Discussion: Middle Commentary

Anyone awake for this? Not sure I will be.
Start List
First woman 12:00 CET 4:00 PDT
First man 14:18 CET 6:18 PDT

I'm pretty sure that's last year's map that the tracking link opened!

Just showed Kpop starting. Cool. Best of luck!

tracking working now, with the right map ;-)

And there goes Alison!

Alison Campbell shown starting.

Which ones are the radio controls?

Radio 2 = TV = #7
Radio 1 is #4 probably?

"Live" tracking isn't very live? Seems to be several minutes behind?

I had trouble with the "default" tracking -- it seemed to stop every time you switch a tab in a browser and then restart from the same point when you switch back. So if you have several tabs open, it would get more and more delayed. If you check gpsseuranta.net checkbox and then press tracking, then that works better, at least there is no buggy delay.

Kseniya is being swallowed by the vegetation.

Kseniya finished. A smile and wave for the camera.

Fooey, looks like Emily missed #1.

Commentators are clueless.

Is that the Emma Johansson who raced 2012 NAOC?

I think the commentator should stop talking so much about Thierry when it's Annika who just won a world championship.

Canadian Brian May just on course. He's competed for North America at previous WOCs in 1993, 1997, 2003, 2004.

Nice shots of Barbone moving through the green.

Go Brian!

Cool, more TV time for Barbone through the clear cut. Seems to be limping a bit.

Time for someone to turn off Clive's microphone.....

(assuming Clive is the male commentator who clearly knows nothing about O)

Thierry taking left route to 5.

Why did Tim Robertson stop? I'm assuming he was helping someone. I saw him walking to a junction with an official from camera radio 1

Fooey, Thierry's tracking dot has vanished?

Woo, dot is back.

Thierry looks to be catching Novikov

Thierry went wide right to 18, looks to lost a bit of time.

Thierry faded off the podium somewhere in the last few controls. Will be interesting to hear what happened ...

Yes, please, let the stats lady talk, she knows what's going on.

Looks like Thierry bobbled #24, and that was the difference... not that the commentators have any clue...

Agreed, promote the stats lady! She's been much better than both the main commentators.

I think you guys are being a little harsh - it isn't easy for the commentators trying to follow all that is going on. The stats woman on the other hand gets to talk only when she's found something interesting to point out - so she's bound to sound like she 'gets it'.

Really what I think they need is better support for the commentators (eg: more spotters looking for important things). And, okay, maybe some more professional and practiced commentators. But I don't think there are many of those around?

Per Forsberg - that's for sure!

Seconded what AZ just said, having support for the announcer (called "producers" in the world of real tv) can make a world of difference.

Yes, I think the issue in the sprint relay where the announcers didn't get the last minute Denmark team change is on the organizers. There needed to be somebody making sure they got notified.

"it isn't easy for the commentators trying to follow all that is going on."

I fully agree. Never said it was easy, and would never say so.

And why I chose to echo the commendations for the stats lady, who despite her constrained role, displayed a high-level understanding of orienteering, and it came though clearly with her comments. Well done.

Apart from orienteering knowledge, one of the commentators was loudly eating a sandwich on air and burping. That just isn't professional. I switched to the Swedish-language commentary of Rickard Ekman and Simone Niggle, and that was much, much better.

So Thierry lost 42 seconds on the 2nd last control (and a medal and possibly the gold). Did he miss it and back track or did he full on miss it? I can't imagine it was the latter. Anybody know from watching the tracking?

Same control that the women's gold was lost on.
Who would have expected that to be such a decisive leg!

I wonder if they mis-read the control descriptions and were looking for the wrong thing?? I know they are obviously way better and more experienced than me, but I admit when I looked at the control description I thought it was "end of stone wall" - in fact it is "end of linear thicket".

No, I don't believe that could have been it. But I was confused and lost time in my visualization run ;-)

(PS: PinkSocks - I think the gps tracking circle might not be placed 100% accurately? The PDF of the actual map file looks pretty well centred on the feature)

Winsplits says 44 seconds for Thierry. I just re-watched the GPS. He didn't backtrack. All of the time lost was in the circle, just short of the flag. He started looking for it too early.

What's the control descripion for that one? It's not obvious from the map what it would be. SW end of hedge? That's not in the exact center of the circle, though.

What side of the fence was the flag on? Thierry looks to have hopped the fence.

Emma Johansson explained her time loss at the next to last control. She got stuck in some thick, thorny vegetation.

Oh man, the live blog included mistakes by WOC newbies from Egypt (first year) and Ecuador (second year).

On one hand, I want to say "Yay, new orienteering nations! Woo!", but on the other, "What are they doing here?"

On one hand, I want to say "Yay, new orienteering nations! Woo!", but on the other, "What are they doing here?"

Agreed. Recognizing that an anlagous argument could be made re. North American participation (100s of Scandinavians are better but don't get to go to WOC); I don't think we are doing our sport any good in the 'legitimacy' department with tracks like that. I have ridden a horse maybe 6 times in my life. What if I was allowed to compete in a World Equestrian event and just bumbled around the arena, trying to hold on, and crashing through the jumps?

Agreed. Wait for Long. I doubt that they have courage to start or maybe organizer should close one eye and allow them to use GPS watch or at least a phone.

There should be a Pink Socks rule. If Pink Socks would make your WOC team, then you shouldn't have a WOC team.

I wouldn't mind it so much with the qualifying races, because you'd weed them out for the final. But the final should mean best in the world from a fair representation of countries, and that track from Ahmed doesn't even look like he was trying, let alone know what he was doing.

I recall a track from one of the top contenders a few years ago that looked every bit as bad as that. (She didn't finish.)

France WOC was a special place!

Also - said competitor in 2011 then followed it up with a 4th place in the next race. Doubt that this guy is going to do that.

Looking at splits
http://obasen.orientering.se/winsplits/online/en/d...

Is it possible to understand from splits the reason why some runners are MP as they seems to have all splits recorded?

Overtime?

Max time was 70 minutes which they exceeded.

Ahmed also DNF'd in his sprint qual, taking over 20 minutes to get to the first control.

If he finishes 4th in the Long, I'll eat my hat.

If it is overtime is a little bit strange that IOF says that anyone who finish the course get at least 10 WRE points. So you could get them also if you a MP. Strange.

Over 20 minutes to get to the first control, in a sprint? Looks like it was what - 250 metres long? Let's get 'real' - does IOF think that is acceptable in its World Championships? I'm sure most of my club's recreational participants and kids would not take so long.

Oh c'mon guys, let's lay off bashing on the newbies. There was a time when Jamaica was new to bobsledding, Japan was new to baseball, and the USA was new to soccer and hockey. And I seem to recall one of Britain's early entrants in ski jumping.
Part of a world championships is being open to representatives from every nation on the planet. Yes it would be nice to have all of the 100 best orienteers in the world. But there is also room for the diversity of having a few newcomers from any country that wishes to participate. Let's welcome them, and watch them grow in the years to come.

You can call it 'bashing the newbies' if you like. I believe it is a very valid and serious discussion that needs to take place; especially in the context of the IOF's olympic aspirations; and also given that in large parts of the world, orienteering is unkown, misunderstood and even ridiculed. If we are trying to develop and show off our sport as the elite, demanding, high-paced race we all know it to be (esp. at the WOC level) it is a step backwards to have people that literally do not know how to do the sport (based on taking over 20 mins. to find #1, 250 meters away in a semi-urban environment) competing at our WOC.

The first Australian to compete at a WOC finished 77th out of 77 (or something like that). Look at them now.

I'm only bashing with one hand. The other hand is fist pumping.

On one hand, I want to say "Yay, new orienteering nations! Woo!", but on the other, "What are they doing here?"

I get the argument that everyone has to start somewhere, because we all did. And I get the hypocrisy of North Americans pointing this out about newbies when the Euros can point at us the same way.

But if we want WOC and orienteering to be taken seriously, then we probably shouldn't be letting people participate in a *final* who seem to not even know what they are doing. Would a guy from Japan's first international baseball game start running to 3rd base from home?

I'm kind of thinking that Ahmed did do exactly what upnorthguy wants - proves to the world that this is a tough, elite, demanding, high paced race - and that if you just come out "to give it a go" you will get crushed.

Ahmed the Eagle!

Okay, okay enough goofing around ... look, doesn't this just always come back to having proper qualification system? Anyone see Faroe Islands play in the Euro 2016 soccer qualifiers? I would never bother watching such minnows of course - but, ranked 170th in the world in 2013 (out of 209) they still have managed to beat Greece (ranked 12th in 2013) in two matches. Note - that actually astounds me - I had picked them expecting to see that they'd lost games 12-0. The point is that for the big Euro 2016 competition there is a preliminary qualification competition - so everyone has a chance to compete. But in the finals only "the best" take part - and we get the spectacle of some pretty good (and some pretty boring) qualification battles. I think the "divisions" system goes a long way towards that, but perhaps some qualification races for div 2 & div 3 countries. I don't know - it always sounds so simple...

Where was the eye-rolling when the USA sent some people to the World Ski-O Champs in the not so distant past who turned in embarrassing performances? Was there pressure for us to not send any posers? I there a problem with Ahmed getting a lot of TV coverage that makes the sport look bad? Who but the hardcore are even going to know he was there?

There was a proposal about minimal WR points to be allowed to start at WOC. They removed in favor of more athletes from developing countries. Bad decision in my opinion. Let's be honest. Last year newbies didn't come back. It is great that they are interested in orienteering but competing at highest level is not the same as in the past. At least now when we want to produce TV massage about athleticism and skills that orienteering posses. It is not longer a sport just for fun. It would be better for them to run just sprint events, watch forest races and compete and learn at spectator races. I think that such performance could be also very demotivating for them. Yes, at some sports they have similar rules but ski-jumping ban this. If there are pros then someone need to point out what they are. If people in Egypt follow the WOC through the internet then of course this may be one reason. We would need a metrics to know pros/cons and find out what is better also for other countries trying to develop orienteering. Is it better to have 2 Germans or 1 German and 1 Egyptian. No one is laughing to them, but somewhere must be a line to distinguish where a real sport begins.

The control description for 92 (24 on the men's course, 20 on the women's) is stone wall, SE end, but on the map downloaded from the website, I can't see a stone wall on the map at that point - was it on the competition map?

It is a linear thicket, you can see it in the imagery, and it is on the map.
57.572573,-3.67953

I had to look it up:

http://orienteering.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12...

Stone wall has filled circles



Linear thicket has open circles

So it is!, thanks.

Re the newbies: if qualification races were re-introduced for middle but current 'divisional' rules were retained for the long, then a tight minimum standard (based on what though?) could be used to set a cut-off mark for the long field. Everyone still gets a chance to race in terrain (in the middle quals), but 'quality control' (for want of a better term) for the long race is maintained. If you exclude developing countries completely, when do you get to find out if they've developed enough to be included?

I really don't think having a slow person at the world champs is our beloved sports biggest problem. Arguably the fact that this thread seems to have nothing better to talk about on the day of a world champs is more problematic.

Moreover - there is good precident of this type of thing with the Olympics and swimming: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Moussambani. But, then again, if we want to be a part of the Olympics we probably don't want to do what the Olympics does.

And why not love rooting for the little guy :). It takes courage to go out there with a GPS on his back. I, for one, am rooting for him!

I don't think the issue is just being slow. There were several competitors that went overtime; perhaps they weren't in the best shape, or made multiple errors, or just were overwhelmed by the vegetation. But to have someone go wildly off the map indicates that he wasn't ready for any advanced course, let alone a world championship. I have to wonder what the national federation was thinking.

"I have to wonder what the national federation was thinking."

Just to be clear this is not a matter of these kinds of nations sending athletes to the WOC so much as the IOF specifically inviting certain nations and mentoring them through a WOC. I believe they call it the "IOF academy". I don't know if it actually does the invited nation any good whatsoever when it comes to developing orienteering... Regardless qualifiers is the better way to go here (as it is for many other reasons).

I don't get why we're still stuck in a situation where WOC gets used as a development competition (both for nations like Egypt and athletes for countries like Canada and the US). Isn't that what World Cups, Regional Championships, Regional Cups, etc. should partially be for?

The IOF needs to create a far more comprehensive schedule of IOF sanctioned events (and I'm not talking about WREs) so that we have a full set of events for athletes to progress through.

Ahmed IS the national federation - him and the other athlete are president and VP.

+1
One of the reason could be olympic illusion. We chased 75th members mark and now it is time to chase something different. Who can attract more newbies to the WOC? In case all 30 countries which are not present now would send one they would probably come with a rule.

The newbie nations are here for the experience. The know they're not going to do anything out there. And after having spoke with several of them I can tell you that it's not easy for them to get out there and try the course when they know wherr they'll likely finish.

But they've also mentioned how beneficial the experience is for them. The map quality, the courses, the general way of holding events. It is all new and previously unknown. Bringing athletes to WOC is helping the global development of orienteering. If you disagree look at an Olympic marathon and see how slow the last finishers are.

And really where do you draw the line to limit teams? Would the US be pushed out because we're not among the top? The newbie athletes are the best orienteers in their countries because there might only be 20 more people who have tried it in their countries. So if you have a national federation and can send athletes, why not? It doesn't change the top competition's performance. And ultimately it helps develop the sport and international connections among athletes. World Cups would probably be a better place for this. But how possible is that?

+1 Greg.

"And really where do you draw the line to limit teams?"

IOF draw a line at 70 min!
Come and fell what is like to run an elite course. We're promising you that it will be though and if you could make it through the course, please be aware that we will close the finish line before you can make it. Are you still keen to try? Who suggested this idea and what is the reason to enforce such a demotivating rule? I hope that they will do a little chat-chat and give them a deserved place in the result list.

http://www.wfdf.org/news-media/news/press/2-offici...

Do you know that Frisbee is an Olympic Sport. What is IOF doing? We have over 73 countries as members and we have both genders, etc.. For countries like Italy, Olympic recognition for our sport is fundamental: instead of 100.000 euros we could get 1.000.000 euros per year from our government.

Frisbee isn't a sport that's in the Olympics, it's just now a sport recognized by the Olympics. It's in the same boat as orienteering is (which is also recognized).

You are right.

More great stuff from World of O about the 2nd-last control on the middle.

Trying to explain what went wrong for two of the world's best on a relatively easy control.

While the map is a little dubious there I still can't understand why those that missed were so far off their compass - or why they didn't stop & turn around immediately upon hitting the green (even though the fence wasn't there perhaps) - or why they didn't stay in the open yellow and go a tiny bit further to the right. It would be nice to hear from the orienteers themselves

Yes excellent analysis and clearly a mistake from the runners. But, this is, at the very least, a controversial control/map situation.

My own view (having walked around the area for 10 minutes) is that

1. The fence was difficult to see, at best. In places it seemed non-existent (both in the thick stuff and along the west side of the hedge).

2. The area where TG and EJ apparently went, mapped with vertical green stripes, should have been mapped either medium or dark green. There was no visibility.

3. That notwithstanding, the simplest and obvious way to take the control was to go to the open area and do a left hook. Cutting through the last little bit of woods might have been a couple of seconds faster, assuming you could see the control (it had been removed). Going in on the earlier beaten track seems insane. But such things happen....

I have always thought that the fence symbol in ISOM was inherently problematic. This is a case in point.

fair to say that TG and Emma created the mistake, but the mapping made it more damaging?

j-man, I understand the mapping here is problematic, but how is the fence symbol itself problematic?

It is often stronger on paper than in the terrain and also has to cover a very wide range of situations: fences that you should be able to see and those which you are unlikely to.