposed. They beg people to run, and I took my seat well after the
nominating period was over, because otherwise it would have been vacant. Elites,
AttackPointers, or dog lovers, for that matter, could run USOF if they really wanted
to ... but stop dissing the BOD ... vote us out if we're not doing the right thing ... :-)

As to the proposed formats, my biggest concern is on the course setting itself. This
is antectdotal, but it seems too often that the course setting under the _current_
(simple) guidelines comes no where close to spec. I've seen "classic" distance M21
at A meets won in 54 minutes. I've run it in 60 minutes. (and this isn't counting when the
meet announcement says they will be out of spec on purpose). The spec says 75-90
IIRC (and that seems like too big of a target to hit). If we can't set to this simple spec,
can we expect people to adjust to the special demands of setting the new formats,
especially if they've never even run at a meet using these formats? I never have. I'd
be uncomfortable setting courses in these formats until I spend some time running
them (when they are known to be of high quality). And can we count on clubs
finding appropriate maps/terrain? Possibly, you would need to map three different
areas to put on high quality races in each format for an A meet, rather than just one.
I'd worry about corners being cut here, just like trying to read bubblejet on xerox
sponge paper printed 1:15 maps ... (I wouldn't want to spend $600 to travel to an A
meet for a 20 minute short and 75 minute long on ho-hum terrain on a lame printed
map :-))

This isn't an argument against the proposed formats, only an argument that, IMHO, a
higher priority for USOF should be learning to consistently set high quality courses
to spec (or just quality control in general), before adding more specs. I don't know
if I'm right, or how to do that, just a thought ... and a concern about making things
harder for the course setters if they don't have the expertese ...

(and yeah, this looks like FUD, but I'm not great at articulating my concern of: 'don't
make it harder without proper quality control')

> One must realize that USOF is run by recreationals, for recreationals.

Then join the BOD ;-) I've been around 4 years, and every election I can remember
has been unopposed. They beg people to run, and I took my seat well after the
nominating period was over, because otherwise it would have been vacant. Elites,
AttackPointers, or dog lovers, for that matter, could run USOF if they really wanted
to ... but stop dissing the BOD ... vote us out if we're not doing the right thing ... :-)

As to the proposed formats, my biggest concern is on the course setting itself. This
is antectdotal, but it seems too often that the course setting under the _current_
(simple) guidelines comes no where close to spec. I've seen "classic" distance M21
at A meets won in 54 minutes. I've run it in 60 minutes. (and this isn't counting when the
meet announcement says they will be out of spec on purpose). The spec says 75-90
IIRC (and that seems like too big of a target to hit). If we can't set to this simple spec,
can we expect people to adjust to the special demands of setting the new formats,
especially if they've never even run at a meet using these formats? I never have. I'd
be uncomfortable setting courses in these formats until I spend some time running
them (when they are known to be of high quality). And can we count on clubs
finding appropriate maps/terrain? Possibly, you would need to map three different
areas to put on high quality races in each format for an A meet, rather than just one.
I'd worry about corners being cut here, just like trying to read bubblejet on xerox
sponge paper printed 1:15 maps ... (I wouldn't want to spend $600 to travel to an A
meet for a 20 minute short and 75 minute long on ho-hum terrain on a lame printed
map :-))

This isn't an argument against the proposed formats, only an argument that, IMHO, a
higher priority for USOF should be learning to consistently set high quality courses
to spec (or just quality control in general), before adding more specs. I don't know
if I'm right, or how to do that, just a thought ... and a concern about making things
harder for the course setters if they don't have the expertese ...

(and yeah, this looks like FUD, but I'm not great at articulating my concern of: 'don't
make it harder without proper quality control')

I have the same problem J-J has. What happens is I get
"document contains no data", so I hit "retry". Each time must
post to the site. Hope this helps fix the problem ...

The main purpose of this siggestions is to make O more affordable for people who wish to compete. I think USOF should give these Champs only to the club(s) who has resources and proven track of accomplishments to conduct highest quality meets as all USA Champs should be. That would apply to organization and maps as well.

I think we have good examples when couple-three clubs from a region organize good quality Festivals. For example, I am looking forward to the next year PNWOF as I know that hard-working dedicated people would make it nice experience for all competitors. It always take dedicated willing people.

Nevertheless, I would try to present this idea to USOF BOD and we will see their reaction.