The Guidance given below is to assist organisers and planners staging major events in the UK. The aim is to achieve a consistent standard of events and give competitors a quality and challenging competition.
TrailO Development Group recommendations
TrailO at Major Events
The Board has recommended that TrailO courses are always offered at the JK and preferably also as part of one of the British Championship weekends, although some British TrailO Championships have been stand-alone events.
Timing
The JK is always held over the Easter weekend and, because many competitors are staying locally and do not have to make long journeys home until later in the weekend, it is usual for TrailO competitions to be held in the afternoons so that those who wish to do so can compete in the FootO events in the morning can take part in the TrailO event in the afternoon. This may mean that TrailO courses close later in the day than FootO courses and event coordinators need to be aware of this and plan accordingly.
Types of TrailO
In the IOF TrailO rules, the IOF defines two different disciplines within TrailO. These are PreO, (a cross country course with control clusters along roads & tracks passable in a wheelchair, plus one or more timed controls) and TempO, a course made up entirely of timed controls. Ideally courses of both disciplines should be offered at major events.
Types of TrailO competitor
TrailO competitors at events like the JK can largely be divided into three groups
Amongst these competitors there may be some wheelchair users. There are not many of them, but the rules of TrailO stipulate that courses must be planned to accommodate them without any disadvantage.
Depending on its regional location, the JK often attracts competitors from abroad including international TrailO competitors, particularly those from Scandinavia for whom it is sometimes the first major event of their season.
TrailO and British Championship weekend
Wherever possible, TrailO should also form part of one of the British Championship weekends. Depending on the suitability of the terrain and the time of year, it should be possible to hold the British TrailO Championships in combination with either the Championships/Relay weekend or the Sprint/Middle Championship weekend.
If neither of these is possible and the TrailO Championships have to be a stand alone event, it should be held in such terrain that it is possible to be able to hold a two day TrailO event of Championship standard or else the Championships should preferably be held on a Saturday in conjunction with a nearby high quality FootO event on a Sunday to make an attractive weekend for those able to compete in both.
Terrain
The terrain for major TrailO events “shall be suitable for setting competitive trail orienteering courses of the appropriate standard. The terrain must be chosen so that the least mobile competitors, the person confined to and propelling a low fixed wheelchair and the person who walks slowly and with difficulty, can negotiate the course within the maximum time limit, using official assistance where provided.” (IOF Rules)
This is often quite difficult to achieve in practice in conventional forested areas in the UK, and frequently the most suitable areas for TrailO have been open parkland areas such as university campuses, areas of open fell side or heathland, and areas of sand-dune terrain, forested or not, through which there is a good track network. If a standalone event is inevitable, on occasions small areas not suitable for FootO, e.g. ex mineral extraction sites and others not available to FootO due to environmental concerns may be suitable although the cost of mapping such areas may be high (but see the note on mapping below).
Map scales and terrain size
Suitable areas do not necessarily need to be large provided the terrain is detailed enough. TrailO normally uses maps at scales of either 1:4 000 or 1:5 000, and mapped to either ISSOM or ISOM standards. Areas mapped for Sprint events are useful. A TrailO planner may request some remapping to add extra detail around some areas being used as control sites, which may have been omitted from the original mapping to aid clarity.
Location of the TrailO event
For TrailO at major events, it is always better if the competition area is as close as possible to the main assembly area. Whilst there may be some wheelchair users amongst the competitors, most TrailO competitors at major UK events are either current Foot orienteers or former orienteers who are, for one reason or another, no longer able to compete on FootO courses. They will, however, probably have travelled with fellow orienteers, or may wish to socialise with friends in the main assembly areas.
It has been demonstrated at a number of World Cup and Championships events, that it is perfectly possible to hold TrailO and FootO competitions in the same area at the same time.
If, for practical reasons, it proves impossible to hold the TrailO alongside the FootO, then a suitable area within close driving distance should be found, so that competitors can travel quickly between one event and the other.
Budgets
The budgets for both JK and BOC should include elements for TrailO especially mapping and the refund of reasonable expenses for major officials.
Facilities
JK coordinators will need to include an order for an accessible toilet in their calculations, sited near to the area used for the TrailO parking. They also need to remember to include medals and prizes for the winners of the JK TrailO in both the O (Open) and P (physically challenged) classes. If possible these should be presented at the main prize-giving ceremony. The same would hold true if TrailO is incorporated into a British Championship weekend.
Publicity, entries and involvement of TrailO officials
It is desirable for areas to be fixed early in the planning cycle and a TrailO official should be involved in the event steering group meetings. TrailO information needs to be included on the event website and in all other publications. Whenever possible TrailO entries should be taken with those of the FootO.
Whilst the TrailO Development Group will always offer help & guidance about TrailO to the Organising Committees of major events, and indeed suggest suitably knowledgeable officials, it should be the responsibility of the organising club/regions to supply the major officials (Planner, Organiser, Controller), rather than expecting the TDG to do this for them.
Appendix: Organising a TrailO event in conjunction with a Major Event
Rules
In the current absence of official BOF rules for TrailO, TrailO competitions in the UK have always been run under the IOF rules & guidelines.
Parking & Assembly
Ideally TrailO courses should be within easy access of the main car parking and assembly of the main event. Trail orienteers usually travel to major events with friends and family who are competing in the FootO events. If the TrailO area is separate from the main event, it should be within a short drive.
Car parking should be close to the competition area. It is unreasonable to expect competitors with limited mobility to undertake long walks to and from a competition area, particularly when a PreO course itself may take two hours or longer to complete. An accessible toilet needs to be provided at or near the car park.
Courses
Classic TrailO courses, now renamed PreO by the IOF, comprise a cross country course along roads & tracks passable in a wheelchair, with anything from 12-20 control clusters, plus one or more timed controls, which can be placed at either at the beginning, end or in the middle of the course depending on circumstances. Course lengths usually vary between 1.5k & 3.0k depending on the terrain. PreO courses must be completed within a fixed time allowance, depending on how many controls are used, and the length of the course. The IOF rules provide a formula for calculating the time allowed.
Two PreO courses should be planned on each day of competition. One at Elite level and an easier Novice course. With careful planning it is usually possible to do this using most of the Elite control flag clusters for the Novice course, but setting easier problems. The Novice course does not necessarily have to include timed controls.
A TempO course consists of a number of timed control stations, each one offering three or four problems from the same position, with each problem to be solved as quickly as possibly, usually with a limit of 30 seconds. There is no overall time limit for completing a TempO course.
Main Officials
Other officials
Equipment
Beyond tents, tables & chairs for the Registration team and ideally a tent or gazebo for timed controls, the equipment needed for TrailO is fairly simple.
Mapping
As has been stated before, TrailO normally uses maps at scales of either 1:4 000 or 1:5 000, and mapped to either ISSOM or ISOM standards. Areas mapped for Sprint events are often useful. Often a TrailO planner will request some remapping to add extra detail around some areas being used as control sites.
Brian Parker – mapper WTOC 2012 states
“It is important to realise that, although trail orienteering maps usually show the whole of the environs of the competition area, the fraction of the map used for the control sites is very small indeed, much less than might be thought. If we say that a typical control site requires 50m x 50m of careful mapping and there are 20 sites in a competition, the total area involved is 50,000 sq m, which is one twentieth of a sq km. A typical FootO maps is 5 sq km or more. So the mapping area requirement for a TrailO map is about 1% of a FootO map.
This much less than might be imagined requirement should be borne in mind when an area with no pre-existing FootO map is proposed.
It is perfectly possible to use a corridor map or even a segmented one, this latter being the norm in TempO. Complete area maps are preferred for aesthetic and concordance with FootO reasons, but are far from essential.”
Maps should ideally be printed on waterproof material, although paper maps in protective map bags are also acceptable.
Planning
The course planner needs ideally to be a competent trail orienteer. For planning guidance, he should use the various IOF technical publications.
The IOF publishes on its website a number of documents devoted to Planning guidelines. Most of these have been written by Brian Parker and are relevant to TrailO in the UK and all TrailO planners should be encouraged to read and be familiar with their contents.
http://orienteering.sport/trail-orienteering/event-organising/organisers-guidelines/
Courses can be planned & prepared using either the planning module of OCAD or the Condes software (recommended). The Open Source Purple Pen course setting software does not yet support TrailO.
As well as preparing the course map, the planner needs to produce a solution sheet showing the answers to the problems set on the course. OCAD is usually used for this task.
These solution sheets, which do not need to be waterproof, should be made available to competitors who have completed the course, either once all competitors have finished, or once the last competitor has safely started on the course, at the discretion of the controller.
Further help and guidance
The TrailO Development Group of British Orienteering will offer as much help and assistance as is reasonable to the Organisers of a major event, and will probably be able to suggest suitable qualified and experienced officials able to act as Planners or Controllers.
Further resources
The IOF website (see address above) contains the Technical Guidelines, and the Technical Introduction to TrailO for experienced Foot orienteers. It also has the IOF TrailO rules, technical guidelines for timed controls and guidance on certain particular control problems.