Event Standards.
Proportionate to the event you are actually running
OCRA does not want every Irish OCR event to look the same. A recreational mud run does not need to operate like a National Championship, and a local competitive race does not need the infrastructure of a major international one.
So these standards scale with the nature, size and status of the event. What they exist to guarantee is narrower than it looks: where an event carries a formal OCRA status, athletes and organisers can rely on appropriate standards having been met. Everything beyond that is your call as the organiser.
Safety
Safety is the organiser's responsibility at every level of event, sanctioned or not.
A sanctioned competitive event is expected to have a risk assessment, medical coverage suited to the event, safety signage, an emergency action plan, adequate staffing, and Technical Officials where the competition requires them.
Risk assessment
Identify the foreseeable hazards in your venue, course, obstacles, participants and operations — course conditions, weather and surfaces, fall risk and water, athlete flow, start and finish areas, participant numbers, spectators, emergency access, equipment and staffing.
Do this as part of planning the event, not as paperwork produced afterwards to show you thought about it.
Obstacle safety
Obstacles should suit the participants and the format. Consider structural suitability and installation, landing areas and surface conditions, how athletes move through the obstacle, maintenance and inspection, what weather does to it, and the volume of people using it across a day.
Competition obstacles have a second requirement: they must let officials apply the rules consistently. An obstacle that can be completed three defensible ways is a protest waiting to happen.
Medical provision and emergencies
Medical arrangements should match the size, location and risk profile of the event, with emergency access and communication planned in.
Everyone relevant needs to know, before race day: who holds responsibility, how emergency services are contacted, how medical staff are alerted, how a given part of the course is reached, how competition gets stopped if it has to be, and how athletes and spectators are managed while that happens.
Competition
Technical Officials
Sanctioned competitive events may require trained Technical Officials. How many, and at what level, depends on the discipline, the course and the level of competition.
Officials are what make obstacle completion requirements, penalties, athlete procedures and result classifications mean the same thing in every lane.
Rules
Tell athletes which rules apply before they compete, not at the start line.
The rules need to be clear on race format, obstacle completion and retries, penalties, course boundaries, timing, categories, result classifications, and how a protest works. See Rules & Regulations.
Timing and results
Competitive events need a reliable way to record performances. A result should identify the athlete, their category, finishing position, time or score, any penalties, and the classification.
Where an event feeds an OCRA qualification pathway, results have to be good enough to verify officially. Settle the format with OCRA before the event rather than after it.
Athlete communication
Get the important information out before race day: registration details, categories, start times, rules, any mandatory briefing, equipment requirements, qualification criteria, the protest procedure, and how results will be published.
Applying for a status
If you are considering sanctioning, Qualification Event status or a National Championship, Event Recognition & Sanctioning sets out the review process and what each requires.
Talk to us early. It is considerably easier to build a standard in from the start than to retrofit one three weeks out.