sprint weekends
 onemanfanclub
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Posted: 2 January 2019, 1:36 AM
I'm sure a while back there was a rumour that Taranaki was going to follow in the footsteps of Sprint The Bay and one-offs from PAPO and Wellington, and put on a multi-sprint weekend this summer. Looking at the ONZ calendar, I guess that's not happening (or it was only ever a rumour and might come as news to anyone in Taranaki!) No worries.
However thinking about that inspired a bit of a train of thought - would it be a good idea/bad idea to set up a separate sprint nationals? Especially now that sprint relays and knock-out races are established on the international circuit, but are so far rare or missing from national competition. It should be feasible to have the minimum program of an individual championship, relay and some sort of KO/elimination race over a 2 day weekend somewhere in the late Jan-March period...?
The pros and cons that I see (interested to see if others see more):
Pros
Ability for elites and juniors to 'practice in competition' all 3 events
Clubs that are strong in membership but distant to 'good' terrain (eg W/HV or PAPO), or have a membership biassed towards urban orienteering(WK?)would have another option for putting on a high profile event with less investment in mapping.
When 'traditional' nationals are held somewhere isolated because of some awesome newly discovered terrain, there would be no need to also find somewhere nearby suitable for a quality sprint race.
If sprint nationals can fit into a 2 day weekend then it should be relatively easy to slot into the calendar each year, even if for example there was a decision it should always be X weeks before terrain nationals (ie Easter)
And when Easter falls early then a 3 day terrain nationals would be easier to shift to a later weekend than the current 4 day program?
Cons
2 host clubs would have to be found each year for the full suite of NZ titles
While there'd probably be minimal impact on entry numbers for terrain nationals, I'd expect sprint nationals entries to be consistently lower which might make clubs less interested in hosting
OR given that most of our strong clubs are in large urban areas, they might find the sprints to be so attractive to host that it becomes harder to find hosts for the terrain champs?
The KO would be quite complex to organise, especially if applied across all classes. Would non-elite/under 20 competitors be satisfied with some other race format that day? Sprint relay rules would also require some thought...
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mcroxford
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Posted: 2 January 2019, 3:24 AM
The Taranaki Sprint Weekend you refer to is in the 2020 Long Term Calendar on the ONZ website for January. It's earmarked in the calendar as the WOC trials. It's been placed on the same weekend that Southern O Week occupied for the last 3-4 years and this year's South Island Champs is on.
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mcroxford
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Posted: 2 January 2019, 3:26 AM
Oh... and I like the idea. I've always believed clubs should change to a summer focused calendar with Sprints in Spring/Summer and Forests in Summer/Autumn. Rogaines in winter.
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onemanfanclub
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Posted: 2 January 2019, 3:53 AM
Clearly I need to listen more closely to rumours!
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Rolf
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Posted: 8 January 2019, 12:55 PM
Or just alternate years like WOC! Sprint one year and then Rural the other.
I think 'rural' is more accurate than 'forest'.
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