There have been some minor adjustments to the start list for the mens's elite courses on Days 1 and 2. These have resulted from two sources. Firstly we have added a small  number of new M21Es who appealed against their original exclusion and could provide suitable evidence, or where we had made a mistake in the original selection. Secondly we have offered all those who originally entered M18-20E the chance to run this course. This has been made possible by widening the start window.

Please check your start time carefully if you are running M21E or M18-20E since it may be slightly different to that originally published. 

Background to changes

Selection for the elite courses at JK2008 has been subject to a number of constraints. These are laid out below to show how we arrived at the original selections, and how we have amended the constraints to allow in all M18E and M20E entrants who were originally selected off of Elite.

We have a four hour start window on Day 3, with a start interval of 3 minutes. This allows us to take 81 M21E runners, based on a selection process overseen by the Elite Competitions Group (ECG). Selection for M21E was based on UK Cup rankings for British competitors, along with IOF rankings for overseas competitors. 

We have a four hour start window on Day 2, with a start interval of 2 minutes. We have been asked to run M21E, M20E and M18E on the same course, and there was no option to split this into two courses. Therefore with 81 M21E slots already taken we had 39 spaces for M18-20E.  We have already extended the start window once and included 51 M18-20 E based on the ECG selection criteria. This left 11 M18-20E runners who were not selected. A number of complaints were received about this, particularly with regard to the Future Champions Cup competition.

We have got free start slots available on Day 1, since the start interval is 1 minute, and on Day 3 since M18-20E is on a separate course. So the main problem relates to the decision to limit the start window on Day 2, and to maintain a two minute start interval. We have considered, but rejected, the option of reducing the start interval to one minute for some runners.

This year is the first that M18-20E has existed and it is a trial with the intention of improving the quality of junior competition. Some of the organisational issues for this class are therefore new. We have looked again at the options available and discussed them with ECG. It has now been agreed to extend the Day 2 start window by a further 20 minutes; it is now likely to be 9:15 to 14:02, over 45 minutes longer than the main start window. This allows us to offer all of those originally selected off of M18-20E the opportunity to run Elite.

We could not apply the same process for M21E selection, since we are still limited by Day 3 start times. We have added a small number of new runners in cases where we made a mistake or where new evidence is now available to support selection. This again has required a widening of the start interval.