A0040409P

Newsletter Number 96, June 2004

PO Box 3,
Central Park,
3145, Victoria.
61-3-95721784 fax
E-mail: Neil Phillips

IRF Team

President: Neil Phillips
World Rogaining Championships Manager: Gordon Birch
Promotions and Development: vacant
Secretary/Treasurer: Rod Phillips

Czech Republic: Jaroslav Vavra, Miroslav Seidl
Finland: Iiro Kakko
New Zealand: Pete Squires
Canada: Alan Stradeski
United States of America: Eric Smith, Clinton Morse, Bob Reddick
Australia: Rod Phillips, Gordon Birch, John Berwick, Neil Phillips
Founders Representative: Bob Reddick

Observer status
Estonia: Andres Kaar
New Zealand: Michael Wood
Sweden: Lars-Åke Svenk
Russia: German Shestakov, Sergey Yaschenko
China: Jianping Zhang
South Africa: Pieter Mulder
6th WRC: Peg Davis
7th WRC: Andy Mein

6 th World Rogaining Championships

The 6th World Rogaining Championships held May 8 & 9, 2004 were the culmination of two years of effort. In 2002, John Maier and I felt that the Tucson Orienteering Club was ready to bid for the World Rogaining Championships. We had successfully hosted two North American Rogaining Championships in 1997 and 2001. Twelve Arizona rogaines had established the club as an American bastion of rogaining. John and I felt that the club could cope with the reputation-making challenges and put in a bid.

One word defines the preparation for 6WRC: work. As course setter, John spent weeks searching for the best possible site, then building up his GPS mapping skills and painstakingly improving the USGS base map. As event director, most of my time was spent lining up people and materials for the largest Arizona event to date. An astounding number of people spent an astounding amount of time working on this rogaine. The minor activity of stuffing registration and map packets alone took about 10 people nearly 6 hours on a Sunday afternoon. Many worked alone setting up their area of responsibility. Lots of us learned new business type skills. From this project, I learned that I never want to be a business person. One indisputable gain for TOC has been the great increase in high-tech mapping techniques.

I am very proud and happy to announce how well received the event was by the world community. For specific rogainer's comments, see the “thanks to volunteers” article. There is a lovely tradition in the rogaining world of participants sending thank you notes after the event, so let us bask in the glory. Almost every rogainer's comment on first arriving was how beautiful the site was. The second was “Holy cow! Flush toilets!” We rented an entire commercial campground for the weekend. While this was a new expense for an Arizona rogaine, this obviated the need for renting a water truck and portable toilets, and gave us a large usable area for results, first aid tent and a circus tent sized hash house. Another first was having paved road all the way to the start triangle. This allowed us to meet the requirement of the International Rogaine Federation rules to provide a shuttle bus to the event. If only the bus had arrived at Sky Harbor Airport for the pickup less than 90 minutes late, those competitors could have gotten a decent night's sleep, but they were very good sports about the inconvenience.

The weather smiled on us all weekend. When I first saw the site in April, it lay under a foot of fresh snow, but by May 8th that had dwindled to a few small drifts protected by forest. The nights were cold and the days were mild and slightly overcast. Most marshes had dried up, but neither dust nor wind were pesky. One challenge was the 9100' elevation. Hash house workers found themselves choosing to speak in short sentences and rogainers were more severely affected. Many teams complained of symptoms of altitude sickness - nausea, headache, fatigue- and felt their performance did not meet their expectations. Significantly, the overall winners reported no altitude effects in their course narrative.

So much work had been done in preparation for the event, and so many people worked so hard at the event, that the only problems that arose were minor and quickly solved.

We made a large effort to make this the fairest rogaine possible. Complaints about unfair play have been growing over the years. We tried to combat this by warning all readers of the event website months in advance that all rules would be strictly enforced, giving each rogainer a copy of the rules for competitors, having the international jury mandated by IRF rules prepared before the event, and sending patrols of non-competitors out during the event to observe rogainers in the field. While the patrols saw no problems, another competing team did. They felt they saw a team in which, as the faster member punched, the slower member did not come within 20 meters of the control before arcing off on a route to the next control. The international jury was assembled from the hash house and campground immediately after the event while results were being tabulated. We all reviewed the rules for challenges, picked a 3 member voting jury and interviewed all rogainers involved. The jury felt that the accusation had merit and recommended that the points for that control be deducted from the accused team's score. I want to thank the jury, those who went on patrols and, most importantly, the rogainers themselves for their efforts to keep rogaining fair so that it can be fun for everyone. It is a game, you know, and a score achieved by cutting corners is nothing to be proud of.

The overall winners, Mike Kloser and Michael Tobin, were -gulp- first time rogainers, but elite adventure racers. Read their account of the rogaine on the 6WRC website, along with many other narratives. After the awards ceremony, second place team and defending champions, Greg Barbour and David Rowlands, kindly drew their route on the giant map and explained their approach and how it was altered in the field. Once again, they demonstrated that great athletes are often great thinkers and great sports.

The 380 participants came from 15 countries and 33 US states. Being at the meet, surrounded by happy people pursuing a common interest, gives hope that our community demonstrates how the world can really be: coming together to enjoy each other and the beauty of the world.

Peg Davis: 6WRC Co-ordinator

 

Editor

A large number of people assist in the limelight and behind the scenes in making our World Rogaining Championships a success. Peg Davis, John Maier and the whole Arizona team have put in two years of effort leading up to and following 6WRC, and they are rightly proud of this outstanding effort.

Less visible have been others like our USA representatives on the IRF who add support and the wisdom they have gained over years in the sport, Gordon Birch (WRC Manager) who has played a large role in 5WRC and 6WRC, those who prepare, vet and select the various bids for holding a WRC, the updating of Rules, the dissemination of publicity material and news articles, and those who initiate rogaining in new countries and communities around the globe.

 

Announcements at 6WRC

In opening 6WRC, IRF President Neil Phillips emphasised the importance of land access to the whole future of rogaining, and our relationship to regional communities where we plan to hold rogaines. The new rule stating that major rogaines finish at the advertised finish time regardless of delays at the start was mentioned: this also gives organisers flexibility at the start of rogaines. The message from Peg Davis regarding fair competition and the honour of competing well was reinforced, and there was considerable interest in the announcement of Sydney as the site of 7WRC in 2006, and the confirmation of a two-year WRC cycle.