Open Divisions
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Haggis Hunter
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:17 pm
Re: Open Divisions
I like it too. The spread over the year would help with (parental) fatigue of traipsing the length and breadth of the country most weekends at the beginning and end of the year. The end of season this year has been particularliy arduous for the Scots amongst others, with the majority of races being either in or near Wales. Bearing in mind most paddlers are still attending school or college I think this would be less intrusive.
Re: Open Divisions
Having read a lot in this thread about Prems & Div 1's; and noticed there's much less about Divs 2/3/4 may I offer another perspective?
Slalom is frequently regarded as a family sport; brothers/sisters/Mums & Dads often paddling the same events. Also, youngsters like having a go at kayaks and canadians. However, this starts to get very difficult when different family members are in different divisions, or when the kayak & canadian rankings force a choice of venue.
Judges runs enable paddling down, but where a Prem or Div 1 weekend clashes with a Div 3/4 or Div 2/3, choices need to be made.
I therefore quite like the suggestion above of allocating alternate weekends - where possible.
And please don't remove the divisions - youngsters love the chance of 'promotion'.
Slalom is frequently regarded as a family sport; brothers/sisters/Mums & Dads often paddling the same events. Also, youngsters like having a go at kayaks and canadians. However, this starts to get very difficult when different family members are in different divisions, or when the kayak & canadian rankings force a choice of venue.
Judges runs enable paddling down, but where a Prem or Div 1 weekend clashes with a Div 3/4 or Div 2/3, choices need to be made.
I therefore quite like the suggestion above of allocating alternate weekends - where possible.
And please don't remove the divisions - youngsters love the chance of 'promotion'.
Re: Open Divisions
An interesting idea, I guess the problem of judging could easily be resolved just by getting more paddlers to judge other classes (I suggest to reimburse their entry fee though). I’m just not sure such drastic measures are needed to address the original issue of helping to retain and boost paddler numbers.
Here are some thoughts on what could be done from my perspective as a prem paddler who is deciding whether or not to continue competing in slalom: (but I personally think the focus should be on the higher majority of paddlers that compete in the lower divisions and not just making it a little better for prem paddlers like myself)
Reason 1: poor distribution of races (big gap in the summer at a time when I’d quite like to do some racing) If concerned about skewed results when the GB team is abroad then perhaps reduce the points for any summer even where none of the top paddlers are competing (eg to max 900 pts.), but to be honest I just don’t think this is needed, we should just hold more races and not worry if the top few paddlers can’t make it.
Reason 2: Not enough prem races in the season. I have often wondered why races such as selection are not always combined with prem races. This would increase the number without any extra effort. Also why not make the British open a double every year?
Reason 3: Poor value for money. Often travelling >7 hours round trip for only 200 seconds of paddling does not really inspire me to keep going to events. I would definitely compete more if there was more water time available during the weekend. A good example is the Prem at Cardiff or the first trial race on Lee Valley that had training sessions in the morning/day before the event (I know this is because of the rafting but it does provide much more water time this way).
Reason 4: lack of variety. Simple things such as varying the length/difficulty of courses a bit more. (I expect there is a correlation between the number of people in the sport over the years and the average length of a run!). Also is it really so bad to hold the occasional prem/div1 race on slightly flatter water?
Perhaps some events in the summer could combine a number of separate challenges that all contribute to the points on offer. Eg a slalom + down river time trial + sprint slalom (basically extras that don’t require lots of organising and judging). Or something more adventurous (remember the days of BBC’s Paddles Up?) The aim here is to encourage more people to go to events and not to worry about whether it is exactly the same as world class competition, or even if it is a little more difficult to judge/organise.
Reason 5: Decline in available slalom gates on big water. One thing I’ve noticed when returning to the sport is that you’re not allowed to put gates in the flow on the top sites like HPP, Cardiff and Lee valley. It is fine for the elite in the sport who get exclusive access, but for everyone else it would be great if we could come to some arrangement so that all capable slalom paddlers (eg Div3 and above) could have access in the early morning or the end of the day when only slalom paddlers were allowed on.
Suggestions for lower division paddlers:
Need to make it much easier for a competent paddler new to slalom to turn up and enter without the hassle of pre applying for ranking status etc. Perhaps a recommendation from a club coach or a number of paddlers who have seen them paddle should be sufficient. After all, what is the harm? If they struggle in that event then the organiser can recommend that they are ranked lower down. If they win then they are immediately ranked higher and taken out of the points/prizes for that race.
Introduce lots of ways to avoid demotion. Eg if you were not able to do enough races, injury, etc. Forced demotion is not a good way to retain paddlers. It should be more of a voluntary scheme, with perhaps only forced demotion occurring after 2 or 3 consecutive years of poor performance. With such a scheme quite a few more people could be offered the chance of demotion which could in their particular case help to encourage them to stay in the sport as they would be towards the top of one division rather than struggling just above demotion in their current division. Basically give people more freedom to choose what division they want to compete in.
Here are some thoughts on what could be done from my perspective as a prem paddler who is deciding whether or not to continue competing in slalom: (but I personally think the focus should be on the higher majority of paddlers that compete in the lower divisions and not just making it a little better for prem paddlers like myself)
Reason 1: poor distribution of races (big gap in the summer at a time when I’d quite like to do some racing) If concerned about skewed results when the GB team is abroad then perhaps reduce the points for any summer even where none of the top paddlers are competing (eg to max 900 pts.), but to be honest I just don’t think this is needed, we should just hold more races and not worry if the top few paddlers can’t make it.
Reason 2: Not enough prem races in the season. I have often wondered why races such as selection are not always combined with prem races. This would increase the number without any extra effort. Also why not make the British open a double every year?
Reason 3: Poor value for money. Often travelling >7 hours round trip for only 200 seconds of paddling does not really inspire me to keep going to events. I would definitely compete more if there was more water time available during the weekend. A good example is the Prem at Cardiff or the first trial race on Lee Valley that had training sessions in the morning/day before the event (I know this is because of the rafting but it does provide much more water time this way).
Reason 4: lack of variety. Simple things such as varying the length/difficulty of courses a bit more. (I expect there is a correlation between the number of people in the sport over the years and the average length of a run!). Also is it really so bad to hold the occasional prem/div1 race on slightly flatter water?
Perhaps some events in the summer could combine a number of separate challenges that all contribute to the points on offer. Eg a slalom + down river time trial + sprint slalom (basically extras that don’t require lots of organising and judging). Or something more adventurous (remember the days of BBC’s Paddles Up?) The aim here is to encourage more people to go to events and not to worry about whether it is exactly the same as world class competition, or even if it is a little more difficult to judge/organise.
Reason 5: Decline in available slalom gates on big water. One thing I’ve noticed when returning to the sport is that you’re not allowed to put gates in the flow on the top sites like HPP, Cardiff and Lee valley. It is fine for the elite in the sport who get exclusive access, but for everyone else it would be great if we could come to some arrangement so that all capable slalom paddlers (eg Div3 and above) could have access in the early morning or the end of the day when only slalom paddlers were allowed on.
Suggestions for lower division paddlers:
Need to make it much easier for a competent paddler new to slalom to turn up and enter without the hassle of pre applying for ranking status etc. Perhaps a recommendation from a club coach or a number of paddlers who have seen them paddle should be sufficient. After all, what is the harm? If they struggle in that event then the organiser can recommend that they are ranked lower down. If they win then they are immediately ranked higher and taken out of the points/prizes for that race.
Introduce lots of ways to avoid demotion. Eg if you were not able to do enough races, injury, etc. Forced demotion is not a good way to retain paddlers. It should be more of a voluntary scheme, with perhaps only forced demotion occurring after 2 or 3 consecutive years of poor performance. With such a scheme quite a few more people could be offered the chance of demotion which could in their particular case help to encourage them to stay in the sport as they would be towards the top of one division rather than struggling just above demotion in their current division. Basically give people more freedom to choose what division they want to compete in.