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Table of contents

1 Introduction 2 Awards 3 Courses 4 Club Competition Computation 5 Relay Team Composition and Categories 6 Forming a Relay Team 7 The Seeding System, Pools, and the Draw for Relay Teams 8 The Scottish System For Awarding Points

Tahoe 2021

Club Relay Orienteering Championships  

Introduction

The goal is to provide a fun and competitive relay racing experience, with head-to-head competition among orienteers with similar abilities on forked courses.

The Club Championship will be a team competition based upon the relay. Runners of each relay leg will be awarded points using the Scottish system (see below). Each Club's top five runners with the most points will contribute to the Club's total point count regardless of the runners' relay team. The Club with the most points wins the Club Championship. All runners from a Club have a chance to contribute to their Club’s score, and all Clubs will receive a score, even if they have only one runner!

There will be four female and four male relay team categories: Junior, Elite, Master, and Veteran. Each relay team will consist of three runners who each run one leg of the relay.

There are two options for forming teams:

1. By “Choice”: Competitors may choose teams from their club, friends, families, or just anyone.
2. By “Seeding”: Competitors who wish to run on teams with members of similar ability, and against other teams of similar ability, may enter the “Seeded Draw”. Runners who wish the organizers to place them in a team should also enter into the Draw.

Awards

There will be 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd place awards for each of the following:

1. Champion Clubs.
2. Junior, Elite, Master and Veteran Female teams.
3. Junior, Elite, Master and Veteran Male teams.

Courses

There will be eight courses, each corresponding to a Category: M/F Junior, M/F Elite, M/F Master, and M/F Veteran.

Each course will have three legs.

All courses will have forking, except the Junior courses.

When completed, each relay team will have run the same set of legs.

The courses will be designed so that it is likely that the winning teams in all Categories will finish at or near the same time, for maximum excitement.

The courses will be designed with spectators in mind to add more to the excitement.

Club Competition Computation

The top five runners’ points from each Club count towards the Club’s total points.

The Scottish system (see below) will be used to assign Club points for each leg of the relay.

Relay Team Composition and Categories

Each Relay Team consists of three runners.

Each runner must be from the classes of that team’s Category in the tables below (e.g., all Juniors), with three exceptions:

1. Women may run in a Men’s category.
2. Anyone may run “up” in a more difficult Category (i.e., Junior, Master, or Veteran in Elite; Veteran in Master).
3. The first-leg and third-leg runners may be the same person. Only their first leg counts towards Club points.

	Category		OUSA Classes
	Junior Women		F−10	F−12	F−14	F−16
	Elite Women		F−18	F−20	F−21+	F35+
	Master Women		F40+	F45+	F50+	F55+
	Veteran Women		F60+	F65+	F70+	F75+	F80+	F85+
	Junior Men		M−10	M−12	M−14	M−16
	Elite Men		M−18	M−20	M−21+	M35+	M40+
	Master Men		M45+	M50+	M55+	M60+
	Veteran Men		M65+	M70+	M75+	M80+	M85+

Forming a Relay Team

There are two options for forming a team:

1. By “Choice”:
   1. Competitors may choose teams from their club, friends, families, or just anyone.
   2. Teams may be entered online into a Relay Google Sheet. (A link will be provided here “soon”.)
   3. Team entries must be finalized, including running order, before 11 PM on Saturday, August 7.
2. By “Seeded Draw”:
   1. Competitors who wish to run on teams with members of similar ability, and against other teams of similar ability, may enter the “Draw”. This option may be selected on the Relay Google Sheet.
   2. Competitors who wish the Organizers to place them in a team should also enter the “Draw”.
   3. The Organizers will use the U.S. Nationals Middle Championship race to seed these competitors into pools of similar ability.
   4. Seeded teams will be assembled by public random draw from the seeding pools at the dinner on Saturday, August 7, at Northstar, and added to the online Google Sheet immediately.
   5. Teams may alter the order of their runners until 11 PM after the dinner on Saturday, August 7. Only the running order may be changed, not the runners themselves.

The Seeding System, Pools, and the Draw for Relay Teams

The purpose is to establish competitive relay teams of runners with similar abilities.

The U.S. Nationals Middle Championship will be the only race used for seeding.

Each runner’s “normalized pace” will be calculated using the formula:

P = T / (L + C/100)

where P = “normalized pace” (min/km)
          T = time on the course (min)
          L = course straight-line length (km)
          C = course climb (m)

For each Relay Category, runners will be ranked based on their normalized pace. Any DNF/DSQ/MSP/SWD or extra runners will be inserted manually by the Organizers.

The Organizers will form seeded Pools using the rankings in the Categories. Sparse categories may be merged.

The Draw for Relay Teams will be by selection from each Pool. The Draw will be held at the dinner on Saturday, August 7, at Northstar.

If any Pool has a number of runners that is not divisible by 3, the Organizers will add one or two runners to that Pool from a separate list of “volunteer” runners, taking care to assign runners in accordance with the purpose in stated above. Volunteers should make themselves known to the Organizers by emailing the Registrar or by selecting that option in the online Relay Google Sheet. A Volunteer may be permitted to run the first and third relay legs for their team if that is needed — please indicate if you are willing to run two legs.

The Scottish System For Awarding Points

The winner of a race receives 1000 points.

Other runners receive points relative to the Winner, inversely proportional to their relative time. For example, if the winner takes 33 minutes (and receives 1,000 points), a runner taking 44 minutes will receive 1000 * 33/44 = 750 points.

A DNF/DSQ/MSP/SWD receives zero points.