Organiser's Report
Thanks very much to everyone for coming along to the Sprint O. We were nearly caught out by the size of the entry, which was about twice as large as in previous years and lead to one or two last minute adjustments in organisation. However, this level of participation is a very healthy sign for the sport, both generally and at this time of year when orienteering in Scotland has in the past gone into hibernation. It seems to me that there has been an increase in the number of events held over the winter months, in particular events that can make good use of smaller, more local areas, such as sprint O, the STAG Glasgow parks races, and the EUOC night O series. These events also add some variety to the more traditional cross-country runs.
In previous years at the Sprint O it had been possible to start Long course runners on one minute and Short on the next and so on, and on that basis Mark had used the same first control on the first leg of both courses at Hopetoun. To try to avoid Long and Short runners leading each other into the control we decided to have the Long starts on the half-minute. Once we settled into a routine this arrangement seemed to work well.
Also, knowing that the normal size of the entry was about 50 I had taken a rather laid back approach to the organising. This had to be scaled up a bit as the event approached, but ESOC members responded in traditionally enthusiastic fashion to fit in a stint of helping around their runs. However, I couldn’t help thinking back to the time, about five or six years ago, when we started the ESOC Sprint O and the whole event was run by two people (Dave Nisbet and Douglas Gray) using control cards for punching. In 2006 I had 14 helpers, although probably the minimum I could have managed with is five (assuming none of them was running).
The weather was good, which always helps, and Hopetoun House is a very easy place at which to organise an event. On the down side was the SI software crash, which Robin explains elsewhere. Given that this was the first time the SI men had seen this particular type of database corruption, I think they did a fantastic job to get us back on-line, with the punching start on the second leg a precaution against any start times still being corrupt. May I add my sincere apologies to you for the delay this caused, some people missing their second run altogether because they had to leave.
Thanks very much to Nigel Franklin (Hopetoun House Ranger) for all his help with accommodating the event, and of course to all the ESOC helpers on the day.
And congratulations to Dave Godfree (INT) and Chris McLeod (ESOC), winners on M Long and W Long, and Jane Ackland (INT) and Martin Quirke (ESOC), winners of the W Short and M Short races.
Roger Scrutton
Planner's Report
Controller's Report