At the Swedish 5-days today, a number of courses had to be thrown out because a control was missing. It now turns out that an orienteer moved the control. Here is what apparently happened (as reported by the Swedish O' pages at www.alternativet.nu):

"After three good days, he was in the lead. But, then after two five minute mistakes on the fourth day, the 55-year-old orienteer saw a chance to hold his lead for the final day. He just removed a control -- control and electronic punch -- and dumped it in the woods a bit away in the belief that the course, and the day's results, would be thrown out. He suceeded (the course was thrown out). But what he didn't realize was that his actions were recorded by the electronic punch."

Alternativet goes on to describe how the control was found and the organizers downloaded the data. They were able to figure out exactly when the control was removed and who had already been to it. The organizers could deduce who must have removed the control. They could also see -- from the data in the earlier controls -- that a certain runner (who had been in the lead) had already made two big mistakes before arriving at the control that was moved.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), July 27, 2000

Answers

The latest from Alternativet (from the discussion page) is that instead of throwing out the results for all of the classes that were affected by the stolen control, they will base the results on the times to the control just before the sabotaged control. This is a pretty interesting approach. It is an interesting way to use electronic punching.

Also, I should add that the last paragraph I wrote above has a bit of my own supposition about how they discovered the sabatour (the last paragraph is not a translation of Alternativet -- it is an analysis of what Alternativet said combined with my own understanding of electronic punching.

-- Michael (meglin@juno.com), July 27, 2000.

And the consequences to the orienteer? (liked banned for the next year?)

-- Fritz (fpmenninger@hotmail.com), July 29, 2000.

Some more news about the sabotage (from alternativet and Expressen, one of Sweden's biggest newspapers).

On the 4th day a M55 runner reported that a control was missing on his course. The organizers went out to the control location and found the control about 70 meters away. They checked the control (it was an electronic punch system) and discovered that the "suspect" -- the M55 who reported the control missing -- was the last orienteer to punch at the marker. Six seconds earlier a woman had also punched. The talked to the woman who confirmed that the control was there when she was there.

The organizers got in touch with the suspect. He was doing very well (leading, I believe), in his class after the first three days. He explained that he'd had a good run until the control that was missing, but that he found it after looking for 8 minutes. From the split times (remember it was using electronic punching so the organizers could get the times at each control) the suspect had already lost about 8 minutes before the control in question. They could even show that he had not missed the control in question -- an 8 minute mistake on that marker was not possible based on the split time at the previous control. They confronted the M55 who was surprised about how much information was available from the electronic punching. He defended himself by saying he wouldn't have moved the marker because then he wouldn't win a prize.

The organizers' theory is that the man was worried he would lose his top position before the last day's chase start, so he took down the control to make sure the results would be thrown out.

Expressen (a daily "tabloid" that is quite popular in Sweden -- I'd describe it as a bit like USA Today) reported that the man has been suspected of "incidents" in other events. They also reported that organizers have tried to stop him in the past, but have not had strong enough evidence.

The event jury at the 5-days, gave the suspect several options. He could skip the last day or make an official appology over the event PA system, but the man professed his innocence. He started on the last day, but was DQd at the end.

There has yet to be any official decision about any eventual punishment.

-- Michael (mike_eglinski@kcmo.org), July 31, 2000.

I think you could pull this stunt off, but you'd have to be somewhat more clever than this guy. That wouldn't take much.

-- J-J (jjcote@juno.com), August 01, 2000.