My Opera
Cheating in Orienteering
Saturday, February 28, 2009 4:28:28 PM
Below are two graphs from the SplitsBrowser, from the Israeli Championship. Each displays the times of two orienteers:
The first graph is a good example of following. A good orienteer was caught by a slightly faster one, who started two minutes later, around the middle of the course. From then on he stuck to him and probably got a better result than otherwise. Quite a few articles have been written about this, it can't be prevented, and it will always happen in our sport.
Anything which looks like the second graph is either an extreme coincidence or cheating. We use a punching start, so it's technically possible, and it means that two orienteers ran the whole course together. In this case it was reported that the person in question waited by the start until a better orienteer started, ran back to punch the start control, and followed him all through the course.
He was disqualified, of course. Based on SplitsBrowser evidence he did the same at least three times previously, and in all cases the start officials didn't notice or care. If it was up to me, he would be disqualified retroactively and all his previous ranking points for this season cancelled.
And just in case anyone is wondering - he is an adult and a qualified orienteering instructor. Shame.
The first graph is a good example of following. A good orienteer was caught by a slightly faster one, who started two minutes later, around the middle of the course. From then on he stuck to him and probably got a better result than otherwise. Quite a few articles have been written about this, it can't be prevented, and it will always happen in our sport.
Anything which looks like the second graph is either an extreme coincidence or cheating. We use a punching start, so it's technically possible, and it means that two orienteers ran the whole course together. In this case it was reported that the person in question waited by the start until a better orienteer started, ran back to punch the start control, and followed him all through the course.
He was disqualified, of course. Based on SplitsBrowser evidence he did the same at least three times previously, and in all cases the start officials didn't notice or care. If it was up to me, he would be disqualified retroactively and all his previous ranking points for this season cancelled.
And just in case anyone is wondering - he is an adult and a qualified orienteering instructor. Shame.
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