WOC Relay - Protest of the French Orienteering Federation

The IOF has heroes and an invalid result list - the good and the bad, cancel the results
L'IOF a ses héros et un palmarès éronné. Le meilleur et le pire, annulons les résultats (version française)

The FFCO does not understand the stand taken by the IOF on the events that took place during the last stretch of the Relay at the World Championships.
Indeed, what happened cannot be considered as a race fact, on the one hand because it epitomizes the fair play spirit that should be shared by all orienteers in the world, on the other hand because it influenced dramatically the final result of the race.

This is why the FFCO thinks the right decision to make would have been not to constitute any prize list for the Relay 2009.This decision would have been the only one worthy of the three athletes who were the first ones to give up on the ranking to rescue another contender. Besides, in doing so, the IOF would have sent a strong message in placing fair play and ethics above results.

Instead of doing so, the IOF has not made any decision, but paid tribute to the heroes of the day in a speech delivered during the award ceremony. They might have been expecting the winners to give up on their title and all that comes with it. But this did not happen.

In the minutes following the event, numerous discussions took place between the team managers, the organizers and the IOF. Several ideas came up, one of them being to replay the Relay, later on in the year, on the occasion of the World Cup Final in Switzerland. It was suggested the Norwegian team and the French team managers should lodge a complaint but the rules did not allow it, in this case. Moreover, it appeared that this responsibility fell not on the contending nations but on the ruling body of International Orienteering. The IOF should have displayed political courage under such exceptional circumstances.
On that very day, the French Team managers handed out a written statement to the IOF President to express their views on the matter.

The French Federation thinks the Relay should not be re-run later on (which would cause the race to be erased from history). The race should be remembered for the outstanding attitude displayed by the three athletes who embodied the orienteering ethical values thoroughly. The race and the orienteering values will be best remembered if the results are overruled and therefore no result appears on the 2009 Relay Prize List. (Protest, handed on the IOF)

www.ffco.asso.fr