Discussion: WOC qualifiers

So with the announcement of Sprint Relay at WOC 2014, I looked up the programme here.

I didn't see any mention of qualifiers for Middle or Long.

It seems the WOC in the future, to "take effect from 2017", is happening already.

I wasn't aware of it was happening so soon (must have missed that discussion), and I think it's a bit irresponsible. I wouldn't want to be in Blair's shoes (I'm also happy Blair is in Blair's shoes).

IIRC, the Italians made it clear during the meetings that they wanted to implement the new program in 2014, and thus wanted a decision on stuff asap.

Oh, right, I figured the 2017 was to give feds time to change their mind and reverse course...

It's standard practice for any major decision about the format of WOC not to be binding on any organisers who have already been appointed, but the 2014, 2015 and 2016 organisers all had the option of moving to the new format, and I believe all are doing so.

The above may be a decent practice from the standpoint of organizers, but what about the athletes? Not much opportunity to prepare for a new format, but to be honest the change wouldn´t affect athletes "technically" as much as the earlier proposed micr-O though...

"the 2014, 2015 and 2016 organizers all had the option of moving to the new format"
I don't completely agree that the events contested and their format at a World Championships in any sport should be left to the event organizers to decide.

Especially after there was so much publicity about the new format and the move to it in 2017. I was also surprised reading the Italy WOC program. Without a solution to the Middle and Long finals qualifiers selection, and 20 months till WOC 2014, this IS irresponsible.

Talk about transparency and consistency at IOF...

Mixed Relay is only a commercial issue so we just need to see how it works. But the thread is about middle and long qualifiers. What are IOF's parameters to measure sucess or a failure of a new WOC programme?

When the new program was announced it was clear that it could take place earlier. The announcement was that the new format take place latest from 2017 or earlier if the organizers want. Don´t forget when starting the new format it was originally planed to implement from 2014.

The key issue is how the athlete allowances for middle & long will be calculated. There are 3 type of events they could potentially use. WRE, WC & WOC. I think WRE is the least equal and fair, WC is still quite unfair, WOC is the most fair. That is just my opinion with no empirical evidence to support it. Whatever events they use, we will need to know the exact process before the first event of that type in 2013 for it to be able to be used for WOC 2014. The only exception I can see would be if the WRE's would be from ~12 months prior to WOC entry deadline, e.g. June 2013 - June 2014.

If the WC is to be used, then this would have a serious effect on people going to NZ. Those WCs will be, I'm sure, excellent, but also less contested that those in Europe over the previous years. And "easy(er) points" could be attractive if it got you some WOC spots.

and if regional champs are to be used the next Nor-Am Champs takes place AFTER WOC in 2014.

@hammer...

It seems like the IOF or WOC2014 folks didn't really care that much about what us noobs in NorAm do or not in 2014.

There is no try.

While (somewhat to my frustration) I'm not in a position to say much yet about what options are in the proposal at this stage, something which is public (from the discussion at IOF Congress) is that part of what was put to Congress was that qualification would be based on previous WOC results in some form. Using World Cup is not on anyone's agenda as far as I know.

If you wanted to be fair you would just have a qualifying meet.
But I don't think anyone wants to do fair.

Once 2014 decided on the new format, there's not really any going back.

I don't think all continents have regional champs, so it's not even an option.

WOC is clearly the best event. Everyone is equal at WOC in 2013.

I have not followed this closely, but I read "participation according to nation's strength".
If that is determined by the previous years WOC, how can any nation move up or into a final?
Is it if you never are in the previous year's final, then you can' t get in this years?
And if WRE or WC races are used, it will be very difficult for NA countries and Asian nations to qualify as it is very time consuming and expensive to get to those events.

Those are all issues we're very aware of. I'm hopeful of having come up with a solution which is an acceptable answer to them, but the rest of you are going to have to judge that. (I'm not sure when a proposal is going to be made public - most likely after Council considers it at its January meeting and then puts it out to national federations for comment).

The talk about replacement of qualifications seems to be based on the assumption that final places need to be somehow need to be divided amongst nations based on the current strength of a nation. I cant see how this can be done without having to rely on some arbitrary WRE/WC/WOC results formula that will always end up favouring some nations more than others. Has there been any serious discussion about offering equal places to every nation regardless of current strength? Other sports follow this model, which although isn't fair it would at least be equitable to each nation.
I worry that the reliance on a formula to determine WOC participants will result in a further strengthening of the current strong European nations to the detriment of the development of newer orienteering nations outside of Europe. As a sport I would hope that our strategic aim would be to globalise the sport rather than further euro centralise it.

"newer orienteering nations outside of Europe"

Orienteering started in Canada in 1966. :-)

*less established nations.
you know what I mean :-)

No I don't think they have considered it - equal representation. But its a good idea. Their answer will be - too many runners.

They could get around that issue by having qualification heats, with say 1 runner per country per heat and the top 15 in each heat going into the final ;-)

Or they could have shortish qualification races in heats and the top X advance to the finals, wait ...ist'n....that.......

Equal representation in a direct final, what would the number be? I think the only possible answer is 2.

1 - 50 runners? "Big" nations would never accept 1 spot and most "smaller" nations would not be happy either. Many nations would not bring a relay team.

2 - 90 runners? Big nations would not be happy, but might accept. Good for smaller nations. Large start window, but perhaps manageable?

3 - 130 runners? Start window too large?

gg made a good suggestion on another thread a while back:

If you are going to have 100 guys in each final, why not just let every nation have 3 runners in the final with some better way to get top runners starting in the end - would only be about 120-130 runners max based on last couple of years anyway. Adds one hour to the start block, TV won't care about the early runners anyway, and all the 'best' runners get more fair tracks in the forest so late start is not so important.....

whole idea was to make it easier for organisers, not having to organise extra races (ie. qualifiers)


http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

exactly what they do in skiing....

With 130 runners there would be elephant track from control to control in soft terrains, so late starters would not need to navigate much, especially middle with short legs. It would also effectively erase nav errors for the very same late starters we are supposed to track an watch, makes gps tracking pretty boring. Less than 60 runners, please.

It seems that thread "WOC week...in the future" was indicated all these problems nearly 2 years back.... "I like the idea with no qualifications but let’s make race system for 60 runners and all the others can run after them. I don’t see a problem to have 100 runners on the course."

Jagge, we can have Red Group of 30 runners inside TOP 60 because these runners are interested for TV. "Modern WOC" for other runners should be about participation. Qualification model middle/long for only 60 runners means - sorry you can run sprint,... and you can run or watch sprint relay & relay. Where is the problem?

Development of the sport which is already very week in many countries can stop when you pull out the motivation factor.

@Jagge.
Yes, elephant tracks are a problem because they:
1/ Make the terrain faster for late starters.
2/ Show late starters where to go.

Since all WOC's have spectator races, a way round this is to get the spectators to run first, creating tracks which don't necessarily go the right way, but can be used by all WOC runners.

(another solution would be to run on hard surfaces, like tarmac and Australia...)

A better solution is to hold all WOCs in Australian forests, where there are no elephant tracks.

+1 simmo.

There are no elephants either, unlike those Scandinavian forests which are crawling with the little buggers.

Big buggers too! As well as running marathons Ingemar took up orienteering and was at the Swedish 5 days I attended in 1984. I probably ran in one of his tracks!

Well, he attended O-ringen in a publicity stunt - I doubt he ever "took up" orienteering. If he had I´m sure there would have been elephant tracks...

He ran the Stockholm Marathon in 1981-1983, in 1983 together with his old adversary Floyd Patterson (Floyd 3:55 and Ingo 4:56). According to Wikipedia he also ran other marathons, including Boston Marathon.