What's News

June Night-O Report

Submitted by Mike Contratto

The course was ....well, navigational challenging.  When I sent the first proposal for the course to Hana, her reply was “ BTW the course is rather mean for a night-O, isn't it? But I like it a lot!”  Hana and I designed the course to favor the navigator over the runner and the result was a course that was “rather mean”.  The use of stopping feature, rails and attack points was important to get many of the points.  If you do not know what those terms mean, you can attend Scott's class on orienteering skills next month to find out!  The other problem is that only designed one course and just removed the harder points for the White and Yellow course.  Therefore, the white was a short yellow and the Yellow was just a short Orange.  Both the White and Yellow course were way to hard.  Next time we will insure that the white and Yellow courses are the proper level of difficulty. 

The Orange course was not very long.  I ran it in 45 minutes; In daylight knowing were all the points were.  My distance was 2.53 miles.  Fredrick ran it in 46 minutes; in the dark and not knowing were the points were before hand.  (However, I still beat Fredrick by a minute!)  All of the people on the Orange course liked the challenge but it was a challenge. 

Results

GPS Device Ban

Jan Kocbach, 25 May 2009, worldofo.com

You won’t be allowed to carry a GPS watch like the Forerunner 405/305 on WRE races, World Cup races and WOC races from June 1st according to the new IOF rules published by the IOF today. They are also not allowed according to Jukola rules - the Swedish language invitation explicitly disallows all GPS-devices, whereas the English language version only disallows tracking devices.  Note that the IOF rules are not applicable to events which are not organized through the IOF, and thus GPS-watches may still be used in all local races, national races, and international races without WRE-status, etc. 

Whereas the previous set of rules stated that navigational aids like e.g. GPS-watches could not be used during the competition, the new rules state that navigational aids may not be carried. One could argue that a GPS-watch is not a navigational aid, but that is no use - many GPS-watches available can show you running distance and altitude, which may definitely aid your navigation.

However, you may still use GPS logging devices without a screen - which give you no information at all as a navigational aid. One example is the Globalsat BT-335 Data-logger, which can log your position every second while running, but which gives you no navigational aid during the competition.

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RoadID – Be seen wearing it.

The US Orienteering Federation is teaming up with RoadID is to produce revenue that will support junior orienteering programs.

 RoadID is a personalized identification product that can be used by an athlete while training and/or competing.  In the case of accident or medical emergency, it can provide valuable information to medical personnel.  Purchases can be made through a link on the USOF website or with an order form that will be available at Bushwhacker or IRVOC events.  A part of each purchase will be used to fund programs for Juniors like the summer trips to participate in international O meets and other efforts like the junior development team.  To produce a commission for USOF, an order must be placed through the link on the USOF website (home page or O-Gear page) or via a coded order form (available from IRVOC/Bushwhacker)

or by supplying the USOF code (14F) when ordering by phone or going directly to RoadID’s website.

Check out the styles of personalized identification offered by Road ID by using the link above, or on the USOF Home page.  Order one for yourself and every athlete in your family.  Show your RoadID to your friends, classmates, and teammates, and give them the USOF URL (www.us.orienteering.org) so their order will go through the link.  Every single order (including other products available on the RoadID website) will yield financial support for junior programs.