Sunday 30th September 2007
WMOA Championships 2007 - Fownhope Park
Comments
Planners' Comments
Neil and I spent some time trying to get courses the right length and the correct technical difficulty in an area which as some of you found out had significant climb and many tracks. It was difficult to avoid the climb and our apologies for one leg - uphill and no route choice - on the Green Course. We were constrained by the threat that significant parts of the wood were to be thinning or cleared completely in August and September so we avoided having Controls in these areas. One Grade 1 Controller (in HOC) correctly pointed out that we had breached a couple of BOF guidelines but hopefully this did not cause you problems. We hope you enjoyed the challenge although perhaps not the climb!
Our thanks to John Fallows, our Controller, for his advice and constructive comments.
Rollo Rumford and Neil Williamson (HOC)
Controller's Comments
As Rollo and Neil have commented, keeping the climb down on a hilly area like Fownhope whilst still providing technical orienteering can be quite difficult. Moving the start to a higher location was only one of the options we chose but I'm sure some of you on the Light Green and Green courses felt we could have done a bit more. The lengths of those courses were perhaps too long compared with the Blue and Brown and this is borne out by the times posted.
Talking with people after the finish, it wasn't just the climb itself that caused the long times. The mass of contours seemed to make interpreting the map more difficult and hence resulted in route choice errors - some big ones! Is that uphill or downhill? A re-entrant or a spur?
Congratulations to all the winners and especially the juniors with some very fast times.
John Fallows (NGOC)
Organiser's Comments
Thank you all for coming. I hope you enjoyed your day in Herefordshire. Once again the weather was kind to us.
Despite the event being the WM Championships we actually had fewer runners than our last event here in October 2005. The low numbers in the junior classes, and the total lack of M18 and W18 runners was very dissappointing, but perhaps not surprising.
My thanks to all the Harlequin helpers particularly the team leaders without whom the event would not have been possible.
Mike Farrington (HOC)
Acknowledgements
Mr. and Mrs. Margaret Smith, Bunshill Farm for Assembly area
Mr. Dave Sykes, Forest Enterprise (West Woods)
Ms. Jane Bowles, Wyndham Lewis Trust (Fownhope Park)
Mr. Guy Hickman, Agrimec Ledbury for the loan of his van.