okansas.blogspot.com

okansas.blogspot.com
Occassional thoughts about orienteering

Saturday, July 07, 2007

TV friendly orienteering?

OPN pointed me to an interesting idea for TV/spectator friendly orienteering (the Norwegian description is worth a read if you can manage it).

Basically, here is how it works...

Qualifying

Each runner completes 4 qualifying courses in a 70 minute period.
Each qualifying course takes about 10-12 minutes.
Runners start the qualifying courses with 1 minute intervals.
A runner starts a new qualifying course each 18 minutes.
Since there are 4 qualifying courses, the organizers can start 4 runners each minute. 72 runners can start in each 18 minute period.

Who makes the final?

1. If you finish in the top 15 in one of the qualifying races, you make the final. So each competitor has 4 chances to qualify for the final.

2. If, after all 4 qualifying courses, you are less than 4 minutes behind the overall best total time, then you make the final.

The final

The final course takes about 30 minutes (no forking).
The start is a chase start based on the combined total times from all 4 qualifying courses.
Runners who have total times more than 4:30 behind the best time, go out in a mass start 4:30 after the leader.
The first runner to the finish wins.

I haven't translated the entire Norwegian article, but it is quite interesting. The author, a guy named Truls Kvaase, presents the approach as a fictitious race report - complete with fictitious start lists, results, quotes from the competitors, and so on.

The idea reminds me a bit of a session that has been used at some of the Texas Junior O' Camps called "Tatyana's Marathon." In its most pure form, Tatyana's Marathon consists of 4 races each with a mass start. The finish of each course leaves you at the start of the next course. The mass starts go off at a set interval. For example, the first course might start at 7:30 a.m., the second course at 8:15, the third at 9:00 and so on. You earn points based on your finish position (winning gets you 1 point, finishing 2nd is 2, etc.). It is a bit like the Norwegian example (and much easier to arrange because you don't need to keep individual runners' times).

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posted by Michael | 11:46 AM

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