Stanford University Orienteering Event and Annual Winter Social
Date: (Sat.) Dec. 8, 2007
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Event Director: 
- 650.248.9595
Course Setter: Manfred Kopisch
Type: C; Day courses, afternoon clinics, a mass-start Night-O, and a potluck social
Related Information
Event Announcement RouteGadget - Introduction RouteGadget - Event (http://baoc.org/gadget/cgi/reitti.cgi?act=map&id=115&kieli=)
Event Write-Up
By
The Stanford Orienteering Club once again sponsored the nearly annual orienteering event and winter social. Obtaining the permit and room for this event is always an arduous task, but one that they managed to pull off yet again! Special thanks to Russell Neilson and the 6-member Stanford Orienteering Club. Without them we wouldn’t be able to orienteer on their beautiful campus!
Manfred Kopisch put a lot of effort into designing unusual and challenging courses for the event this year, and it paid off. The weather was even on our side—it was cold but not rainy, and if you stood in the sun you could warm up a bit.
The White course had several juniors competing, including first-place winner Julia Doubson. Second place was Lily Kuo, followed by the team of Michele, Dan, Mathew, and Ben Conway.
The Yellow course was designed to show competitors interesting highlights of the campus. It took runners to the Rodin Sculpture Garden, the New Guinea Garden with its carved animals, the Stanford mausoleum, the Stoney River, and the first forty competitors had an optional control at the top of Hoover Tower. It was a beautiful day and most people spent more time admiring the view from the top of the tower than the five minutes that were deducted from their overall time if they visited that control.
The Yellow course was won by George Minarik, with a time of 28:43. He was followed in second place by Risto Miikkulainen and Riitta Katila in 38:01, with Leslie Minarik six seconds behind at 38:07.
For the long course, runners could choose between running a regular course or a Memory-O. Few were courageous enough to try the Memory-O. However, those who did felt a great sense of accomplishment when they completed it, and commented that they would like to see that format again. Several also mentioned that it made the Night-O much easier because they were already in the habit of remembering their route instead of consulting the map frequently.
Of those who dared to do the Memory-O, Brad Wetmore won with a time of 47:57. Close second and third were Scott Porter at 48:10 and Syd Reader at 49:22. Amit Katz was first place of those who ran with a map, with a time of 51:02. Steve Haas was a close second at 51:24, followed by the team of Elaine, Jon, Steve, and Andrew at 55:25.
The Night-O had a special format—a playing-card Score-O. At each control there was the equivalent of half a deck of playing cards, in random order. The points you earned for that control depended on the value of the card you chose to take. Numbered cards were worth their face value, Jacks were worth 11, Queens 12, Kings 13, and Aces 14 points. Each control had two of each card. Slower people liked the format because it gave them better chances for a higher ranking. Faster people liked it because they were forced to strategize about the order in which to visit controls in order to pick the highest cards. The mass-start event had a 60-minute time limit, with a 5-point penalty for each minute or portion of a minute that you returned late.
Although nobody visited all 25 controls, Tapio Karras earned 262 points by visiting 22 controls. Russell Neilson was in second place with 237 points from 21 controls. Eric Rosenzweig came in third with 212 points, even though he visited fewer controls than the 4th and 5th place finishers. Eighth place Philipp Kopisch had the greatest average points per control—with an average of 12.3 points earned per control visited. Notably, both the first and second place finishers maximized their time, losing five points for returning late.
During the afternoon, we had several well-attended seminars. Ben Legg spoke about Advanced Compass Techniques. Dan Greene spoke on Intermediate and Advanced Orienteering Skills, and Steve Gregg recruited event directors. Cameron Ferguson and other juniors showed us the surprisingly realistic orienteering situations in the computer game Catching Features, which persuaded many people to buy the game. How could a larger-than-life-size orienteer on a screen fail to get our attention? Thanks to all of you who donated your time to prepare and teach a seminar!
During the potluck, Tony Pinkham was announced as the winner of the 2007 BAOC Service Award. Congratulations Tony!
Thank you to everyone who helped at the Stanford event!
- Russell Neilson and Stanford Orienteering Club – Arranging the room and obtaining the permit
- Manfred Kopisch – Course Setting
- Ev and Jean Beuerman – Registration
- Chuck Spalding – Beginner’s clinics
- Manfred Kopisch and Bjorn Widerstrom – Starts
- Jim Fish and Marsha Jacobs – Finishes
- Ben Legg, Dan Greene, Steve Gregg, Cameron Ferguson – Seminars
- Steve Haas, Tony Pinkham, Bjorn Widerstrom, Jim Fish, Toby Ferguson, Cameron Ferguson – Control pickup
- Bob Cooley – Map alterations and printing
- Bjorn Widerstrom – Vetting courses
Thanks to all of you and to anyone else whom I neglected to mention!
Results
Stanford University
Palo Alto, CA
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Pl Name(s) Time
White Course (2 km, 11 controls)
1 Julia Doubson 24:18
2 Lily Kuo 32:05
3 Michele, Dan, Mathew, & Ben Conway 34:05
4 Jeanne Caruso 41:33
5 Emily Hann 53:00
6 Bugos Twins 55:42
7 Sylvie Le Gall 56:46
8 Rosenzweig Family 71:00
David Harrison DNF
Yellow Course (4.3 km, 11 controls)
1 George Minarik 28:43
2 Risto Miikkulainen, Riitta Katila 38:01
3 Leslie Minarik 38:07
4 Marsha Jacobs 42:55
5 Grant M, Danny C, Mark S, Rod S 41:04
6 Niv Davidson 48:22
7 Ken Considine, Emily Considine,
Bruce Pollock 51:18
8 Susan Ryan 51:23
9 Zack Considine, Ben Considine 57:53
10 Langley & Claire 63:15
11 Biene, Britta, Melanie 70:28
12 Ravi Handyal 81:15
13 Sunny, Nellie, Caroline 82:30
14 Janet Poses 85:33
15 Shirley Pierce 88:00
16 Peter team 88:20
17 The Penguins 91:04
18 Katz, Spell, Cole, Mangold 91:38
19 Green Team: Lukas, Jason, Russell 92:00
20 Tracy Sanders, Ellen Hughes 93:00
21 Rustom, Sarosh, Sohrab 93:16
22 Michelle, Cassandra, Natalie &
Elisabeth Pelayo & Hannah Kopisch 101:18
23 David Takacs 117:48
Jeanne Caruso DNF
Joe, Andy, Iain, Liam, Rhiannon,
Rodoni DNF
Long Course (with map) (7 km, 19 controls)
1 Amit Katz 51:02
2 Steve Haas 51:24
3 Elaine, Jon, Steve, Andrew 55:25
4 Kent Ryhorchuk 59:54
5 Frank Markowitz 64:00
6 Matthew Mattson 68:56
7 Tim Kuenster 69:00
8 Fyodor Konkov 69:27
9 Alex Solomatnikov 70:52
10 Stefan Stefanov 72:44
11 Mark Manning 75:28
12 Paul Sangiorgio 75:39
13 Brian Kirshner (self-timed) 81:51
14 Bill Straka 85:15
15 Jeff Lanam 85:44
16 Erik Wright, Kristen Lund 87:23
17 Jim Fish 87:40
18 Viktor Passinsky 87:38
19 Thierry Le Gall 92:01
20 Phillip Hoare, Janet Stein 101:09
21 Joanne Thiel, Dave & Sonja Struben 115:55
22 Seder Witcoff 117:28
23 Ann Dieye, Nancy Lindeman 178:30
Natasha Doubson, Masha Konkov DNF
Harold Lischner Lost Card
Long Course (Memory-O) (7 km, 19 controls)
1 Brad Wetmore 47:57
2 Scott Porter 48:10
3 Syd Reader 49:22
4 Brett Carter 55:55
5 Derek Maclean 61:40
6 Chuck Spalding 63:48
7 Oren Rigbi 64:04
8 Bill Strauss 73:05
9 Lester Kovac 81:17
10 Cameron Ferguson 82:06
11 Dwight Freund 89:28
12 Clark Maxfield (CAOC) 91:03
13 Steve Beuerman 137:57
Matthias Kohler DNF
Toby Ferguson DNF
Night Playing-Card Score O (60-minute limit, 25 controls)
Details of the results are available in this PDF file. See the event announcement for the rules that applied.
Total Total
Pl Name(s) Penalty Controls Points
1 Tapio Karras -5 22 262
2 Russell Neilson -5 21 237
3 Eric Rosenzweig 19 212
4 Brett Carter 21 211
5 Steve Gregg 20 211
6 Brad Wetmore -5 18 206
7 Lester Kovac 16 185
8 Philipp Kopisch 15 184
9 Steve Haas 18 182
10 Dan Greene 14 168
11 Bob Cooley -5 16 162
12 Cameron Ferguson 13 151
13 Steve & David Harrison 13 141
14 Amit Katz 12 135
15 Toby Ferguson 12 130
16 Jim Fish 13 129
17 Clark Maxfield (CAOC) 11 112
18 Julia Doubson, Emily Hann 9 100
19 Jeff Lanam 8 85
20 Shirley Pierce, Nancy Lindeman 6 71
21 Anonymous -10 8 65
22 Daniel Kopisch 6 63
23 Hannah Kopisch, Natalie, Elisabeth,
Cassandra & Michelle Pelayo -25 3 10
24 David Takacs 5 10
_______________
DNF = Did not finish (missed one or more controls)