Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

UK C6.1.2 A Competitor may not at one competition enter both a ranking event or Championship Event and an Officials event in the same or a different category.

Which means that if:
- Joe is ranked Div 3 in both K1M & C1M
- Jim is ranked Div 1 in K1M & Div 3 in C1M

Joe enters Div 3 K1M & C1M
Jim enters Div 3 C1M & would be happy to judge & take part in the Officials event but according to UK C6.1.2 is not allowed to.

Does anyone know the reason for the rule?

What is it trying to prevent?

It seems to limit the number of paddlers eligible to judge...

Surely the benefit is an extra number of runs down the course which will give experience vs those who dont do a different class and therefore wont benefit from practicing those difficult bits a few more times

Sorry, I made a mistake in my post,,, the 2nd paddler, Jim, is in Div 1 K1....
I've edited the post now

A couple of possibilities:
- an extra run down the course, in which, because it is not a competitive ranking run, the competitor gets to try different options that he/she might not risk if it was a ranking run
- sheer logistics; ie if someone is competing in two classes then trying to fit in a judging stint usually means that the person is either late for one of their runs or their judging stint or both

At last weekends event in Marple my son was asked by the race organiser if he could do some Judgeing as he had done so at a previous event. My son then asked me if he could do so as we were racing as a C2 crew at the same event.

As I had read this post in the preceding days I told him that he could not be a competitor and a Judge at the same event but now having given it some more thought I am not sure if that my instruction was correct.

Picking up on the points Dee has just sited as reasons why this should not be allowed I wonder if the rule is already or should be that ANYONE can judge even at an event, even if they are also a competitor at that event as well but they would just not be allowed to do any Judges runs down the course.

Surely that gives organisers more volunteers to make use of without giving those same people any advantage over those less willing to share the workload.

Steve

The rule as written is specific to the Officials event. So Steve it IS possible to be a competitor and to Judge, just not to take part in the officials race. As a matter of form, try to avoid judging your own divisional class, but no reason why your parents / friends can't do so. (If a Mum can judge her son at the 2012 Olympics why not).

As to the reason for this rule, there was a spate of prople entering more than one class, AND entering the officials competition. At one event I was aware of someone entering C2 with three partners and C1, then asking for a K1 Officials run as well.

A nightmare when you are trying to organise judging as fitting judging round the ranking competitions and officials runs for several competitors makes it overly complicated. taking it to a ridiculous extreme, you have 21 officials entries, 1 is just an official, the other 20 are doing K1M and an officials run. How do you judge K1M?

Downside to judging own child is that one is less likely to give bod; so they might rather you didn't.

The reason usually given for this rule when admonished for allowing a paddler to break it is that it gives unfair practice.

Unfortunately whilst the rule may be valid at higher levels at lower levels it is to be frank a joke.

One can often practice on the course for a couple of days inc all evening and morning before the event so an extra run makes no difference.

I have been personally subject to a very terse email for paddling a Div 4 C2 short course and running the full course in K1 as an official at an event where I was organiser and literally had to drop what I was doing and run to start on both occasions to take my runs. To say it made me feel very angry and undervalued for the days (weeks) I had spent on the event is an understatement. The next year I simply deleted my result from the officials before publishing them to avoid any more flak.

If there is an open at the event there is no such restriction despite paddling the same boats and courses but why should I charge a paddler money to enter the open when they are judging for me?

A paddler can still gain extra practice by simply entering the event with multiple C2 paddlers.

If the 2nd run is in a different class I see that very little is gained.

It also appears the rule is often ignored at lower levels anyway.

Some flexibility is required thus I think it should be at the discretion of the organiser at Div 2 and below.

As the complier of the Officials rankings I can say that this rule is the bane of my life but as the complier I have to abide by the rules. I literally have to check ALL lower division results and eliminate those people who the organiser has allowed to do both a ranking run and an officials run, before I can assign the points and add them to my database to produce a current ranking list. It takes so much of my time that I only produce a ranking list once a month IF I have the time. Every year it seems I have to remind organisers of the rule. I feel like a stuck record.

From my rant you may have guessed I support changing the rule as you suggest to 'at the discretion of the organiser at Div 2 and below', if just to make my life easier.

I am sorry Duncan if you feel you received a 'terse' e mail, it probably came from me. Its not my style. But you can probably understand that by the time I have checked the results for those people doing ranking and officials runs, tried to identify people (the number of times I get incomplete names or nick names, I have lost count), and then tried to 'rank' unranked paddlers, I am totally fed up. It would be so helpful to me to have organisers send results with full names, club and a ranking, but then we don't live in in an ideal world. If I can't identify people I eliminate them from the results. I long ago gave up spending hours trying to find out who they are. Life is too short!!!!

I know some people do not want to be added to the ranking list but we do have 2 lovely trophies and someone has to win them. I would have hoped that these lovely trophies would encourage people to have a real go at winning them, thus providing more judges for events.

Yours in Canoeing

One very fed up Complier!!!!