Cross Country review

RayCun · 02-09-2014 09:39AM #1

At the last AAI Congress a motion calling for a "root and branch review" of cross country was passed.
The process has kicked off, and there's a load of information up on the Athletics Ireland site about it. They're calling for submissions by early next month on the subject, so if you have an interest, get your club to put in a submission. If you're in Dublin, there's a meeting of Dublin clubs later this month to discuss the subject, and perhaps agree a joint proposal. Contact the Dublin county secretary for details.

Sacksian · 02-09-2014 10:28AM

Looking at the figures, it seems you could merge interclub + intercounty for a start and the low Dundalk attendance last year may have been down to location (the Santry Intercounty actually had a decent number participating and I thought there were good crowds there too).

The Novice should stay as it is. It's always a fantastic race.

The main reason for the intermediate figures being low is probably that it's held on the same day as the Masters, as many of them compete in national/provincial/county novice and county/provincial intermediate. Both the Masters and the Novice would survive as the sole race on any day but I'm not sure the intermediate would.

If the intermediate is a legitimate grade, the race could be held on the same day as the senior - no one who is going to feature in the senior will be in the intermediate and it will boost attendance figures/support for the senior xc.

RayCun · 02-09-2014 10:51AM

as well as locations for the races, they should give the dates. If there's less than two weeks between races both are going to be hurt

emerald007 · 02-09-2014 11:12AM

@Raycun - this topic probably needs it's own thread?

RayCun · 02-09-2014 11:22AM

I threw it in here so anyone in the earlier discussion would see it, but if pconn wants to break it into a new thread...

pconn062 · 02-09-2014 12:12PM

RayCun wrote: »

I threw it in here so anyone in the earlier discussion would see it, but if pconn wants to break it into a new thread...

Done, think it deserves a thread of it's own alright.

pconn062 · 02-09-2014 02:21PM

I think a big issue with the interclubs is the timing, March for me is too late for such a big race and stretches the season out way to long. The first x-country race of they year is in Star of the Sea in a month's time, so you effectively have a season running from Sept-March. In March people, are already in the middle of track preparation and don't want to contemplate a 12k cross country race. I also think the race should be shortened to 10k, it would encourage more runners (like myself) to give it a go.

RayCun · 02-09-2014 02:36PM

On the schedule you have

County Novice
County Intermediate
County Senior
Provincial Novice
Provincial Intermediate
Provincial Senior
National Novice
National Intermediate
National Senior
National Intercounty
National Interclubs
County Masters
Provincial Masters
National Masters

(plus Star of the Sea XC, Gerry Farnan etc)

There's christmas and new year in the middle, and the national indoors. (And Dublin marathon, though the Leinster Novices are the same weekend) There is a lot of crossover between participants, so ideally you'd like two weeks between every race, but that gives you a season at least 6 months long. County has to be held before province, has to be held before national - I suppose the provincial races are a much bigger deal for runners outside Dublin?

brutes1 · 02-09-2014 03:47PM

It varies across the land.
Connachts now has league format over 3 races, only 20 odd runners last year in each, all categories go together . Galway is all one race all categories junior up to vets, had 60 odd last year run.

We in Galway put in numerous motions last time and will definitely contribute again this review.
Interclubs last year date scheduling was a complete mess, major reason for drop off, one week after a huge Masters/Inters event is bonkers . An issue also was travel distance - two weeks running travelling 500k round trips west to east is not feasible for the many runners with young ones at home .
Scheduling properly is a big thing, January for eg is free of nationals, plenty of other proposals I am sure will be thought up. My view is that XC is a great event , it may need a bit more publicity wise , and perhaps have some mass market XC runs set at a lower bar to encourage up and coming runners and older vets to take the plunge.

RayCun · 02-09-2014 04:25PM

I guess AAI only has to worry about the dates of the national competitions and let the provinces/counties decide where they fit their races in. National novices early December, Intermediates early January, and Interclubs and Masters in Feb?

Some Kind of Wizard · 02-09-2014 09:19PM

The numbers participating in InterCounty and InterClubs were quite similar over 5 years ago. I think dropping InterClubs would be a great shame.

Sacksian · 04-09-2014 08:49PM

In terms of promoting the races better, I happened to be reading through English middle distance runner Dan Studley's blog and he talked about his experience of running a xc in spain.

http://runnerstudley.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/espana-campo-a-traves/

The biggest thing to take away from the weekend was how the Spaniards make cross-country a spectacle so much better than we do in Britain. After the age group races there was a masses 10k fun run which goes out on the road and finishes around the cross-country course. This brings an extra 1000 spectators onto the course to watch the elite races. Also on the course was numerous beer tents, full sound system and everyone bashing on the metal hoardings and screaming ‘VAMOS’ constantly, the noise was pretty deafening at times, certainly more than just your coaches and parents turning out back home. Also many courses on the continent have numerous laps, which keeps the spectators interested with more opportunities to watch the race unfold.

Not sure how the beer in Santry Demesne would work though!

Re: scheduling - not that it makes much differences, probably backs up your point about Dublin being treated as a province in some ways but Leinster masters is on a good 3 months before Dublin masters! And isn't Leinster intermediate always on before Dublin too - not sure if it's ever that well attended.

RayCun · 12-02-2015 01:49PM

bumping this, a working document has been released and a forum is coming up soon
http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/working-document-for-the-cross-country-review-2014-2015

pconn062 · 12-02-2015 03:00PM

RayCun wrote: »

bumping this, a working document has been released and a forum is coming up soon
http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/working-document-for-the-cross-country-review-2014-2015

Currently making my way through the document, exciting stuff! :rolleyes:

Sacksian · 12-02-2015 03:37PM

RayCun wrote: »

bumping this, a working document has been released and a forum is coming up soon
http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/working-document-for-the-cross-country-review-2014-2015

Would love to see a lot of this implemented.

Do you know how much appetite there is for introducing the Cross-Country Leagues? They could be great.

RacoonQueen · 12-02-2015 03:50PM

Sacksian wrote: »

Would love to see a lot of this implemented.

Do you know how much appetite there is for introducing the Cross-Country Leagues? They could be great.

The womens meet and train is a great (and very popular) set up - would love to see the enthusiasm people have for that transferred to Championship XC!

Sacksian · 02-03-2015 10:59AM

Just saw the numbers from the Interclubs yesterday on Jumping the Gun: 144 finishers in TOTAL across four races!

18 junior women
26 junior men
24 senior women
76 senior men

Whatever about the numbers in the juniors, it's such a shame there are so few competing in the seniors, especially when there are so many club athletes training for endurance distances.

Can clubs not get the interest from the athletes and, if this is the case, why aren't athletes interested in running at them? Or are clubs (rather than athletes) not interested in entering teams?

youngrun · 02-03-2015 12:06PM

Sacksian wrote: »

Just saw the numbers from the Interclubs yesterday on Jumping the Gun: 144 finishers in TOTAL across four races!

18 junior women
26 junior men
24 senior women
76 senior men

Whatever about the numbers in the juniors, it's such a shame there are so few competing in the seniors, especially when there are so many club athletes training for endurance distances.

Can clubs not get the interest from the athletes and, if this is the case, why aren't athletes interested in running at them? Or are clubs (rather than athletes) not interested in entering teams?

My two cents below

High quality fields yesterday despite low numbers is a positive but its in danger of ceasing to exist which would be a crying shame.

Hopefully the cross country review will do a few things such as
tighten up the season ? Finish it up early Feb ? More focus,
Perhaps merge the Intermediate with Interclubs or counties ? Have the season as follows ( maybe switch the two seniors around)

Intercounties or clubs ? end Nov,
Novice Dec early,
Masters mid jan ,
and Intercounties/clubs + Inters week 1 Feb ? Hows that?
+
Promote the damn thing instead of indoors indoors indoors and road races.!! AAI guilty as anyone . Add some prize money and a bit of razzmatazz and UK or international athletes into one of the senior events

For the interclubs put in a proper league ! premier, div one two, three etc, with 3 to score at lower tiers . At present there are some clubs in Grade A who I have never seen in ten years of running nationals . ditto intercounties get a bit of county competition going , with 5 to score for weaker counties /lower graded counties . Incentives for county boards or clubs as prizes , thats what Glohealth are there for ?

Central locations- love this event and would always run as long as fit, but 3.5 hour trip from the west meant anyone with young kids etc ( plenty of good early vets in this category) just refuse to travel meaning half a team is out. The clubs can try but the athletes have to be willing and as we know they can be slippery characters ! ..and making it accessible and maybe dropping to 10k would help.
Some top names entered in the race ran other road races this weekend - whats that about ???
XC is where the medals are and should be a key focus for AAI and top end runners. Get the season done before the marathon events kick in etc.

Chivito550 · 02-03-2015 12:33PM

As somebody looking in from the outside, with very little interest in cross country, two things stand out:

1) Cross-Country season is way too long. Having it clashing with indoors is not going to do it much good.

2) Is it that hard to do a quick bit of research into what major sporting events are taking place before picking a date for a national championship event? Having this event on the same day as Ireland V England is not exactly the smartest move.

Sacksian · 02-03-2015 12:36PM

youngrun wrote: »

My two cents below

I'd agree with fairly much everything there! Personally would love to see an XC league and more prizes. There are a lot of club athletes out there who just don't do xc and both clubs and athletes could probably do with more incentives to compete.

The best club xc races, as spectacles and for participation, are the ones with the largest fields so it should be about getting as many people as possible to compete.

I prefer to race on the track than xc but I'd still see it as the heart of club athletics.

RayCun · 02-03-2015 12:40PM

Chivito550 wrote: »

1) Cross-Country season is way too long. Having it clashing with indoors is not going to do it much good.

The clash with indoors comes up a fair bit. But how much of an overlap is there really? How many people would have run the Interclubs but they were running indoors last week?

And on a general point - winter is XC season, summer is track season. If you put XC on hold for a month because of indoors then the season finishes later and people complain about that, getting too close to track season etc. I don't see why XC season should be shuffled around to accommodate indoors.

Chivito550 wrote: »

2) Is it that hard to do a quick bit of research into what major sporting events are taking place before picking a date for a national championship event? Having this event on the same day as Ireland V England is not exactly the smartest move.

Again, how many people did this rule out?
How many weekends a year are you going to say there shouldn't be athletics competition on, because some bigger sport has something on and everyone will be watching that?

Chivito550 · 02-03-2015 12:49PM

RayCun wrote: »

The clash with indoors comes up a fair bit. But how much of an overlap is there really? How many people would have run the Interclubs but they were running indoors last week?

And on a general point - winter is XC season, summer is track season. If you put XC on hold for a month because of indoors then the season finishes later and people complain about that, getting too close to track season etc. I don't see why XC season should be shuffled around to accommodate indoors.

Again, how many people did this rule out?
How many weekends a year are you going to say there shouldn't be athletics competition on, because some bigger sport has something on and everyone will be watching that?

Personally, again from looking in from the outside, there are far too many National Championships in cross country: National inter clubs, national inter counties, national novice, national intermediate, and God knows what else! Maybe athletes don't want to compete in cross country for 4-5 months straight.

Certainly most middle distance runners who are now in indoor mode, who may do cross country earlier in the winter would be completely ruled out.

RayCun · 02-03-2015 12:58PM

there are proposals in to scrap the Intermediate competition, combine Interclubs and Intercounties, set up a league system (either regional or national)

The Senior distance yesterday was 12k, don't think too many middle-distance guys would be up for that!

Looking at the results from yesterday, out of 76 senior men 45 were from Dublin clubs. 16 of 24 senior women. And this for a race in Down.
32/76 from Dublin in the Intermediates, in Tuam.
21/55 for the women.

Maybe just move all the races to Dublin?

Sacksian · 02-03-2015 01:01PM

There isn't really too much of an overlap between the interclubs and indoor. There are even a few who ran both but the thing that stands out to me is the size and quality of the field at road races run around the same time. Any club athlete doing Ballycotton or Raheny, for example, could run national seniors - just seems a shame that the national xc doesn't have the same pull.

RayCun · 02-03-2015 01:09PM

yes - road races, and most T&F, you compete as an individual. Maybe there's a team competition too but that's an extra. XC races you run for the club, and people are less inclined to do that.

(Compare also, the national track and field league. There are about 230 clubs in the country, but fewer than 30 of them can field a team)

pconn062 · 02-03-2015 01:13PM

Personally speaking (as a middle distance athlete), if the Interclubs were run before Xmas (IMO when x-country should be run, from the end of September to the start of January) I would definitely take part. I think combine the Interclubs and Intercounties into one big National senior cross country and have it either in late December of very early January. Have the National novice in November with provincial champs in October. Scrap the National intermediate. That means the whole thing is over by Xmas meaning people can still run an indoor season, as well as getting their cross in. The whole thing needs to be stripped down and made more efficient. I agree with some of the Chivito says, there are too many competitions over too long of a period of time. Also 12k it too long and with the World cross not really being targeted by AI anymore, so cut it down to 10k.

Also, and I say this as someone who really hates that the whole country has to revolve around Dublin, but having it in the same location every year (probably the park) is a good idea. If it is mostly Dublin clubs that are going to support the event then have it in Dublin and let the event and the course establish a reputation.

youngrun · 02-03-2015 01:26PM

@pconn , difficult to host a National end dec with Euro cross on then.
Plenty of good turnouts nationwide at XC nationals especially Masters and Novice no matter where held ? eg Curragh, waterford, Tuam, derry in recent years. Dublin not the sole answer
The season needs to be restructured and XC promoted and pushed imho,

One national senior is not a lot of decent XC competition if you are ineligible for all other events , we should be getting at least two national level decent XC races for seniors in particular as the UK challenge events do for example or races in Belgium/Edinburgh etc show and keep the season Oct- end Jan /feb weekend one

Sacksian · 02-03-2015 01:28PM

RayCun wrote: »

yes - road races, and most T&F, you compete as an individual. Maybe there's a team competition too but that's an extra. XC races you run for the club, and people are less inclined to do that.

(Compare also, the national track and field league. There are about 230 clubs in the country, but fewer than 30 of them can field a team)

Fair enough, I guess the fact that people aren't inclined is the bit that I think is a shame. I think most club athletes are prepared for it and maybe clubs could work harder to get people to enter. There are also a lot of athletes who lost their novice and intermediate status a long time ago who are just lost to club competition.

Re: t&f league - I think part of the reason for clubs being unable to field a t&f league team is the specificity of training required to prepare a squad of athletes for such a diverse range of events, whereas most senior club athletes are doing distance training (so would be able to do senior xc). While there are some people throwing a leg at some of the t&f field events on the day, it would be a bit crap (and a bit of waste of time for the officials) if all the field events had large fields doing this!

And on indoor vs. xc - the numbers participating in indoor aren't huge and the amount of people who could do both is smaller still. But the road and marathon guys could do 10k/12k xc and it'd be great if more of them could be enticed into participating.

youngrun · 02-03-2015 04:48PM

Something like this for example http://www.britishathletics.org.uk/competitions/the-british-athletics-cross-challenge/
Maybe have Two races here in ireland designated to cover the likes of 2 of the big 3 senior races - gerry farnan interclubs and counties - could get the best guys out with the added incentive of team prizes , with the other race designated as national title.

RayCun · 02-03-2015 05:00PM

Have you had a look at the working document from the review meeting?
There are a few suggestions like that

Early season (Mid September to December): -
 XC relay fixture;
 Regional Leagues x 3;
 Gerry Farnan XC (masters trial);
 County Championships for all age groups;
 National Novice;
 National Inter-Clubs (Total: 8 primary events)
2. Late season (January to Mid-March): -
 Regional Leagues x 1;
 National Masters XC combined with Uneven Age Groups (i.e. u/15s, u/17s,
u/19s);
 National Inter-Counties XC combined with Even Age Groups (i.e. u/16s, u/18s, Junior);
 National XC League Final <optional> (Total: 4 primary events)

In the submissions there was a consistent argument for more Cross Country leagues primarily targeted at the Senior level held on Saturdays. A number of suggestions were given as to what a league might entail and these have been outlined.
Leagues
 A selection of races, perhaps league races to be held on Saturday afternoons.
 A league event in January to help senior level runners prepare for interclubs in late Jan/early Feb.
 A National Cross Country League starting after Christmas made up of 3 or 4 races (e.g., Belfast International, Ras na hEireann), culminating with the National Inter Counties.
 An all-Ireland league consisting of two open races pre European Championships (The Gerry Farnham and one other) plus the all-Irelands Senior championship (Three Grades Senior). Those races would act as trials for the European Championships.
 Option 1 League Structure - Events Including – November trial (first senior race), Novice, Intermediate/Masters and Clubs. 5 events. - 4 Divisions structure. 25 points for a win and so on down. Double points for Final race i.e. Inter clubs. - Prize structure for top 3 Division one and other winners. Promotion and relegation system.
Also Junior prizes across the two Junior events in Nov and March. Individual prizes for Senior races i.e. Cash /BIK. -Existing county team competitions to stay in Novice Masters and Inters as well as Individual medals with medals for winning clubs only in each event. Small clubs could potentially join forces at county level and enter in League that way, i.e. below a certain membership level at adult, as per Track League.
The essential point is the club title would be League based not a once off event, and the Interclubs event would the main focus at end of season as befits a National competition.

Option 2 Structure: (Less events in League etc) The League would be a 4 race event where the Inter Counties would not be part of this and would encompass Novice/Inters/Masters and Clubs. County events only in Intercounties (Senior) and Masters. Usual Individual medals /categories in all events. Other details as option 1 above.
 More XC leagues needed. The setting up of regional XC leagues (roughly based on 4 provinces plus Dublin) with juveniles categories also scoring towards an overall club score. Standardized scoring system. Divisions if necessary. Option to have a national final with the top 2 teams in each region to National XC League final.

pconn062 · 03-03-2015 01:08AM

youngrun wrote: »

@pconn , difficult to host a National end dec with Euro cross on then.
Plenty of good turnouts nationwide at XC nationals especially Masters and Novice no matter where held ? eg Curragh, waterford, Tuam, derry in recent years. Dublin not the sole answer
The season needs to be restructured and XC promoted and pushed imho,

One national senior is not a lot of decent XC competition if you are ineligible for all other events , we should be getting at least two national level decent XC races for seniors in particular as the UK challenge events do for example or races in Belgium/Edinburgh etc show and keep the season Oct- end Jan /feb weekend one

True, then maybe combine them both and have them at the usual time of the Interclubs and have that as the one selection day for the Euro's.

Cross Country review

Comments