Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Wednesday, May 01, 2002 Misplaced control on green at ChicagoThe first control on the day two green course at Chicago was misplaced.Take a look at a section of the map. The map shows part of the first day's red course. I drew a little arrow to show where the second day's start triangle way (where the trail ends at the open area). The first control on the green course was supposed to be at the knoll near the purple "10" (I've sketched a little arrow that points to the knoll). The marker actually was hung where the red course had the control on the first day -- the dot knoll in the circle. Mary did not have fun on the green course. She made a good decision. She decided to follow the clearing around and attack the first control from along the trail that goes south from the southern end of the clearing. Her route gave her a very good attack and easy running. Unfortunately, it didn't let her find the control because the organizers put the control in the wrong spot.* Eventually, Mary noticed someone punching at a marker up the hill. She knew it wasn't in the right place. She knew it wasn't her control. But, she went up to it, discovered the code was correct, and realizing the organizers misplaced the marker, punched and went toward the second control. Mary spent about six minutes hunting for the control AFTER she'd been to the correct spot. To give you an idea of just how unfair this particular mistake was, consider what a two other runners on green did (they shall remain nameless): One person decided to go straight from the start triangle to the first control. On the way there, they bumped in to the marker, saw that the code was correct, punched and went on. The straight route is actually a good bit riskier than Mary's route. But, it saved the person a bunch of time. Another person -- a late starter -- heard from an early starter that the first control was misplaced and that it was actually west of the outhouse on the edge of the field. That person was able to find the control without losing time by looking for it where the control circle was! Because of the organizers' error, the course was unfair. The organizers knew of the error (once runners finished and told them about it), but didn't throw out the results. They waited for a protest. Mary protested. The jury reviewed her protest and...voided F35. They didn't void the other categories on green. What could the jury have been thinking? Just a few weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry titled "5 Things A-Meet Organizers Ought to Do." One of those was: "If you screw up, admit it and move on. If a control is in the wrong place and it makes the course unfair, don't wait for a formal protest, just admit you screwed up and throw out the results. Organizers could even offer to refund entry fees if the problem was foreseeable (e.g. a misplaced control rather than a stolen control)." I guess the Chicago Area O' Club doesn't read my blog! * The error could just as easily be described as printing the circle in the wrong spot on the map. posted by Michael | 8:54 PM 
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