The minutes of the latest (187) IOF Council meeting, which took place 19-20 January in Warsaw, Poland, are now published. Here are a few of the key items discussed at the Council meeting:
1. The Map Commission had prepared a draft revision of the International Standard for Sprint Orienteering Maps (ISSOM) to align it with changes in the International Standard for Orienteering Maps (ISOM 2017) and make some other necessary changes. The draft standard will be distributed to member federations and the discipline commissions for consultation before the end of January 2018. Consultation answers are expected to be received by May 1, 2018. The plan is for the Council to approve the new standard at the Council meeting in June 2018.
2. Based on a proposal from the IOF Foot orienteering commission, the IOF Council decided to add the possibility to make an event application bid applicable for two years. This means that all applicants for the current application period, that ends 2018-03-31, can mark in their application if they would like it to be valid for the next application period.
These applications will be considered and evaluated for both bid periods, unless retracted by the member federation. Events would however only be appointed for the current period. Application fees (valid for WOC and WMOC) only need to be paid once, unless the member federation makes significant changes to the bid prior to the next evaluation period. Bids which do not fulfil the bid criteria, i.e. are deemed as un-successful will not be carried forward to the next period. Council decided also to continue to evaluate the opportunity for awarding bids for several years and several events at the same time.
For applications due by March 31, 2018 the applicants are asked to indicate whether they would like their bid to be valid for the current and the next successive bid period.
For example an applicant for WMOC 2021 could indicate that they would also like their bid to be valid for WMOC 2022. An applicant for Sprint WOC 2022 could indicate that they would like their bid to be valid also for Sprint WOC 2024.
Changes to MTBO Applications
The current application documents for WMTBOC 2021 have been clarified with respect to the requirements for livestreaming productions. The requirement for a 26 min highlights production is only valid if a live broadcast quality production for one or more competitions is offered by the organiser, not in the case of only a livestreaming production.
3. Council made a ruling regarding 2 athletes potentially breaching the embargoed area for WOC 2018 by using an aerial attraction (zip-line) which partially entered the area above the embargoed area.
The Council determined that the athletes had in fact breached the embargoed area by using the zip-line attraction. Furthermore, that the breach did not extend significantly into the embargoed area and that limited information could have been gained. However, Council decided that the breach of the embargoed area constituted a violation of the IOF rules and that sanctioning the athletes was appropriate.
Council determined that the athletes would not be disqualified from participating in WOC 2018.
Council determined that the athletes would have their Athletes Licenses suspended from the date of the decision (January 20, 2018) until June 1, 2018. During this period of time the athletes would not be allowed participation in IOF events requiring an Athletes License.
Council determined that the zip-line attraction was to be excluded from the embargoed area by the organisers. This to guarantee fairness for all potential WOC participants.