The Marathon-O Trophy has has a chequered history, and in 2000 NZ's World Rogaine Champs was included along with two mountain marathons in Europe. Predictably, very few teams even attended both European events, let alone in combination with a rogaine down under! A single mountain marathon in Spain was declared the Trophy event for 2001, but efforts to have the 2002 World Rogaine Champs in Czech made a trophy event foundered. In the end there was no trophy event last year.
But with Crawford breathing life into the moribund marathon-o committee, support for the alternation idea has come from most of its members, including 9-times Karrimor MM winner Mark Seddon, of Britain. Seddon, who runs an annual rogaine, believes that MMs only hold sway in Britain by default, much as they did in NZ from the 80's to the 90's. The same might be said about rogaines in some countries; but both forms of long-distance mapsport have their similarities and their special qualities. Rogaining seems to be happy with a 2-yearly world championship.
Whatever, it is clear that maintaining team composition over a series of events in different parts of the world is not viable, and a single event is required. Seddon has proposed that the 2003 Karrimoor MM in October be selected as the 2003 Marathon Trophy event, and the World Rogaine Champs in Arizona for next year. Crawford now has the task of getting this sensible solution through the political process.