Discussion: controversial

chitownclark asked last week are we (Sweden & Finland) even discussing a common system. It depends how you see it, but you can't say we are not discussing at all :) But commons system, no, it will not happen anytime soon. I guess orienteering is US will first become more popular than basketball and those Silicon Valley guys will make their own puch system and this system will take over the world and Scandinavia too. Then Sweden and Finland will have common system. But ice age may take over first.

Boris, any plans to visit Finland? Halikko, Kavaderloppet, meetings in Helsinki?

Unfortunately, Linné doesn't send a team to Halikko - we put on an adventure race in Uppsala that week-end as a club fundraiser. No Finland trips planned yet, but it's definitely tempting. Next big trip - US Champs first week-end of November. Have to get healthy first, though...

Why the US? This matter has been discussed on AP before and it seems there are also systems coming out of China ;)

They look a bit like copies of SI, but with minor details different. I don´t know about software/electronics/hardware though since my Chinese needs a little brush-up ;)

(I don´t have the links available right now...)

Fighting at 25-manna? Cheering a mispunch is very bad form, whether its good for your own team or not. tsk-tsk.

Fighting:

1)Emma Engstrand (Stora Tuna) vs. a Finnish girl from a club with an unpronounceable (sorry, Jagge!) name at the last leg, fighting over SI units for 3rd place: http://www.angelniemenankkuri.com/ilu/kuvat/25mann...
(See pictures 77,78,79.)

2) I heard reports of ugly fights breaking out at the 25-manna party, leading the organizers (the Alternativet crew) to say they won't organize the party again. - Correct me if I am wrong on this one.

With at least 4 punches available, she's punching with right hand and blocking with free left hand - how original:). And the men in background seem oblivious and casual.

From pic 78 it looks like Emma is deliberately interfering with the other gal punching while she punches in another box with her right hand. Plenty of room and other boxes to punch. Was Stora Tuna DQ'ed or at least 4th? Was she just trying to be funny? Holding is a 10-yard penalty and an automatic first down.

Those are some great pictures. Check out the demureness of 80 and the fashion flair of 82.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7vghhub8O4

It doesn't look so bad in this video.

Yeah, hard to tell, although I think I see Bigfoot in the background.

Here is a better video:
http://www.alternativet.nu/temp/stampling.wmv

I don't think she did anything wrong - at least not on purpose. There is just a lot of adrenalin involved here. But I can see why some of the people who was seeing it live could have got feeling there was something wrong.

Wow, you can't do anything without being caught on film these days.

From that vid it looks like they were both just focused on the front box and had no real idea there was an extra pair of hands trying to punch. Emma just forgot where her left hand was and tried to find another box with her right hand. Neither of them looks very phased by the whole thing.

I remember a story from the Billygoat I think where there was a short line of competitors coming into a single pin punch control. Apparently the front guy gave the punch a toss as he was leaving (inadvertently I'm sure) and it quickly wound itself around a branch before the next guy could grab it :) Just picture trying to grab a pendulum accelerating while the arm gets shorter and shorter. Meanwhile an audience is gathering around you yelling "c'mon - grab it!!" Serious pressure.

The second video shows the whole punching sequence clearer than the first link - and I agree with Jagge. It doesn´t really look half as bad as it sounds when the whole of O-Finland and O-Sweden discuss this on Alternativet.

They are both shuffling a bit to reach the same punch unit first - only natural in the stressful finish - hands are messing around and eventually Emma has to change to the back punch and also lifts her left hand... I can´t see anything here that looks like it is done on purpose - neither from Mervi nor Emma.

I'm just amazed how long the whole punching process took! A good 2 seconds from when Engstrand first went to the back box before moving off. Was this a radio control - does that slow things down?

The manufacturer (SI) assures that online controls don´t slow the punching down - while many others debate this a lot and consider the opposite to be true...

This was no online control. I think the slow punching may have been caused by the awkward position reaching backwards, wanting to stay in the first position closer to the finish and also making sure the punch really got registered - waiting for beep and flash.

The video is in slow motion, maybe thats why it takes 2 seconds...

I meant the one on youtube... that seems pretty normal speed to me

I guess the people who was watching it live didn't get the hand seemed to use for preventing Mervi to punch actually was Emma's SI hand and she tried to punch with it. People just saw Emma putting her hand on the unit Mervi tried to punch while punching with an other unit herself. But it isn't like that. I hope Mervi and Emma both feel this way too. I guess Emma should have taken an other unit instead, she should have understood Mervi is trying o punch with the same unit. Maybe there should be a last leg's last control rule "first runner can select the unit first and and the follower must select an other unit" ... or something. Wrestling at last control isn't fun.

I'm just amazed how long the whole punching process took!

They were wrestling, so it took long time before they got their sticks to the hole. And they both got old slow sticks. And it really takes long time to get signal, many teams got DQ for punching too fast at this control. I guess it is the stress units get when there is so much use as it is. Or something, maybe it just feels slow because friends are watching and screaming...

How can top-level teams like this still be running using old sticks? That seems ridiculous to me.

My own personal view of this 'problem' is that the fast stick is really over-rated. The technical facts (if I got my numbers right) are that you save 0.08 of a second if you use the new one. It´s more of a mental thing really. With two runners punching at the same time with old and new stick the slower one loses 0.08 sec - can you really tell the difference with the human eye?
On a whole course with 25 controls you save 4 seconds, while running on the wrong side of a tree (or whatever) can lose you a lot more while orienteering.
For sprints I can see the advantages of course and maybe (?)this is the kind of thing that makes a difference in top level competition like WOC´s and such, but for ordinary orienteers I don´t think this is much of an issue really...

We (Stora Tuna) ran with rented sticks this year for some reason. In retrospect it may have been better to use our own fast sticks, at least for runners that are used to them. We didn´t get mispunch for punching to fast - our team´s mispunch was at the control with malfunctioning unit.

Hmm, I don't know where the 0.08 figure comes from, but I can definitely tell the difference when I am forced to switch back from the fast stick to the slow stick. I think I ran Rånässtafetten with a slow stick and had to go back to controls twice after realizing I punched too quickly from habit. Are you completely sure that this isn't what happened to Stora Tuna?

It look's like there was 14 too fast punchings in 25manna, all of them with old sticks. There was no too fast punches with new fast sticks. It's not about winning 4 seconds, it's about getting result or getting disqualified. If I got it right they hire only old sticks (?). And I think it was for some weird reason not allowed to hire only 20 sticks and use own 5 fast ones. You had to hire all 25 old sticks or none. So there was not much choice for most Finnish teams.

I have heard from several persons you almost cannot punch too fast with new fast stick even if you try. And you may get punch even if you don't put it in the hole, just take it near the punch box.

I guess this is 50% what it all is about. And the rest 50% is people usually listen to the beep, not look at the light. Take a look at Nopesport vote:
http://forum.nopesport.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=835...

And 0.000001% is some weird malfunctioning.

The thinking behind my statement that it isn´t (or shouldn´t be) important if you use the old or new stick - provided my numbers for punching time are correct - is the fact that an orienteering race isn´t about if you have 'fast hands' or not. The fast punching movement isn´t really that necessary - you can keep your stick in for the extra 0.08 sec and keep moving your feet instead...

Granted I´m a slow an old runner, but I almost always manage to get two beeps before I pull my old stick out of the punch unit and I don´t really see that this is where I lose my time on a course.

I´d say it´s all mental - and stress in a relay is definitely mental.

It would be interesting to know how much faster the fast stick really is, and what is the variation of waiting times. If variation is big, usually 0.1-0.2 but sometimes 0.6, it may cause runner think after 0.4 sec it must have registered if there is a beep from an other nearby unit. Sometimes it feels like a second before I get the beep - just feels, it's all mental. But it feels like a long long time.

Yes, it shouldn't be important is the stick new or old. But it looks like it is. We are humans, not machines, so the 0.25 sec may make the difference. A bit faster one feels human and suits the mental state, the other does not.

Stress is part of this sport, it's sad if we use a system some people just can't handle under stress. They hear a beep from an other unit and go on. It's a mental thing and kind of runners fault, but it makes everyone unhappy.

I agree that it´s not good if the system makes runners unhappy - I really don´t care if the system is SI or EMIT as long as everyone is happy. But we also have to accept there´s only a certain amount of time, money and effort available to put into solving this problem.
The market isn´t big enough to make a lot of profit out of this kind of system development. Noone has got the interest to put a lot of time into to developing something like this as a totally spare-time project. SOFT, SSL, NOF, IOF and other national organisations should be interested, but will they ever dig into this snake-pit on their own? It´s a lot easier to pass rules to handle all the exceptions than solving the root of the problem ;-(

On another note: The numbers for punching times are something I just remember from a discussion with a person closely related to SI developers and knowledgeable in Sportident matters. He said 0.18 sec is the time for the old stick and 0.1 sec for the new. This may well be average times - based on what I don´t know. Like with every other product I suppose there´s bound to exist both good and bad sticks with different punching speed...

there´s only a certain amount of
True. A new "perfect" punchig system is something we might haveafter 10-20 years or more. But we must arrange 15 Jukola, 10mila, Halikko and 25manna relays etc. With our current equipmets and knowledge how these toys work. That's all we have. I think rules and ways to handle our toys and things are the key here. We could invent some better rules and better ways to use these toys. Now we should know better how these things work - better than 10 years ago when current rules were made, these toys were new and nobody could knew how they will act. Now we shuold know better, so we might be able to make better rules and more human ways to use our equipment.

Call that a fight??? Spring Cup Relay 2004, 2nd control. That was a fight, people got hit. Central Scotland every night, they are fights. That was just two girls who left it far too late to make move. Scandinavians moan about everything.

There are a lot more controls with more fighting on a Tiomila or Jukola first leg - so in that perspective this wasn´t really fighting...
So, getting back to punching times - with a lot of runners arriving at the same time to a control the fast stick could help cut the total time a bit - pure maths say that 100 runners should be able to save 8 sec´s if they all use fast stick. But then it´s still not only the time of 'stick in the hole' that makes up for line-ups forming with slow punching - the runner has to get in and out of the control and away from the punching unit as well.

hmm, i dont think you only save the time at the station itself. i have the feeling i can continue running while i punch a control. with the old one this wasnt possible. i always had to stop. witht he new one i just slow down the pace, hit the control, and speed up again.

so i guess one can save maybe 2 secs on every control??

but thats just guessing - i dont have any numbers - just my feeling! ;)

it's all about momentum