Blackamoor Night Event (30 January 1999) 

Controller's comments

The last event I planned was the Budapest Long-distance Championships. The controller answered my questions, but his only involvement was a couple of weeks before the event to check the fairness and accuracy of the control sites, which I had tagged with a control code. He appeared on the morning of the event, but in a suit, saying he was off to a social event. I was on my own.

I didn't adopt quite such a minimalist approach, but with such experienced planners had very little to do.

We had a couple of comments because the map did not show the ruined wall by the fence above the complex shallow re-entrant area, causing confusion in the dark and mist. I'm sorry that runs were spoiled, but I'm not sure there is a better way of mapping this. The early maps of Blacka had a continuous wall here. This is now clearly wrong. A ruined wall alone would imply that the boundary was crossable, which is also clearly wrong. To show both would need them to be at least a millimetre apart, 10 m on the ground. Which should then be mapped in the right place? The ideal solution might be to invent a new symbol for a co-linear fence and ruined wall, but that would mean moving away from the IOF specification.

The short course at night had 145 metres climb in 1.9k, 7.6% against a BOF guideline maximum of 5%. Having the same start and finish at the end of the road is better for competitors and organisers. Should we have had the finish at the bottom of the hill, with 60m of climb back to the road? We decided not. Does anyone think we were wrong?

NIGHT EVENT RESULTS

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