The Cincinnati O' club (OCIN) hosted a three day A-meet that included a short course on Friday, the US Short Champs on Saturday, and a mass start race on Sunday. Here is a short report:

Terrain B: The terrain was ok, but nothing special. The club did a very good job of using small areas that looked uninteresting. Certainly the areas where no more interesting that Shawnee Mission Park. (I've always thought PTOC ought to host an A-meet at SMP).

Maps A: The maps were fine. I noticed a few inconcistencies in how the green was mapped. But, green is always difficult to map and the terrain had some especially difficult to map types of forest. The maps were not printed on laser or ink jet printers! It was nice to get a chance to use a map that was easy to read -- a lot of events are using inkjet printers which are not nearly as easy to read as a good offset map. I don't mind A-meets using non-offset printing, but I'd like to know before hand.

Courses A-: The courses were good...but, could have been better. The courses had lots of controls (something like 18 on the 4.2 k M21 course on the US Champs and 27 on the 9.9 K race on Sunday). This is ok -- and it can be a lot of fun -- but a little more variety makes the orienteering a bit more challenging. The course setters did a very good job of using the terrain they had. The mass start race on Sunday used an area that was just a little bit larger than 1x1 km (and almost half of the area was a university campus).

Organization A: No complaints about the organization. OCIN did a really good job. They also had some nice touches -- like the results were calculated quickly and the controls were all on controls stands.

Overall A: This was a really good event. The mass start race was fun and challenging. I think OCIN hosts this meet every spring (the so-called "flying pig") and I definetly plan to try to make it back next year.

The mass start event on Sunday used a mixture of terrain. The course included legs that were on the Miami University campus ("Park Orienteering") as well as legs through a small wooded area that was also part of the university. To make it more challenging, the courses were "forked" -- you couldn't just follow other runners. I really enjoyed the mix of terrain (open park land and "real" O' forest) and the mass start. But, at least one person complained that it was not fun.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), April 06, 2000

Answers

Just to add a little balance to the discussion... I agree that the meet was pretty good, with good maps, courses, and overall administration. I did have a few minor complaints with what I will call communication. Perhaps the info I sought was on the website or some place I didn't check, but despite a rather lengthy meet info packet, there were things that I didn't know: the map scales (perhaps advertised in advance, but not mentioned in the meet packet), the length of the walks to the start, the fact that the Friday and Saturday awards would be at the dinner in Oxford (45 minutes from where we were staying; we weren't planning on attending the dinner), that the days (all? some? still don't know) were part of this year's TECNO series, that Sunday's event was at least half Park-O, and the way they dealt with the results: as in previous years, they didn't post them but wrote them on start lists and left them at the finish table for competitors' perusal. Got a little crowded around the table, and the results weren't in order so you had to search for the top times. Minor quibbles to be sure, but I'd love to see a little improvement.

-- Peggy (Pdickison@aol.com), April 06, 2000.

Forgot to talk about weather, not that the meet directors are responsible for that. Friday was beautifully sunny, with a slight chill. Saturday was partly cloudy and rather nice. Sunday was overcast with a light drizzle, but warm, none the less.

No complaints about misplaced flags, but there was concerns that features on the short course map were not quite right (the little ditch that caused a number of people problems).

-- Fritz Menninger (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), April 09, 2000.