Discussion: Money in Orienteering

This Russian coach, Vinogradova Galina, gives some opinions on the current IOF system, the World Cup, money in Orienteering, and more. The article was linked on WorldOfO.
Looks like some people (including this coach), think Orienteering shouldn't really go far outside Europe.
Quite controversial.

In fact, it is my article. I am Vinogradov Mike, former Halden Skiklubb coach (2011-2012) and personal coach of some international level runners, including Valentin Novikov and Galina Vinogradova.

The main point of my article that IOF is too lazy to work with sponsors and earn money in other way then sanctions fee from World Cup and WRE.

Now every runner except Scandinavian ans Swiss have to pay own money for traveling and participation in IOF races. I would be happy to send my runners to Canada, New Zealand, Australia, USA, South Africa and so on, but for Russians it is impossible to fly to (e.g.) so far. Normal way is to provide prizes. But IOF prefer to take money from runners and organizers.

Instead of work with economy of our sport, IOF have started to make limits to countries in participation in Long and Middle.

Vinogradov Coach is common blog of me, O-coach, and my wife - Galina Vinogradova (O-runner). It is possible to recognize author of particular post by end note with surname.

It might be interesting to look at examples of mechanisms used in other sports to address the disparity between budgets of different teams, both internationally and within a country.

One potential solution. Replace the World Cup with ANNUAL Regional championship races. ie., an annual Nor-Am, Euro, Oceania, etc. regional race each year. Give two WOC spots in each of the middle and long races at EACH of the regional races. One of those spots goes to the regional champion. the other to the top finisher regardless of eligibility (2nd place if the regional champion wins the race). The incentive here is that the rich countries could send teams to other regional races such as an annual NAOC with the hope to get another runner into WOC. It would enrich the quality of the NAOC and accomplish what the World Cup always was originally intended.

For those countries that would prefer to only race in Europe then they can.

Does the IOF vision lack of vision? If you ask officials they would say we don't understand the vision and if you ask athletes and coaches they would say that they don't understand what vision is. We all know what would be the best way how to spent IOF money but nobody knows how to make it. Two worlds.

Opening a debate about IOF efficiency is good for all and looking into costs would be better than talking about how to raise money. It is better to talk about what we can do than what we can't do. If somebody knows how to raise money before spent it would be nice. It looks like IOF has tried but unable to recruit marketing people, marketing agency and we are still chasing our dream: Olympic games. If we can't attract sponsors than costs should be under huge magnifying glass.

First it would be nice to see simple chart of IOF budget and for what services/goods they spend money for the last 10 years. Which segments of IOF costs are the most unproductive, which segments increased over the years (relative and nominal) and what they did to keep the costs down. I suppose federations needs to vote on rule: e.g. ~25% of total budget should go back to athletes, coaches, federations and IOF officials need to work the best with the rest. If they need to save on travel, accommodation, accounting, auditing, employees, EA visits, marketing, TV, etc they should find a way to optimize the processes. Saving on prizes is not the right way. On the other hand officials also work voluntary. I think national federations pay most of their travel expenses for IOF meetings and IOF cover only part of their real expenses on yearly basis. I don't see any winners, I see only bunch of people who work for the sport.

And...
UCI introduced PRO Team competition as part of their World championship and I suppose the idea to have a WC arranged around clubs is really good one.

And small federations must say THANK YOU to SWISS and other WOC organizers who were able to cover part of the costs for our athletes in the past.

2 kofols +1

Money comes from governments and sponsors. Governments give money to sports that somehow advance (or at least have the image of advancing) governments' objectives, and sponsor money goes to sports that help sell their products and services.

Ahhh life isn't fair is it Mike. I don't think you'll get much sympathy from Australian and New Zealand orienteers who must travel to Europe every year or miss out. Around here the athletes pay almost everything themselves.

2 gruver I am not a source of problems to these runners. Problems come from IOF.

If only Australia and New Zealand would become one country. We'd have such a booming economy that we could afford to send the entire population over to Europe every year to compete.

uh-oh, a call to a revolution.

2 tRicky Do you know, my friend, that IAAF pays to every athletes money to come to IAAF World Championships? And memberships in IAAF fee (for federations) is just 100 US dollars. Compare with practice of IOF - ask Australian federation about IOF memberships fee! You will be surprised.

Why do runners and organizers work like crazy to find funding and sponsors? And IOF just consumes our money.

And by the way, you will never find any finance documents at the IOF cite. It is non-sence! Every international organization has an open financial statement. I have simple explanations: if they will publish detailed budgets then everyone realized that current IOF is extremely ineffective.

@Mike
You find the finance document on the IOF website under General Assembly in the bieannial report and/or congress binder.

I don't know what the IAAF is and I already know how much it costs (paid to the IOF) to run World Cup and World Champs MTBO races. Hefty!

My comment was more based on the fact you don't think Aus or NZ should be able to host World Cup races because you can't afford to go (well, unless funding is provided), whereas gruver tells the other side of the story.

2 mikee: Its a tricky way to find it.

2tRicky: International association of athletics federations http://www.iaaf.org/

> you don't think Aus or NZ should be able to host World Cup races because you can't afford to go (well, unless funding is provided), whereas gruver tells the other side of the story.

You, people from Golden Billion, actually don't know what does it mean to feel hunger (I know from 90th - but now situation in Russia is better, of course) and what does it mean to fight every day of your life for surviving.

And half of year we have in Siberia winter (real winter with temperatures -20-40 C). People have to spend a lot of money to warm clothes, high caloric food and fuel. When almost all of you money are coming to food and utilities, then your life is really tough (and I am not talking about criminals, incredible corruption, and environment problems).

And you are talking me that your life in Australia is so shity like in Russia, that one traveling for you from Australia to Europa will crash two-years budget of your family?

I don't ever recall comparing my life to yours but you seem to be implying that WC races should be held in poverty stricken nations so that poor athletes can attend them and get all their hard earned points whereas perhaps you should be focussing more on your home situation rather than some silly World Ranking.

Bah, can't believe I fell into the Russian troll trap!

2 tRicky:
I just want to stress point that now IOF dont care at all about any finance problems (in Australia or in Russia - does not matter).

Yes okay I'm fine with that :-) IOF are losers.

Please don't hate me and my country because I'm about to go for a run outside and it's quite warm!

2 tRicky: I respect all people (especially from Orienteering). I hate just criminals (drag dealers, terrorists. etc).

IOF are not losers! They are just trying to become officials with big influences and running something similar like IAAF. I think they are very satisfied to have a chance to work for the sport and doing something for the cause. Maybe someone hope to get paid FOR WHAT THEY ARE DOING but in general they are happy with small rewards, partial refunds and IOF pins.

I don't know any other recreational sport where there are no sponsors, low budget and so many committed people to work from elite, to beginners, from International level - national - local level.

Maybe, maybe it would be nice from IOF to officially disclose the WAGES of paid IOF office people. Just to be transparent what really means working for IOF. And how on earth IOF employs its own staff, do they put out any job opportunity or do you need to have a special o-skills to be eligible to work for IOF?

P.S.
I suppose sport is just not so important in our lives so we can live with non-transparent International sports organizations, including IOC. Professional sport is business and orienteering is just a sport.

P.S.S.
For o-fans I would suggest crowdfunding project.:) What you would do to see one day a WOC in Slovenia, on Slovenian karst.....

Since apparently it's easier to complain about lack of transparency than it is to actually look at the numbers, here's a link for the lazy (PDF) to the most recent biennual report. Finance information begins on page 16.

Okay IOF are not losers; kofolses are losers.

On the off chance he's not either, well I retract all my statements and decline further participation in this thread for fear of being wrong.

Ouch.

I'm sure there are errors in my math(s) but regardless I can see from the numbers below how it really sucks to be a European orienteer eh! :/

Note how the World Cup truly was a World Cup prior to 1995.

World Cup races in Europe
All time: 90%
1986-1994: 63%
1995-2013: 95%

World Orienteering Champs "finals"* in Europe
1966-2017: 90%

*defined as the number of gold medal final events. Assumes 2014-2017 has 5 finals (long, middle, sprint, relay, sprint relay)

Cristina, thanks for the link, but personally I'd love to see also an interpretation and reasons behind the numbers.

Let's see only staff costs.
Costs go up in 2010 compare to 2009 from -182,519.14 to 220,693.10 and in 2011 up to -237,009.53 EUR. Total funding go up from 299,127.09 to 408,554.48 and in 2011 to 406,172.05 EUR.

Staff costs spend 35% of this funding increase in 2010 and total staff costs eats even more in 2011 and represent 58% of total budget for 2011. I would say this is very good job. Great for them. Staff costs should be limited to around 20-30% of Total budget like in normal service companies. If you can't work with this budget and you can't get people to do the job for less than move work to other region/country and fire the staff. After all this is how things works in companies and how enterprises works. Managing and having control over the costs is first priority for every manager (P.S. not able to increase the funding).

Do IOF pays to much for the staff?
I think yes. A quick calculation for 2010 for 4 people (IOF Office) gives you in avg. 55K and net avg. earnings is 45K per year / 3.700 EUR per month. I don't know if this is low or above Finland average for administrative job or for similar job in Finland company but from Slovenian perspective this is very costly. In Slovenia, normal administrative task is valid around 1000 EUR/net earnings per month. For 3.700 EUR you need to work on manager position in a big company.

Let go on....
Athletes prizes went down from 10K to 6K (P.S. and in 2011 to -39,234.05. That is improvement) In my opinion 25% - 100K should be fixed cost for WC, WOC, EOC, WR, etc prizes. Officials who can't see importance of this shift needs to have a huge arguments why other costs should have a priority over the Athletes prizes.

I would say staff is a winner and athletes are the losers. End of story.
Looking for other costs need additional explanation to see what is the basis for them and what we got as a community from these costs back to us. It is obvious that managing the costs needs to have a revision.

Please, pay attention on key point from Radek words:

" The IOF has rather small income from sponsors, living mostly on money from federations and event organizers. The IOF is not capable to find sponsors, but the organizers need to make it, not just to be able to organize events, but also to be able to pay the fee to the IOF… Does it say that all the organizers are actually considered to be more skillful in getting money into orienteering then the IOF staff? Isn´t it strange?

No. It is natural. Organizers are simply forced to find the money. The IOF as a system is apparently not forced enough to behave effectively. The question is whether there are sufficient built-in mechanisms inside our international organization to ensure that the IOF will also be strongly motivated to become an attractive partner as quickly as possible?"

2 kofols: +1

@tRicky
Yes, we are losers and IOF officials are only the collateral damage. Dogs bark, the caravan goes on...

IOF normally don't comment on forums, federations normally don't ask these questions at GA, athletes normally don't have time to work on this issues. So we are huge losers. Being quiet means that we are approving this IOF business concept. Why? Okay, I am a loser. Feel better now.

P.S.
My opinion is nothing against you, I just tried to say if you are saying that IOF are losers you need to be more precise. Don't be pussy and give us your STATEMENT.

'IAAF pays for athletes to attend their world championships.' IAAF receives $$millions from television networks around the world for the broadcast rights! And what they pay to athletes still doesn't cover the cost of sending a national team, which in Australia's case is largely borne by the long-suffering taxpayer. Athletics Australia receives $7.8 million from the national government compared to $186,000 for Orienteering Australia, yet adult participation in weekly events around the country is broadly similar. Why? No other reason than athletics is an olympic sport and has a higher media profile.

If average Russians would be clamouring to watch WOC and WC on their televisions, then perhaps this would spread to other nations, and then IOF can make enough money to help support orienteering athletes.

2 simmo: How many of us are watching now Carlsen-Anand 4th game at the FIDE World Chess Championship? May be just me (I was a chess local level player). Every game can be ~5-7 hours and the tournaments take several weeks. And for non-chess is too boring to watch chess game. It is not like this for Orienteering. Some of my friends (not from Orienteering) took look at some O-races and they says: Mike, it is very attractive!

But in any case. Chess without Olympic Games status and without any sells of TV-rights has a huge prizes (2,5 million Euro at World Championship and hundred of thousands for top-tournaments).

IOF have to learn from such federations like FIDE. Current situation is not acceptable.

The sport is full of people who think money is wrong; they are the majority. If you can't work with the situation, find another sport.

Tundra/Desert: for you orienteering is a hobby, for my runners (e.g., Galina Vinogradova, Valentin Novikov, Yuliya Novikova) orienteering is profession. Many years ago people like you said same words about chess. But Bobby Fischer from USA started initiative that have led to current comfortable situation with good prize money in modern international chess.

Orienteering for me, hobby indeed!

(and some smart* will undoubtedly point out where Bobby ended at)

2 Tundra/Desert: they choose this way (to have an Orienteering like a job) dozens years ago. E.g., Valentin Novikov is 39 years old now, he is 4 times World champion and still one of the best international runner (and current champion in Relay). And you have the audacity to tell him that he have to change his sport??

I find the use of chess for comparison a rather strange choice -- millions of people play chess and virtually everybody knows what it is and most have played it at some point in their lives. It's not surprising that chess has an easier time securing sponsorship and prize money (though a good story and personality leading the way certainly helps).

That said, I don't really know enough about the IOF or the structure of orienteering internationally to have an opinion on substance of this thread, though I can't promise to stay away entirely. Anyone have popcorn?

Hey, I raced against Valentin in M-20! I realized how much I sucked, so I found another sport. It's called rogaining. :)

All I am saying is what I said: Money comes from governments and sponsors. Sponsors won't give money because orienteers don't buy much of anything, and gorernments won't give money because it's not an Olympic sport.

I lament the situation as much as you do (you obviously haven't been on Attackpoint long enough to realize that I mostly agree with your complaints). What I point out is that there is no realistic way to achieve what you request in our lifetime within this particular sport.

If Valentin chose orienteering as a profession, then it sounds like he made an incredibly stupid choice. I'm not sure it's anybody's responsibility to make sure that somebody can earn a living playing some particular game, no matter now good they may be at it. I definitely have no sympathy.

It is inside human nature – intention to achieve perfectness in particular activities. For modern orienteering it is just one way to be a world champion – be professional. People love orienteering so much that they have made it their profession. But you think that all best athletes are just stupid persons. Please, give some respect for great runners!

Don't diss my boy Valentin! I got his back.

No, not all top athletes are stupid. Some choose sports where there's money to be earned or won. Others choose the sport that they enjoy or are good at despite the lack of money, and also find another way to earn a living.

2jjcote: I'll tell Valentin tomorrow that he's dumb and has devoted his life to the wrong sport.

2jjcote: thanks for moral support of 4x World champion.

I'm hoping a lot of money gets funneled into corn maze orienteering. Perhaps General Mills?

Just to get things straight, J-J said Valentin's *choice* was stupid, not that the man is. Let's read things the way they are written.

Cristina, where's that popcorn?

2 Janet. Thanks for comment. What separates the smart people from the stupid? Stupid people make stupid decisions. But may be it is wrong logic.

2 Cristina: what is the reason for comparing chess and orienteering. Many years I have heard from IOF staff: we have so bad funding because we are not in Olympic Games and we are not attractive for television. FIDE does not need it.

As for popularity. Some times ago sociologist asked Russians: Do you know a sport 'squash' (new sport in program of summer Olympic Games). It is close to 0. And at least one million know about Orienteering in Russia (statistics of participation in biggest competition that takes place in dozens of Russian towns and cities - Russian Azimuth).

I dont realize about popcorn. What do you mean?

2 Cristina: good luck to Carlsen. He is a great player and a lot of Russian are rooting now for Magnus. I was living two years in Norway and I did not meet no one who can play chess with me. How have you got chess genius in Norway??

The decision to choose orienteering is only stupid if money is your only focus.

Money is the focus of this discussion, but not the focus of life.

If you make a choice for reasons other than money, then you don't have too much space to complain about it when money is bad.

2Becks: if I will see some progress in our sport then I would be very patient. But now it is difficult to stay calm when IOF demonstrates incompetence.

We say: Only the brightest people stay in orienteering. Normal runners don't have these multiple skills to perfect orienteering.

The question should rather go:
Why we need IOF and WOC if there are no realistic chance to support elite orienteers and we only feed officials and staff?

From our perspective if we wouldn't have IOF we wouldn't get nothing from government and no chance to be part of national Olympic committee. Governments will support Sports, like Culture, like science, like army, like many other things but distribution of money is in hand of people who comes from Olympic sports. Governments segregate sports on the basis of Olympic chapter. Because of this I applause to SWISS and NORDIC countries which have guts to put orienteering over these money barriers and provide to orienteering the necessary funding basis. I've worked on this issues for many years and saw on my eyes how egoistic sport officials can be when it comes to have a transparent discussion about money. All sports want more money, better preparations, better equipment, never ending story.

I would rather have PWT model than WOC. Many non Olympic sports give a f... on IOC structure and run their world champs. Like X games (i suppose), etc. IOF is putting so much energy and time to this goal to get someday a chance to earn a breadcrumbs. And even if we succeed we would need to pay even more to WADA, officials...and athletes get nothing again. They put us on wheel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GBu24LhnII

I know. I feel exactly the same about my career in science versus a potential career I could have chosen in law/finance. Occasionally the frustration rises to a point where you want to yell at everyone, but then you have to remember the reasons you choose your path.

And as you suggest, small changes to make your situation better.

Not sure how being angry at Australians fits in :)

Forget restricting the world cup to Europe. Restrict it to Scandinavia and Switzerland. And everyone who cares about orienteering should just move there. Then the non-Europeans will be able to get to races and the Eastern Europeans will earn wages in kronor and it will be a perfect orienteering paradise where we'll never have to think about anyone else's different circumstances.

2Becks: there were dozen of top Russians who was fightings for the victory in overall World Cup some years ago. And Andrei Khramov even won the title in 2005. For the moment just Tatiana Ryabkina and Galina Vinogradova try to participate in World Cup program on the regular base. If IOF will keep Australia in World Cup program for 2015, then probably, no one from Russians will enter for the World Cup fightings. I am not against Australian or other people. It should be stupid to blame them. I give my great respect to all runners, coaches and funs from Orienteering.

@Mike, popcorn... People amuse themselves and have fun reading this soap opera here.

2 cjross: things are not really good in Norwegian orienteering now. They lost main sponsor and also new government decided to drop some parts of life to private initiative.

But if changes will keep direction then your suggestions would be good. In fact I still dont understand the reason to drop out a lot of runners from dozens nations from forest WOC. Russia has a full quota (it did not touch my country), but still I think that the decision was totally wrong.

2 kofols: thats fun. OK. I'm coming to sleep. I need to restore my energy to be able to remove snow from my doors tomorrow.

@cjross
Tell me one reason why IOF need to have an office in Finland and why this is good for orienteering? We have many passionate people around the world who would be able to work administrative tasks with same professional level for less. It is just a hard managing decision. How to make IOF efficient. Same people don't have any problems when they work in companies and need to move factories in third world. Okay, this is exploiting the poorest nations but if IOF would pay reasonable wages to people with all social benefits this would be in my opinion good decision and fair.

And again...
We are part of International Orienteering federation and we have the right to ask IOF these questions and get the answers and reasons. If they have a good reason (closer to possible sponsors, decision makers, etc) I would have no problem to have an IOF office in Geneva. If there are no particular benefits....

It's not about wages, it's about managing the IOF in a way that we can support elite athletes with what we can do. They deserve better support and if the only way is to save on costs, save on staff than do it ...or IOF please provide $$.

Sorry, should have used a sarcasm tag. I don't actually believe that orienteering should only be for Scandinavians. I don't have any real solutions though.

The chess comparison is a little pointless. There should be more sponsorship, more prizes. I sympathise with you but I think your 'vision' is not realistic for now. Orienteering is not going to be lucrative anytime soon. And every professional orienteer now knew that when they started.

Hands up everybody who hasn't grizzled in this same way about their national federation:-)) Pass the popcorn.

Please don't let this thread die. I haven't finished my popcorn.

+1

Now IOF delegation is in South Africa at WADA annual conference. Thats really expensive! But is it a high-priority event for development orienteering???

>Why we need IOF and WOC if there are no realistic chance to support elite >orienteers and we only feed officials and staff?

This question was answered by System Analysis long ago in a more general context.
Bureaucracy is always self serving. Now USOF got its own vanity-fair CEO (Типа мы не нищеброды какие)
I feel like throwing up when I read it
over and over: "Government need to give more money for orienteering".
Government sucks money out of people, this is its only real purpose.

Problem is that IOF is ineffective. There are several ways to solve this problem:

1) Cost optimization (move office to cheaper country, avoid trips to international conferences, reduce expenditures to anti-doping policy, reduce frequency of various IOF meetings, etc.)

2) Request government. Government purpose is to produce public goods (not sucks money - taxation is just method not a goal). It is possible to join some programs in this direction. E.g., in Russia we have some National mass-competitions (National Running Day, Russian Azimuth, Skiing for Health, and Orange Ball - street basketball). In every competitions hundreds of thousands people take part. For Orienteering thats good, because people recognize our sport, someone start to make trainings. For govenment is good because large number of participants is a criteria of success in providing public goods named "Healthy sport for every-one". I am pretty sure that there are some options to use same funding to IOF.

3) Sponsors. Orienteering now has a own auditory in Scandinavia and some other countries. If some company is related to mass or elite sport, then they are potential sponsors. Also Orienteering is growing sport and for some company with ambitions it is possible to be associated with healthy and clean sport like Orienteering. Also some companies aimed to enter to Scandinavian market has an option to be sponsor to IOF.

E.g., Minna Kuppi is one of the most famous Finnish girl with realy good personal sponsors. Everything is possible if you make efforts. But IOF have to tear ass off the couch and start working.

4) TV-rights - a long way to go. I assume that it is too narrow market for the moment. Some my friends from Norway regularly buy access from Scandinavian Relays or other not-free online broadcasting, but it is long way before national channels.

But most important thing is to have a clear goal that shared by everyone. I am a part of Orienteering (like top-coach and local level runner) but I have feelings that IOF has own world (in their minds). They are far away from real problems and real life. I dont feel that IOF has some global goal (goal does not equal wishes - to be a part of Olympics is a wishes and it is not realistic at all for coming dozen years).

Enjoy popcorn :-)

There is quite a lot of government money which goes into supporting orienteering - at national level. (For example, in Australia we get A$186,000 from the national government, and I'd guess probably another $100-150,000 comes from state governments to state orienteering bodies). Unless and until we get ourselves a world government I'm struggling to see where the IOF might get government support from....

Unless you're an organisation in a position to offer international TV exposure (which I know IOF is trying to get, without a lot of success so far), you've probably got more chance of attracting sponsors at national (or even individual) level than at international level, too.

As far as conferences are concerned, I don't know about you, but I'd regard spending a couple of thousand euros sending someone to an anti-doping conference as money well spent if it stops IOF from having one day to spend 50,000 euros fighting a case in the Court of Arbitration for Sport because our anti-doping rules weren't rigorous enough.

In general, we're in the somewhat odd situation of being in a sport where the international body is significantly smaller (in terms of annual budget) than the larger national federations, and probably smaller than some of the Nordic clubs.

(A$ and US$ are roughly the same at the moment).

> In general, we're in the somewhat odd situation of being in a sport where the
>international body is significantly smaller (in terms of annual budget) than the larger
>national federations, and probably smaller than some of the Nordic clubs.
Thats correct.

2blairtrewin: Why somebody wants to be presented at the WADA conference:
1) You have something to report (it is not a case of IOF).
2) You want to listen lectures (no reason! everything including new WADA Code has published in Internet already). And it is also available on-line video broadcast of this conference.
3) You want to have private talking with some WADA officials (no reason - send email, call by Skype or at least have a meeting in WADA office)
4) You want to visit South Africa, but dont want to spend your own money for touristic trip.

And the last. Doping is not a challenge to modern Orienteering. IOF have to spend money in other directions.

Indeed yurets seems to be eternally grateful to the government-funded system that taught him to orienteer. Just like he's grateful to about every event organizer whose event he's been to, and about anyone around, really.

+1 T/D

The initial problem might be that IOF keep the numbers and data by themselves or it is unable to collect and present them in a proper way. It is not possible to expect that someone or any federation would be able to comment or give credible proposal on IOF work without any background data. I suppose this is one way to keep organization more controlled when it comes to questions at GA. Speaking about efficiency of IOF or making a proposal which would fit into the strategy is where people want to see changes. @Blair, yes, IOF is small but it behaves as if it were large and rich organization. If people who are interested in IOF underwear want to say something constructive than they need to have the basic which is transparent to everyone.

1) Where is possible to see data about o-growth in member federations? Is it so hard to upload the files or these data are meant to be only for officials. IOF collect numbers. Why they can't present it. Number of registered athletes, number of events, starts, national champs participation, etc for last decade.

2) Same with funding. Do IOF collect how much money each federation gets from their government and how much registered clubs get from local government for various programs? Are we entitled to see the gap and how we can learn from each other and exchange the best practices and get advice? I am sure that people who are in charge of those programs in relevant countries that they would have some time to share their knowledge with interested individuals. It may looks unproductive but I am sure that this can be extended arm of today one-time organized IOF clinics around the world. Regular access to the people, mentors, advisers would probably have constant impact on development. If such an online initiative already exists than it is very well-kept secret.

3) It would be great to see organizational structure of member federations, to see where we are now in organizational sense. Do they have paid staff, how many voluntary staff, is federation a member of any association, national Olympic committee, etc. Same with IT support. As we are small, do we really need that every country develop their own IT system for managing the o-results. OK, we won't buy Eventor but countries with limited resources can work on common system. Same with other organizational stuff.

If you read all this you probably have eaten all your popcorn :-)

These are only the 3 areas where IOF could have the leading role to provide some benefits to its members. Why we need to ask IOF to put these tasks on their TODO list and in the same time we need to watch how IOF ineffectively spent staff paid resources. Do we need to pay someone to tweet? Hell no! Do they start this because staff have free hours and don't know what to do else. Do IOF need to be credible on sport stage? (P.S. creating content and be constantly present on social media is time consuming - hard to see this as a priority) Hell no! Help federations and athletes first because YOU - Council and staff are not IAAF, yet. When IOF will be able to get sponsor money than tweet as you please but if we (federations) pay your work please re-focus and do something relevant for us. Be credible to people who have many more real troubles and problems at developing orienteering and running the elite sport programs in their own countries. Tweet this: We have 1 hour per day to help you with anything regarding orienteering. Keep us busy.

Going to couch to eat a fresh portion of popcorn :-)

I might put down the popcorn and go to a local orienteering event. We have a number of club members who strenuously object to any levies from the club to support state or national administration or for elite support at the national level. The only government grants that they consider justified are those to support growth of the sport at the local level. I am wondering if I should point them at this thread. It could get interesting.

And the last. Doping is not a challenge to modern Orienteering.

Well, that's good to know.

Didn't a ski orienteer get a doping ban this year?

Citation from Vinogradov coach :
'For all O-people is obviously that Orienteering is clean sport (just two doping-disqualification cases for overall history - 1993 and 2013. Both cases are just stupid treatment)'

Read in December at Vinogradov coach about
- two disqualifications (1993 and 2013),
- annual statistics of WADA that demonstrated every year presence of positive analytical findings in Orienteering but without disqualifications ("asthma" drags with Therapeutic Use Permission),
- why I believe that positive cases during competitions is a sign of low IQ
- why I think that IOF program of out-of-competition tests is ineffective,
- whats happens during doping-test
- what is an essential information for athlete during doping test,
- what are tricky things related with using on-line ADAMS WADA system,
- which countries have started to create WADA biological profiles for O-runners, and so on.

New posts are coming at Vinogradov coach
1. Doping in Orienteering.
2. Top coaches in elite Orienteering: case of Daniel Hubmann,
3. Top coaches in elite Orienteering: case of Olav Lundanes,
4. Top coaches in elite Orienteering: case of Tatiana Riabkina;
5. Galina Vinogradova: Impressions from World Cup final 2013
6. Thoughts about fairness in Sprint Relays.
7. Mihail Vinogradov: About my report in Russian Olympic Committee
8. Galina Vinogradova about her new indoor tracks results (3000 m; 2000 m)
9. Overtraining in Orienteering: Part 3
10. Is age detrimental for success in elite Orienteering?

If you have some wishes about topics for new posts in our blog, please, write to me inside comments to old posts or send email vinogradov_kr (a) mail (dot) ru

OK, now I'm going for some popcorn.

2kofols: +1

2kofols: Your thoughts look quite creative. Attack point is a good forum, but I have offer for you to collect all your thoughts in one post and publish it in Vinogradov coach. I have more then 10 thousands of unique visitors from 53 countries at the blog and we can spread-out ideas about IOF perspectives.

My email is vinogradov_kr (a) mail (dot) ru (please, send copy to vinogradov (dot) kr (a) gmail (dot) com - mailru post system some times block emails because of spam suspicions)

If you are interested, please, attach your photo and short background info about you (I guess that you are related to Slovenia officials - may be even I saw you at WOC/EOC/JWOC)

>Hey, I raced against Valentin in M-20! I realized how much I sucked, so I found >another sport. It's called rogaining. :)

It’s called being a loser.
I raced against Novikov and other guys from Belgorod (just about 50 miles away) many times in 1990s. That is how one improves, by running against the strongest opponents.

Here is another cool sport for those looking to be on top.

That last comment is stooping to a new level of crass. Please steer your remarks in a more decent direction.

It's just the translation of Attackpoint into Ukrainian.

I've always wondered how effective competing against the best is as a training tool. If I fight a world champion boxer, I'll be too busy being unconscious to learn anything. I have been passed by AliC in a race - I can't keep up, and I do not have the technical skill to take her line anyway. Now if someone 10% better than me comes along, I can catch the wave and see things they do that I don't, and work them in. Maybe if I was much closer to the best, it would start to be viable.

>Indeed yurets seems to be eternally grateful to the government-funded system that >taught him to orienteer.

I am grateful indeed to my coaches from childhood. Incidentally, they both live now in NYC, after being granted asylum escaping from that “government-funded system” that T/D is so nostalgic about.

Remark:
For those who likes popcorn. I am not criticizing the IOF as a whole system and all they do for Orienteering. I am just saying that some gray areas have to be discussed in a more open and passionate international group and not behind the closed door or leaving this only to IOF officials because if they would have the best solution they would already bring it on the table. We need to see if it is a time to make s slightly shift on priorities, costs and on other core issues. Looking from the bottom is quite a different picture than looking from the top.

++++

Government-funded system is a norm in EU, also elsewhere. It is a pity that in America is everything based on market logic. If I understand correctly, USOF or clubs can't get any $$ from state or local government because such funds don't exist or because orienteering is not big enough & and can't meet all requirements within the rules to be among those sports programs who have chances to be funded.

We all agree (probably IOF too) that Elite sport program is almost impossible to start/run if you don't have regular support from a big sponsors or access to the funds or your membership is big enough and agree to support elite program through regular activity (levies).

And with EU crisis these pipelines are also closing in EU. We will probably retain some money for recreation, juniors, etc. We have now a fight between individual and team Olympic sports. Also some local governments fund TOP Elite sportsman and TOP PRO clubs because they produce not only sports benefits but also other benefits. We are more relaying on local government because those politics are more human and understand the potential of orienteering for local people, children, local environment and activity for all.

The national funding system, rules and how limited is orienteering to gain more funds is quite different in each country. It would be nice that IOF understand this before start organizing development clinic. They need to go beyond "technical" clinics. Only human resources is not enough, you need to have access to the funds or sponsors to develop ELITE program or INTERNATIONAL EVENT. Development in many countries is limited because of funds and not because of technical skills or passion or human resources. IOF is asking member countries to help develop orienteering. Hey Council, we have 300 maps, 60 events per year.... we've developed orienteering on a very high level in last 20 years. If IOF is asking us to develop ELITE program than we need to talk a bit more about funds. How about developing international orienteering organization without membership fees? Would you change your priority or.... close the door?

And here we come to the IOF role of governing... which is telling us that WADA has new rules! And all they can do with our money is going to Johannesburg, reporting on website, Inside Orienteering, FB and according to the new information also on Twitter that they will adopt new IOF WADA guidelines or something to be aligned with sport bureaucracy. Where is the help here?

FINA (swimming) has a rule that each athlete aiming to compete on international level must be tested 9 months before international competition. I suppose FINA pays this. Who have funds to pay WADA tests? We don't have it! Athletes don't get any support to understand the risks, they are not invited on national level,...

IOF need to adopt guerrilla tactics: spend less, copy, move quick, find simple solutions that works.


FUNDS
In EU or maybe it is just our case. Non-Olympic sports have very hard time to get money from these funds. Regular activity doesn't count, if we would produce WOC champion this champion would be a beggar compare to a SKI or to an athletics champion. Any result in non-Olympic sport is worth at least 10x times less, and non-Olympic sport activity is worth 50x less and government give sport scholarships only to athletes from Olympic sports, etc, etc, etc so you can see that government funded system works only for Olympic sports. If you want to say something people will not listen you. The funding rules, etc are always discussed in a very small only INVITATION room. Changing this is impossible. The funding rules are in hand of Olympic committee and executive board is composed mainly from Olympic sport representatives. Rules! At GA Olympic sports again have majority of votes (each Olympic sport federation has 2x votes compare to non-Olympic federation). Rules! At GA Olympic sports NEED TO HAVE majority and this is written in RULES and in OLYMPIC CHAPTER. And any change in national Olympic statuary rules need to be approved by IOC. VOILA!

I applause to countries who have the strength to separate the Olympic movement from National sports association of Sports.

So IOF, don't talk too much about rules, talk about what you can do and what you will do to help its members to grow.

I don't have enough popcorn to get through that last post

I'm so full of popcorn I have no room for dinner. aw. :(

No need to read if you don't understand the topic. Change the channel.

This is a monster. It could start eating things. Maybe it already has!

You think this was bad, check out the scandals over at cornmazeorienteering.org. Turns out that over 90% of US corn mazes are using performance enhancing genomes! Congress was so angry, they brought in a straw man to testify!

The ghost who walks, the thread that never dies.

I thought this thread was about Popcorn not corn mazes