Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Friday, May 28, 2004 An issue of motivationI read an interview with Lucie Bohm, the Austrian who won a WOC a few years ago. Bohm had just won a race in Austria (might have been a national championship) and said something like -- I haven't been training very much, I don't want to go to the WOC if I'm not able to prepare properly, I don't want to just go and try to finish in the top 20.Imagine you are the selector for Austria's WOC team. What do you do? Bohm's point of view -- as a former world champ, she doesn't want to just go to the WOC and make her way around the course -- is probably common. It makes sense. I understand it. But, if you're trying to put together the best possible WOC team, you want Bohm on the team. What do you do? 1. You could accept her position and move on (which clearly hurts your team). 2. You could try to get her to train properly and be ready to compete at her best. 3. You could try to get her on the team with the training she's got. Without knowing Bohm, I wouldn't presume to know what to do. But, I think the issue is quite interesting. It gets at motivation. It also gets at some organizational issues. I think lots of nations face this problems. Lots of countries suffer significantly if their top runner doesn't go to the WOC. Think of Austria without Bohm or France without Guergiou or the US without Brian May. I don't know how much selectors worry about getting the top. How do countries typically address the situation? From the list above, do they do 1, 2, 3, or something else? My impression (which is a very risky thing to base a conclusion on) about the U.S. is that we tend to accept the position and move on. We'd be more likely to leave Brian off the team if he said he didn't feel like he'd be able to train to his best and he doesn't want to go if he's not at his best. Another impression is that in the U.S. we spend energy (by that I mean time, effort, stress of the national team's steering committee) on picking the bottom of the team rather than the top. The debates and disagreements over the years are largely about the last selections for the team. I'd guess that people would be satisfied with selection processes if the best orienteers didn't go (for reasons like Bohm) but the final selections weren't controversial. But, in terms of how a team performs at a WOC (in the relay for example), having the best at the WOC is hugely important. Note: Feel free to offer comments and criticisms, but cut me some slack. I haven't thought through these issues very carefully. I'm just writing to begin to form my ideas and to get them down on paper. posted by Michael | 12:59 PM 
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