The future of the Caddihoe is up for discussion at the next SWOA committee meeting (on 15 Feb), so chairman Paul Taunton would like to make it an Agenda item at our next NGOC committee meeting which is programmed for 7 Feb. He’d like to gauge the opinion of members before our meeting, so that we can present a Club view to SWOA.
The Caddihoe
The Caddihoe is an annual event held over a weekend normally in September or early October. Generally the event is hosted by Devon OC in “odd” years and another South West club in “even” years. NGOC last hosted the event in 2014.
Traditionally the event was referred to as the Caddihoe Chase: the ‘Chase’ bit is on day 2, when there is a “chasing start”, with your start time calculated by adding the time you took on day 1 to a base time (say 10.00am). So, for example, if you finished the day 1 race in second place, 30 seconds behind the winner, you would be the second starter on day 2, 30 seconds behind the day 1 winner, and you would be chasing them around the course. The Chase format was not used in 2017 or 2020.
Originally. each runner’s combined times for both days was used to determine the South West Long Distance champions, but in 2017 each day was taken separately, to determine the Middle Distance and Long Distance champions.
The chasing start format has several disadvantages:
- The people who take a very long time on the first day will be the last to start on day 2, and are likely again to take a long time, so the event can become very extended.
- The British Orienteering ranking list specifically excludes events with a chasing start, and this may result in a reduced entry for the Sunday event.
- Only one Championship title can be awarded.
However, the Caddihoe Chase does seem to be the only surviving event of its type, and it is usually a good thing to maintain such traditions!
Thoughts for discussion:
- Is the chasing start format worth retaining?
- Should SWOA prescribe the event format, or should it be left to the organising club to decide it, and whether to incorporate a chasing start or not?
- At present runners taking longer than a certain cut-off time on day 1 start day 2 at short intervals AFTER the main chase – could this perhaps be changed so that the slowest runners use a different (earlier) base time and so set off before the main chase?
- Or might a reverse chasing start be better, slowest runners starting first, so that theoretically all runners would finish at the same time (potentially somewhat chaotic!)