Discussion: US RELAY CHAMP.

Did any body noticed that William Hawkins had the best time running the last leg (6.3 km.) in the relay runnig faster than any one of us out there after he already run by himself the other 3 legs ,BUT Suzane Armstrong almost beats him on the 2-nd leg on much shorter course.I would say that at least 3 out of the 4 members of the CSU wining team got more or less help from W.H.Maybe they still could'v won withot help but I am not 100% positive on that.

no because you are reading the results incorrectly. boris, sergei, and brian graham all had faster times on the last leg.

That's not the point here.If he waited or slowed down to facilitate Boris to catch up with him ,wich I belive he did and I know what the times were on the red course but the point is that to me it does not look right ,and by the way I did exclude you from the situation,because I believe you are the only one from the team that actualy could run on that day the times that you did. Anyhow I think that allowing W.H. to run at the same time with all the teams is a matter of controversy and was a conflict of interes.

Other teams could have use help from William as well but they chose to reject it :) I think it is just a coinsidence as I know that William is highly competitive athlete and would not allow anyone to pass him. This is the essence of the relays. Some forking may help, of course, but it is not particed much here in the US unfortunately. William could only be praised for his spirit and abilities.

Mihai, you are not only wrong, but you should be more careful making accusations you cannot back up in any way. Saying that William may have slowed down to wait for me is not only preposterous and false, but also very offensive to me and to him. Just because YOU could not run a faster time on that day does not mean others could not. I know that there are other people who out there who may agree with you, and i am happy to challenge them and any team they'll put up against our CSU team from Vermont. And if you don't want to do that, then keep your accusations to yourself.

The relay, in my view, was won on the second leg where CSU had a runner that was head and shoulders stronger than the rest of the field. This is, however, beside the real point, which is whether the rules should allow a runner familiar with parts of the course from previously run legs to go out and potentially influence the outcome. I believe that establishments like the Jukola work around the problem by having later legs cover considerablky different terrain from earlier ones.

In any case, there will be potential for controversy as long as there are ineligible teams. An ineligible team can cooperate with an eligible team from the same club and thus provide an unfair advantage against the rest of the field (if two eligible team cooperate, one could argue that a legitimate benefit is reapt by a club that had enough depth to provide the extra team(s)). A potential solution to this (and the other) problem would be to start the ineligible teams at a different time, say with the catch-up mass start for the first leg.

Boris ,in the first place, this are not accusations,and
you would not have to defend, yourself if nothing happend. I think that ,actualy you are accusing me ,of not being able do do as well as others on that day ,wich has no relevance to what I have presented for discution.And in the second ,I have been arround, for to long in orienteering, and I have seen it before ,more or lees obvious,and believed or not, you need to prove more than what you have, so far until I will take what, you gest said in here from you.And if you dont't know it yet ,I belive we live in U.S.A. and we can freely express ourself withot having to take any crap form no one, specialy in this case ,me from you.

Did anyone notice HVO's gross performance??? I would say watch for those guys out in the future, they will certainly be a factor.

What was that Sergei? ;)

Oh by the way, I might as well say something useful while I am at it.

It seems to me that people are too careless about spitting out things on Attackpoint that they wouldn't normally say in person. I have seen some pretty offensive posts here about discussions that usually don't embody such animosity in real life. I kindly ask that people leave the negative comments off the site. Remember, there are little kids here ;)

those of you who think boris followed will, you have it all wrong. what really happenned is that will left a trail of flour in the woods for all the competitors but a little bunny came along after boris and ate it all up. but what can you do?

To Amy: the point was'nt that Boris folwed and what you are saying only showes that you don'nt know to much about how something like this could happend,and belive me it happend in higher forums than U.S. Champs, and as far as I am concerned we are only humans and tempted to do things that to others would seem unlikley to occur.And to John F.: and you are the biggest kid from all of them and ,it only proves what you gest stated here,and I will be available for face to face disscutions ,with anybody as soon the first occasion arisses,and since you jumped in with out even making any coment about the topic ,Irealy want to know in what world are you living since you think what I said was so offensive?

Alright, here are my two cents. First of all, thanks for the props Sergei, and I hope you are right about HVO! Second, I believe this argument is irrelevent anyway. Whether CSU followed Will or not is not the point. Will was allowed to run by meet officials, and therefore was legitamite. CSU had as much right to follow him as any other club did. The relays is the one orienteering meet during the year where following is a major part of the event. If anyone wants to know how HVO finished third this year, I will be the first to admit (and I think Alar from UNO will agree with me here) there was a lot of folowing going on. Now is this a problem? Maybe, and that is a legitimate debate. Maybe forking should be implemented into the relays. But so far it has not, and all other teams had as much right to follow Will as CSU did. All other teams obviously made the wrong choice (my own included) by choosing not to. Therefore I believe CSU are this years champions, no questions asked, and have no reason to "defend" anything.

Third, I appreciate what John said and think he has a point. It upsets me to see the bashing going on on this site that really isnt necessary to discuss these issues. There are non-offensive ways to say everything you guys have had to say here, and I wish all would be more sensitive to that. I certainly hope that I have not offended anyone by my statement and that I have lived up to those standards. We all do this sport because we have fun doing it, for whatever reasons, try not to forget that.

You are right Patrick, this is not a forum where we make judgements and give verdicts, so none should get deffensive when somebody posts something for disscution,because that all we do here,we can not change anything that already took place.At best the disscutions,eventualy will get some people interested enough,and they may try to contact forums that can make changes,for the future,if enough people belive that something needs to be changed or improved on,and usualy when you have that manny folks expresing their opinion ,that may be right.

All right, then let's vote for forking after all :))))))) and be less upset by other team victory.

I don,t know if anybody is upset about who won, I have no resons to be,all I was trying to say is that the way this relay was conducted somebody had a real chance to gain ilegal help wich is against USOF & IOF rules for any official competition,and if I would be upset for anything that would be one reson, and the other would be if my team did not got to the placement that we could,v because of my poor performance,wich was not the case this time.

And back to Patrick again,altough even if I agreed with you ,there is one thing ,you are mistaking about.If the event organizers alow somebody to run in a event does not make it legit,there are sanctioning bodies and rules about sanctioned event,that usualy are folowed.

Mihai, you make a good point. If a rule stating that an individual cannot run on their own for the US relay champs exists, then the event directors were out of line letting Will run that way. I do not know if such a rule exists or not. The fact that we let other illegitimate teams run would lead me to believe that this rule does not exist, but that is only speculation. Either way though, Will or CSU is not to blame for what happened and CSU can still call themselves legitimate champions because that is what the meet directors decided.

Well, let's see...

1)I get quite a chuckle over the idea that Will might have slowed down to let Boris keep up with him. After having already run over 12 km, you think he had to slow down to let a fresh Boris keep up? Now, if you had said that Boris went slower than he was capable of so as to let Will do all the thinking, at least that would make sense. But I believe that what in fact happened was that Boris kept trying to get out ahead of Will, but Will was hitting the controls more cleanly.

2) There are no rules on the books anywhere that cover the US Relay format. Since 1992, the relay has been conducted totally in violation of the USOF rules. (And it's been working great.)

3) UNO had a strategy completely based on following; the idea was to send Dave Dunham out with somebody he could latch onto and cruise around the course with, then outsprint. I was in the south end of the field with them when I saw Dave pulling out ahead of John Fredrickson with a few controls to go, and I remember thinking, "Hmm, that's not a very good idea". But the initial concept was.

4) Yeah, I've been thinking that a strategy that could pull in a gold medal would be to recruit four very fast runners who are Americans but who can't read a map, and also four fast Scandinavians who want a vacation. The Scanskas act as tour guides and lead the hapless XC runners around the courses, too fast for any normal USOF members to keep up. But that ain't what happened in Vermont. (First of all, you wouldn't use just ONE foreigner...)

5) Hey Mihai, if you're not making accusations, then you should avoid using phrases like "wich I belive he did". You'll learn these things as you become more familiar with our culture.

JJ, you have a quite a way with words. I particularly like your gold medal strategy. Thanks for lightening things up a bit. :o)

J.J. the reason I stated that "I believe he did "is because I read Borises training log entry about how he run at the relay,and he is stating that Will was pulling away from him towards the end,wich only can mean that Will was the fresher or better prepared to run faster.And to clear things out I already said it the point was that the CSU wining team had an advantege from the fact that Will (who belongs by the way to the same club) benefited from it more than any other team could have done so,and the thing with Boris came only as a spin of.And about the culture thing I have been here long enough and seen people that lived here all their lives and don't understand it, so I dont know why you ask me to do it.I know one thing tough ,that a lot of other people ,that lived here more than me ,need to understand how to interact with people that originaly belonged to a diff. culture ,because that's what this country is all about ,and it is been for hundred of years even some don't like it,forgeting from where they orginated.

Patrick ,when CSU decided that they will ask the organizers to let Will to run in the same time with the competing teams,and they had a team, that had a chance to win ,they were wrong and to be blamed for it, as well the meet organizers , because that was'nt fair to the rest of the club teams,that did not have somebody like Will to run along with the club team on the courses.And no matter how anybody looks at it ,it creates an advantege.

On a lighter note and sticking to the topic of relays, the Ontario Relay Champs were held today at Christie Lake near Hamilton, Ontario. Guelph Gators won the 4 point handicap division (Green-Red-Green).

Doug Mahoney gave the Golden Horseshoe Orienteering Club (GHO) an early 10 minute lead, but Nick Duca (GGO) cut that in half over Mark Adams and then Julia Cioban caught Hans Tammemagi to squeeze out a victory for GGO. GHO was 2nd, Toronto OC 3rd, GHO - 4th, and GHO - 5th. Full results on the GHO web site in a few days (www.dongetlost.ca).
Oh yeah, the Ont. Champs uses forking. ;-)

It's nice that Attackpoint has become an active discussion point, but it would also be nice if the facts remained straight. First, I didn't wait for Boris, in case you are interested. However, he certainly did catch me in the forest: after 12km vs 0km, his legs were certainly fresher. We were certainly briefly together, then we took different routes to a couple of controls, then Boris pulled away on the first long leg, then I caught him again near the radio control, then we took different routes and I was ahead into the spectator control, then I gave him the slip near the end. We really weren't together much. In fact, it was pretty much what you'd expect whenever two orienteers on the same course see each other in the forest: if anything we stayed further apart than usual because we were worried about these kinds of accusations coming up... And Boris can certainly orienteer by himself, Mihai: whether or not you meant to accuse us of anything, it certainly sounded like it.

(And in case you're wondering why Zan almost beat me on the second leg: she had a good run and I made some mistakes near the end. If you look on the split times from the radio control (if they exist) then it will be clear that I was several minutes ahead at the radio control and lost at least three minutes in the last few controls. She just had a better run than I did...)


Of course, there's an easy solution to the problem of having non-eligible teams... make everyone eligible by removing the nationality requirement for the CLUB RELAY championships. There aren't too many countries (I can think of about one - the US) that make that kind of requirement for their big relays. (Jukola for the Finns only...? I don't think so!) Keep nationality requirements for the individual races and just require club membership for the relay championships - when we start having a problem with Scandinavian imports, JJ, then we can worry about that.

(Of course, if I'd been eligible, CSU would have had an eight point team as well as our two four point teams, so we might have walked off with both relays :) )

A final comment: don't censor Attackpoint! It's good to see some nice juicy comments here. Baseless insults are pretty amusing, actually, within limits...

You are are right Will,The whole thing is amusing or a joke ,because most of the participants at the Relay Champs are there for the fun ,and they are so used with the thought that :"we had fun,anyway that actualy,are diminishing the competitive factor that should be the main factor when a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP takes place.So I apologize to all the (athletes?) that were ofended that somebody dared to ruin their fun by questioning if this championship was conducted the way it should,and that is another think that we realy don't care either because ,going back to J.J.statement nobody cares about the rules since nobody cared to aply them since 1992 and all that was said here realy has no point except for the "sensitive " ones that got somehow "offended" or some think insulded.Grow up.

Of course, there's an easy solution to the problem of having non-eligible teams... make everyone eligible by removing the nationality requirement for the CLUB RELAY championships.

I'm all for this. It is a shame that the cofounder of my club and the president of another club I know cannot run on their club relay teams in championships.

Of course, there's an easy solution to the problem of having non-eligible teams... make everyone eligible by removing the nationality requirement for the CLUB RELAY championships.

I'm all for this. It is a shame that the cofounder of my club and the president of another club I know cannot run on their club relay teams in championships.

I promise extensive relay forking at next year USA Relay Champs, as well as, PNWOF medals to the fastest team on the Open course to motivate non-USA residents. Be prepared :) Unfortunately (or fortunately), the major USOF rules to determine USA Champs eligibility are USA residence and USOF membership

Isn't just great !!! Way to go Sergey.

Darn, now HVO can't follow UNO anymore :o)

So I'm curious, is there anybody out there who honestly believes that the results or times would have been significantly different if Will had not run in the relay? (Other than Will not finishing first, of course.)

Of course, they would be different. Specially for the first legimate team. They would win anyway though. The point of this discussion is to design relay courses properly to avoid this kind of situations.

J-J, teams results would be in same order, no doubts, but the gap would be smaller, in my personal opinion ~ 6-8 min smaller after four legs, provided runners on CSU team who saw William in the forest (not following him, I am far from occusing anyone in following
Will), did not make any major mistake, causing significant time loss. It is proven that an average non-elite(world elite it is) orienteer gains 15-30 seconds on each control were he/she can see another athlete punch and exit correct direction, world elite gains on it around 5-10 sec per control (this are not just numbers from my empty head, ask Joe Scarborough, he timed US elite on one of the controls at 1997 US Champs).
But, honestly, I want to put this issue to bed, since to much noise has been created,
I was the one who protested it in the first place, and I took it back, because: first – that is not a way to win a race (from our team point of view), by protesting winning team; second and most important, that was not planned, it just happened that Will was in sight of SCU first team runners, on some legs.

Greg Balter

Whew..........SO on to the 8pt teams.
It was nip and tuck the whole way, with change of place after every leg. Fortunately I was able to utilize our race strategy of letting Joe B. get ahead of me and have Peter lie in wait behind Gary. Worked out great, Vlad ( the announcer) didn't even notice Peter as he sneaked across the finish line.
You have to hand it to those folks at CSU though (Larry & SaraMae), they really know how to recruit. Reminds me of the old BSK.

6-8 minutes! Remarkable! Bear in mind that you can't count the first leg, because even if Will weren't allowed to run multiple legs, he could still have run just the first leg. And you can't count leg 3, because Will and Kenny never saw each other. So that would be 6-8 minutes for just Suzanne and Boris. I'm skeptical. And though I'll agree that there probably would have been a time difference, I think it would have been much smaller, and not significant.

I guess I should write to Joe Scarborough, because I'm curious as to how he timed people to come to a conclusion about how much time runners saved.

You know, you could really solve this whole issue by having an interval start relay. That would work even better than forking. (I'm not saying that ther's anything wrong with forking, I just don't think there was a problem in Vermont.

Also worth thinking about: so what would have happened if Waddington and his buddies actually had showed up for the relay, instead of going to a meet in Ontario? If CSU had been neck and neck with them, would we be hearing the same comments?

The whole point of relay is neck to neck competition and that is what making it so attractive. Forking helps with not following or taking advantage etc. Interval start would spoil the spirit of relays as there is no neck and neck competition. Forking! Forking! Forking! (I hear the crowd chanting :)

Forking! Forking! Forking!

Last year a guy called Ron Grayson also did all the legs of the US relay champs. I believe he came 9th, about an hour behind the winning team, and nobody spent a second thinking about whether or not he had cheated. In fact, most people were rather impressed that he managed to do it all by himself.

I am a CSU member myself, and I do agree with the general sentiment that the facts look a little strange, even though I am 100% sure that William did not enter the race by himself to help the CSU team cheat, but to get a great long workout. The point I am trying to make though is that what should be criticized is not that William may have unfairly influenced the race, but that no other eligible team managed to even come close to his time. I don't think there are many other countries where a single runner would have the slightest chance of beating the eligible teams..

In a defense of American orienteering, I want to point out that no other country (to the best of my knowledge) has the same point (gender and age) requirements of teams eligible for their championships as the US. These requirements make it easier for a single strong elite runner to defeat a team that has some combination of veterans, juniors, and females. I think the results would have been different if it was an all-elite relay, assumming, of course, that some clubs managed to come up with enough M21's.

That's quite true, Will had the advantage of being able to run as a ZERO-point team,and was thus the only all-elite "team" out there. Still, it's pretty impressive that he managed to come in first even though he had only a minimal lead after three legs, by which point he was presumably pretty tired.

We used to have different relay categories in the USA, including an "elite" relay (until 1990), but it didn't work very well. There are too few clubs that have enough M21s to be able to assemble an interesting field. (Not that we really have *any* elite runners in this country, but that's neither here nor there). Even in that structure, Will would probably have done pretty well, since the best unlimited team in the country would probably have been prety close to CSUs team anyway, maybe with the substitution of Danny Walker for Suzanne. UNO, for example, fielded their four best runners, points or no points. (Hmmm, I guess DVOA might have been able to upgrade, not sure about HVO.)

Regarding the point system used in US at the relay champs., is never going to give a strong competitive edge for the ,US elite orienteers, is only going to make it easier as Boris pointed out so there is no point in defending this sytem if any one is trying to be an elite competitor.The solution would be to keep the present system for the majority (as Vladimir was refering to:the recreational orienteers) and try next year to get club entries for M&F19+ ELITE cat. and see what the outcome will be.Better yet someone (maybe me)can write an article in ONA to try to get a opinion about this and in the same time try to get somthing like a preliminary entry from all the clubs in the US that would enter a ELITE team next year at the relay champs.Other then this everithing else should be kept ,as is.

And ofcourse they would have separate and completly dif. courses and the format should be the same one used at the W.O.R.C.,lenghts probably adjusted to US capabilities of elite runners.

Why not just add an official zero point category - anyone who wanted to run with the elites could enter the zero point category even if they had enough points to make it a 4 point team.

Separate course yes, but no need to be completely different - add a few more flags in the woods, but also use a lot of common controls, maybe even some common legs - or run some legs in opposite directions from the 4 & 8 point teams. It would make it more interesting (& confusing) with people running in all different directions. With control clusters of flags on nearby features it would make following someone into a control a dicey proposition as a high likliehood of it not being your control would exist.

Sorry, can't let that one go by: having different courses running the same leg in opposite directions is one of my pet hates in orienteering. People approaching their control are likely to get led into it by someone leaving it in the opposite direction. It's not fair and it takes some of the navigation away.

As for elite teams at the US Relays - it won't work as a club relay competition. There simply aren't enough clubs with enough M/F21 runners to make it work. If a real 21s relay is wanted, then some more aggregated level of teams is required (Boston vs NYC vs Toronto vs 'the rest'?). See The Red Sox/Yankees thread.

People already don't want to travel out of their backyard for relays, so why all the suggestions for tweaking with something that is barely alive? If you feel in need of "elite" competition, run the Tiomila/Jukola.

I have not been to AP in awhile. boy are you guys funny!
btw, coach. I noticed you avoided telling everyone that you followed me for the second half of the course, but conveniently let me get ahead at the finish to make it look better. then peter followed gari and tripped him, pulled off his shoes and ran away with them toward the finish. There must be some rule that disallows this. We will get you next year "old and beautiful"!

Yes I did follow for the 2nd half, fortunately nobody cares about us old and beautiful people.
You should tell Gary to tape his shoelaces.

Yes, there are not enough M21/F21' in the US. I'm willing to bet our team is the fastest team NEOC could put together. No fast M21's...........

If you want to put together some elite relays, that's fine, but I think the number of elite teams (I assume anyone can enter and who knows who'll you'll get) will be small............which means we need to recruit more fast 21+ competitiors, and therefore juniors.
So how will we do that???????????????