BAOC
British Sprint Championships

HMS Sultan

Sunday 13 June 2010

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Update 1800, 15/06/10 - Link to Rankings List added.
Update 0930, 14/06/10 - Organisers' comments added.
Update 0730, 14/06/10 - Controller's comments and photos link added.
Update 2130, 13/06/10 - Planner's comments added

BOF Results/Ranking submission - Results are now listed on the British Orienteering Results and Rankings system in three separate parts: Race 1 and Race 2, which both qualify for Ranking Points, and the combined overall results, which do not qualify for Ranking Points.

Overall Results

Overall Results by Class PDF File

Photos from the championships are available on Robert Lines' Picasa Web Album.

Race 1

Results by Class PDF File or as a web page

Results by Course PDF File or as a web page

Results by Club

Analyse your Race 1 route on Routegadget.

Splits Times - Splits by Class

Splitsbrowser graph - Race 1 (opens in new window)

Splitsbrowser source csv file - Race 1

Race 2

Results by Class PDF File or as a web page

Results by Course PDF File or as a web page

Results by Club

Analyse your Race 2 route on Routegadget.

Splits Times - Splits by Class

Splitsbrowser graph - Race 2 (opens in new window)

Splitsbrowser source csv file - Race 2

To download Splitsbrowser source file, right-click link and choose "Save Target As" or equivalent in your browser.

Planner's Comments

If I had known how many times I would have to move and re-cut the same red line only for it to reappear the next time I opened a course file, I might not have volunteered to plan (though I'm sure that Allan Farrington did that on my behalf). Firstly my thanks to Tom Murphy the Organiser for making the admin easy, Neil Crickmore the Controller for his advice and attention to detail and to Mike Derbyshire for his liaison with the Royal Navy staff regarding access, the cutting back of undergrowth near control 130 and for the extra lighting in Fort Rowner. Secondly, many thanks to the mappers, Hugh Drummond and Bruce Bryant for their excellent map and efficient responses to requests for late amendments. Finally, thank you to all the competitors who passed on their thoughts and observations regarding the course planning, they were much appreciated.

Planning sprint courses at HMS SULTAN was not as easy as I had envisaged due to the requirement to keep the distances relatively short or as near to the 15 minute recommended winning time as possible; no one complained that their course was too long. I wanted to get all competitors into both Fort Grange (South) and Fort Rowner, as well as the majority into the accommodation area east of Military Road. This necessitated the use of the central car park rather than the sports complex in the SE corner of HMS SULTAN which has been used before for some of the military urban O events and might have given more spectator control options. I wanted to reuse the central area south of the parking for the final few controls of Race 2 however, the distances became too long. Eventually I gave competitors the option to run at speed on some of the longer legs and then tried to tempt you into making mistakes on the shorter legs. It would have been even better had we been able to access the external area of Fort Rowner which has a multitude of old gun emplacements, chimneys and shelters however, the rusty railings and grazing goats ruled this out. Hopefully the next military event will access this area and have a ‘swim the moat’ route choice option as requested by some!

Richard Barrett
BAOC

Controller's Comments

A traditional role for the controller is to let the planner and organiser take the credit for the things that went well but to take the rap for those that didn't. My personal view was that the good things about this event far outweighed the poor ones. Richard has already mentioned the slightly long times, particularly in race 2. However we both felt that the priority was to get in as good a course as possible that finished in the assembly area rather than 500m away. Of course there were a few moans and I'll address those that came to my attention below.

Several of you commented on errors in the map where small blocks of vegetation were incorrectly mapped or an extra building pass though existed. Although I ran many of the possible routes there were some bits of the map that I didn't visit and can only apologise on behalf of the event if these small map errors affected your race. Within Fort Rowner some felt that the underground passages were improperly mapped. I didn't. Unexpected perhaps but not unfair - although I appreciate that the transition from bright sunlight to dimly lit passages(especially for those with photochromic glasses) took some seconds to adjust to. One control (136) within the passages received comment in that it was placed on an unmapped gate. We did try putting the gate symbol on the map but it made it too cluttered. Other alternative ways of mapping this were also not satisfactory and we felt that the control was pretty obvious and visible once you got anywhere near it. Its placement was to encourage you to take the (shorter) route along the underground passage.

One thing that I would/should have changed was the mapping of the strips of vegetation in the final car park on race 2. It was intended that competitors be allowed to cross these and a crossable green screen was used - however on the final print it looked very similar to the forbidden green/black screen and so most competitors went around and lost perhaps a few seconds to those that crossed them.

Neil Crickmore
SO

Organisers' Comments

Holding events in military establishments generally simplifies many of the organiser’s tasks: plenty of parking, indoor registration and a great big wire fence to stop the kids wandering off too far! That just left us to deal with the Winchester Urban Race on the Saturday and make sure that Sunday’s event catered for all the rules and requirements that hosting a Level 1 event involves!!

Between us (Allan Farrington, Mike Derbyshire and Tom Murphy), and with the guiding hand of our controller, we managed to ensure that HMS Sultan was able to host the event; although there were a few more grey hairs on our heads when we found some locked gates on the Sunday morning.

Thankfully, we had super weather throughout the day and a pretty relaxed atmosphere in the assembly area. The competitors were only unsettled by the need to actually run a couple of races during the day. Richard’s courses proved to be the main topic of discussion after each race, for all the right reasons.

Finally, a thank you to our controller Neil Crickmore; his contribution on some of the technical issues that a Level 1 event has to consider was invaluable.

Results by Emit UK

eTiming Version 3.0 Emit as