iof.tv (2-Minuten Startintervalle auf der Langdistanz)

15.4. Start intervals
The starting interval of the middle distance final will be 1.30 minutes. The starting
interval of the long distance final will be 2 minutes. This deviation from the rules has
been approved by the IOF.

Bulletin2 WOC 2013

Zwei Weltmeisterschaften nach dessen Abschaffung, wird so das Zwei-Minuten Startintervall auf der Langdistanz wieder eingeführt. Das Zwei Minuten Startintervall wurde an der WOC 97 erstmals eingeführt.

Podien Langdistanz Männer 
Ich schaue aus diesem Anlass noch einmal zurück auf die Podien der Langdistanz der Männer seit dem Beginn der Ära SI/Rengly/EMIT (ausser 1997). Ich erlaube mir dabei eine Wertung des Resultates aus der Perspektive des Verfälschungsgrades.

• ..WOC 1995: Intervall 3 Minuten: 1.Mårtensson und  3.Jörgensen (30min. H-Pack), 2.Salmi mit Alekseev (60min H-Pack)
• ..WOC 1997: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1. Thoresen mit 2.Mårtenson und 4.Jörgensen. 3.Björlö mit 5.Prokes und 11.Nymalm
• ..WOC 1999: Intervall 3 Minuten. 1.Valstad und 3.Berger (60min. H-Pack), 2.Björseth und 14.Davidik (47min. E-Pack).
• ..WOC 2001: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Rostrup, 2.Lakanen, 3.Björseth  
• ..WOC 2003: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Bührer, 2. Omeltschenko und 5. Mamleev (83min. E-Pack), 3. Wingsted
• ..WOC 2004: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Valstad, 2. Karlsson, 3. Hott Johansen
• ..WOC 2005: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1. Khramov mit 3.Lauenstein (57min. E-Pack), 3. Hott Johansen
• ..WOC 2006: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1. Lakanen mit 6.Gonon (66min H-Pack), 2.Lauenstein, 3.Khramov mit 15.Losman (65min. H-Pack)
• ..WOC 2007: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Merz, 2.Khramov, 3.Nordberg mit 20.Kovacs (30min. H-Pack )
• ..WOC 2008: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Hubmann, 2. Nordberg, 3. Gonon
• ..WOC 2009: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Hubmann mit 3.Mamleev (55min. H-Pack), 2.Gueorgiou mit 9.Gristwood (40min. H-Pack)
• ..WOC 2010: Intervall 2 Minuten: 1.Lundanes, 2.Nordberg mit 6.Fraser (60min. H-Pack), 3. Gueorgiou
• ..WOC 2011: Intervall 3 Minuten: 1.Gueorgiou mit 3.Gonon (70min. E-Pack), 2.Ikonen mit 7.Lauenstein (E-Pack)
• ..WOC 2012: Intervall 3 Minuten: 1.Lundanes, 2.Merz, 3.Bertuks

Auch mit 2 Minuten Startintervallen hat es  gute (hier: unverfälschte) Podien gegeben (01, 04, 07, 08) und auch mit 3 Minuten gab es verfälschte (99, 11). Das Start-Intervall ist also nur ein Faktor in der ganzen Anlage von Trennmechanismen und diesbezüglich hat sich seitens der IOF seit der Einführung des Schmetterlings zur WOC 2001 nichts weltbewegendes getan (siehe lange Gruppenzeiten).

WOC Relay III - Martin Johansson 1 month after the competition

...
I must say once more that I’m deeply thankful for their actions in the forest. But I’m also deeply sad for the weak action from the responsible in IOF who didn’t have the guts to cancel the results in the race. I think that it would have been a necesarily action and a strong statement. The only fair thing to do in my eyes after the according circumstances.
...

Martin Johansson Website

WOC Relay II: Thierry Gueorgiou

Thierry Gueorgiou:

I would have appreciated to see the result list canceled. Organizers and IOF did some kind of compromise during the ceremony, while not putting the medal around competitor’s neck, but then what’s the meaning of those medals now? Half-value or no value at all?

To be honest, I don’t really care and get bored about all those discussions, I am not doing orienteering for the medal ceremonies; I am doing that mostly for emotions. And, thanks to Martin, I got more adrenalin that day than in any other WOC races.
I guess I’ll remember that day a long time.

www.tero1.free.fr

WOC IV

Graham Gristwood (Long Final):

It also meant that I was starting 3rd from last, with only Thierry and Baptiste after me. Realistically, I was always expecting to see one or both of them, and I managed to stay in front for more than 50 minutes. To be honest, when Thierry catches you and you have the same butterflies, it would be more than a little stupid to ignore him - my speed definitely increased after then. I had no problem to run at the same speed as him though, and passing through the spectator control with 2.5km to go, I understood that I had a chance for top 10. I could not stay with Thierry after that though, and he was out of sight on the steep rocky slope to number 30.

gristwoods blog

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

WOC III

Matthias Merz WOC LONG Final:

Bis kurz vor Posten 12 lief es sehr gut. Ich konnte ein gutes Tempo laufen und fühlte mich sicher auf der Karte. Ich versuchte sogar etwas zusätzlich zu forcieren um eventuell die beiden Läufer abzuhängen. Wahrscheinlich wurde mir aber gerade diese Tempoverschärfung zum Verhängnis. Ich war zu unvorsichtig und nahm mir nicht genügend Zeit. Es resultierte ein grober und vor allem unnötiger Fehler zu 12.
Der Schmetterling war leider nicht sehr effektiv. Er war zu kurz und die Sicht im Gelände zu gut. So holten mich die beiden Läufer gleich zu 21 wieder ein. Wieder versuchte ich etwas zu viel und verlor beim Weglaufen zu 22 die Richtung komplett. Ich hatte die kleinen Lichtungen verwechselt und den Kompass völlig unbeachtet gelassen. Leider vertrauten mir die anderen beiden Läufer wieder zu fest und folgten auf Schritt und Tritt…
Nach einem weiteren kleinen Fehler im Postenraum zu 24 liefen wir bei Nummer 26 den falschen Posten an. Ich registrierte die falsche Nummer und suchte den Herrenposten währenddem Gonon am Ende disqualifiziert werden musste.

www.matthiasmerz.ch

No evidence

Mats Haldin about the protest of the finnish team against Mikhail Mamleev

Det finns en regel som säger att man ska orientera och springa självständigt och får inte ta hjälp av andra löpare. Därför lämnade Finland in en protest mot Mikhail. Protesten avslogs av juryn med rösterna 3 mot 2. Motiveringen var att de inte hade bevis för att Mikhail hade hjälp av Daniel... Och de brydde sig inte heller om att kolla GPS-trackingen.

Jag har ändå inget emot Mikhail. Det är en svår situation. Vad gör man när någon kommer ikapp, sen tar just de vägval man själv skulle ha tagit och inte heller springer från en..? Att det är en fördel att springa flera ihop är ju kännt. Och ofta har då alla parter ofrivillig hjälp av de andra. Det är flera tidigare som tagit VM-medaljer tack vare att de sprungit efter andra. Det har också lämnats protester förr och aldrig, vad jag vet, har de gått igenom.

Problemet är enligt mig IOF:s regler och speciellt startintervalet på 2 minuter. Skulle startintervallet ha varit 3 minuter, som det var ännu i Skottland 1999, så skulle det sett annorlunda ut. Å andra sidan skedde visst detsamma just i Skottlands VM, men 3 minuter är ändå bättre än 2. I VM i Finand övergick man till 2 minuter pga direktsändning i TV. Det har det mig veterligen inte varit på långdistansen sen dess. Gafflingsslingor som används har ju visat sig ha mycket liten effekt på klunglöpning. Däremot är det vanligen just på sådana slingor man ser och har nytta av andra löpare.

My comment:

Okay. Mischa Mamleev THANKED Hubmann for pulling him to this medal and as you can see here Mamleevs solo performance was far from the top 3 and GPS-Data is avalable. Ergo: There never will be more evidence than that...
It seems that packing is a pecadillo to a significant amount of top runners (See the quotes of Gristwood, Myrvold, Cejka a.s.o in this Blog). By not taking any action in such obvious cases the IOF is encouraging this mentality.

Decisionmaking process about the WOC Relay 2009

Aron Less on attackpoint.org:

I was the Secretary General of WOC2009, so here is the inside view of what happened:

I was warned quite early by one of the refreshment guards by phone, that a big accident happened to the Swedish runner on the course. He lost consciousness and needs medical treatment asap. In 5 minutes, I was on site with an ambulance car. Being the first car there was quite a special situation. The situation was much better, than expected - Johansson did not lose his consciousness, but had big pain in his leg. Thierry Gueorgiou was holding his hand strongly and they all were quite relieved, when we arrived. Johansson managed to talk to us and in under 10 minutes, he was inside the ambulance car. The strange thing is, that we had 3 other accidents happening at the same time, but fortunately none of them was like this.

When I got back to the finish (~ 1 km), my humanic side insisted, that their is no possibility to have the race results as they are. In the meantime I knew, that the situation is not that easy.

The Organising Committee immediately started talks about what to do with the situation. The IOF Sports Director came to us immediately, telling that the IOF's view is that this is a very sad situation, but a result is a result, and it should be kept. It was quite clear, that we only have two very simple options:
1. Cancel the results, as it was 'unfair' in a way (based on IOF Foot-O Competition Rules 26.13.).
2. Keep the results as they are and give recognition to the teams involved.
We knew, that whichever decision we take, there will be a lot of people, who are clearly against the decision.

First, we asked the three teams' officials involved in the rescuing mission, but they didn't give any clear answer. Then we asked the three teams, who eventually got onto the podium because of the situation. Two of these teams were hesitant about what to do (they wanted to talk to their runners first), the third one was clearly in favour of keeping the results (his competitors were not happy of the medal they earned this way, though). So we got no clear input from the teams.

As time was passing quite fast, and the Organising Committee itself was divided in the question, we decided to have a vote. The vote resulted in a tie, and thus the Chairman's vote was decisive - and it was to keep the results as they are.

I informed all the teams involved about the decision, and we agreed with those, who happened to be on the podium, that they will not cheer, not stand up on the podium and will receive their medals in their hands. At that time, they seemed to have all agreed on the situation.

Two of the three teams involved in the rescue mission were a bit upset though, when they heard about the decision. They wanted to hand in a protest (referring to section 26.13. in the IOF Competition Rules), but after some talks, they decided not to hand in the protest.

Once again, I must say, that it was a very strange situation, where any solution would be far from ideal. We tried to follow the rules as much as possible, but still the communication now is more negative, than it was in the arena.

A lot of team leaders came over to me (Sweden included), that we made the right decision. Cruel as it is, but I'm quite convinced, that had it been the other way round, we would have received much more criticism overall.

we, the WOC2009 Organising Committee still think, that this decision - although still not a good solution - was better than the other one.

WOC II

Zitate
Simone Niggli (Long): ...Bei Posten 4 sah ich vorne schon Minna, auf der langen Route holte ich sie ganz ein. Beim 'Schmetterling' hatten wir eine andere Postenreihenfolge, doch am Schluss kamen wir wieder zusammen. Von da weg liefen wir gemeinsam...
Caroline Cejka (Long):Auf der Schlussschlaufe wurde ich von der Schwedin Annika Billstam eingeholt. Das war gut, so konnten wir die letzten paar Posten, die nochmals ziemlich schwierig waren zusammen anlaufen.
Baptiste Rollier (Long):Auf den zweiten Posten verlor ich etwas Zeit. Da sah ich auch schon Thierry Gueorgiou, der zwei Minuten hinter mir startete. Als ich aus dem Schmetterling kam sah ich ihn vorne, aber leider konnte ich nicht ganz zu ihm aufschliessen.
Matthias Merz (Long):Ich bin recht gut gestartet, doch schon bald holte mich François Gonon ein. Mit der Zeit fühlte ich. mich technisch und physisch etwas besser. Nach dem Schmetterling waren wir zu Dritt und ich wollte etwas Druck machen.
Daniel Hubmann (Long):Das Gelände war so, wie wir es erwartet hatten.

Simone Niggli (Sprint):we didn't know too much about the zoo area, because there was no map of it...
Daniel Hubmann (Sprint):The course was more or less what we expected, in the zoo it was tricky and challenging and funny, but the forest was like on our trainings and the qualification.

No suprises

Thierry Gueorgiou (1. MF): The terrain was not special for us, because we had a very good old map, so we knew what to expect. That's what I don't like in today's orienteering, that there are less and less surprises.
Daniel Hubmann (2. MF):It was more or less what we expected, but I think the runnability was not as good as we expected after some trainings in this area.
(Src: http://www.tajfutovb2009.hu/index.php?lang=en)

Eva Jurenikova (3. LQ Heat 1)Yesterday I set two courses on the old map of today's race as the last theoretical preparation for today. I wanted to have the same length and number of controls as at WOC. So if I was a course setter of the longQ, the courses would look like this:


und so sah es wirklich aus:

Packfigures WOC 2009

Verlinkung der Packfigures für den Finals über die Mittel- und Langdistanz an der OL WM 2009 in Miskolc, Ungarn.
Long Final Men->www.arua.ch
Long Final Women->www.arua.ch
Middle Final Men->www.arua.ch
Middle Final Women->www.arua.ch