The number of entries in Invacare PreO Open Class has risen beyond the best organizing team plans and that is due to the high interest of the athletes.
For that reason, there is a commitment of POM 2016 team in order to allow everyone to participate and not frustrate expectations by limiting entries.
There is a real concern to assure there is enough time for all athletes coming from the Foot-O Middle course to take some rest, eat properly and arrive safely to the PreO competition.
Before this statement, the estimated window of time needed to cue all competitors through a single timed control station may not provide equal daylight conditions for everyone.
In order to overcome this situation and prevent any unfairness concerning the Portuguese Cup and the ETOC2016/WTOC2016 national team qualifying events, the National Advisor decided to allow the following solution:
– The final planning of the course will not be cropped, so all 3 timed control station challenges and 24 course control points will be setup.
– A dual timed station will be held close to each other, with visual and sound interference minimized. Chairs will be apart by some meters.
– The point-of-view viewing angle is similar between stations in order to use the same map and order of challenges.
– The slightly different position of elements and flags viewed from each station chair will not be an issue, because of the closeness of the viewing points, the rounded shape of the timed maps and the nature of PreO timed controls (there is no Zero answer).
– For operational reasons, the spoken procedures will be mainly in Portuguese in one station and English in the other.
– The startlists for Open class will be published by station.
The National Advisor asks to be informed in advance (before the event) if someone is uncomfortable and disagree with this rule deviation, as the Invacare Open Class results will be published independently of the station used by each athlete.
No complains will be accepted about the solution taken of splitting the timed station.
Nuno Pires, on 2016, january 26th