Allow Free Practice in Div 1 - Get your proxy votes in

[Mr Fifty]

When was the Hayday of Canoe Slalom?

[Non paddler]

Food for thought - In the hayday of slalom , when there would be in excess of 100 K1 Men competing practice and teams were on Saturday with individual event on Sunday????

Maybe because it became harder for paddlers to give up a whole weekend for every race contributed to it stopping being the heyday!

There seems to be a bit of reminiscing on this thread. However the proposals for the AGM are a result of a lot of hard work and consultation, looking at where we are now, not 5-10 years ago, and how to improve the sport. There are some very positive good ideas there, but my opinion, for what’s worth, is that removing free practice for Div 1s will more likely damage than improve our sport.

If Div1 free practice time can only be at 6:30am or the evening before because of a high number of entries then great.

If team runs are re-introduced then fine, but I do not see why they are automatically mutually exclusive of free practice, there will still be very early morning and late evenings.

Overall, if the water is there and people have spent £10s even £100s to travel, enter and accommodate then why not let them use it?

[davebrads]

A good half of the division 1 paddlers we have would have been in division 2 in the "good old days". Many are paddlers that love the sport, without any ambitions to progress much further. Why not allow these paddlers to have free practice if it adds to their enjoyment of the weekend? Others, that are progressing through the division, will benefit from the opportunity to get more water time.

Those nearing the top of the division, with serious intentions on Premier, should be restricting themselves to one practice run only anyway, as they are unlikely to be able to produce their best performance if they have been playing around on the river all morning.

I don't see what the problem is, the status quo works just fine.

[Mr Fifty]

I will agree with Mr Brads. on that one, Here Here.

[Mick h]

I have just had a quick glance at the first page of Slalom Development Plan 2006 down near the bottom it says. "SLALOM IS A SPORT THAT CAN CATER FOR BOTH THE ELITE AND THE RECREATIONAL SLALOMIST" well here is youre chance to cater for the recreational slalomist and just let us paddle.
I think from the comments that are coming out on here the majority want to keep free practice in Div1 please dont this get through. Unfortunately the slalom commitee and the coaches seem to be voting on the other page.

[davebrads]

It really doesn't matter how the poll goes on the bulletin board, although a strong showing one way or another could possibly make one or two people reconsider their position.

The only thing that matters is the vote at the ACM.

What is interesting is that the proposal suggests replacing the practice run with a team event, but without making it a requirement. This is an interesting proposition, but I don't see why an organiser couldn't do this anyway, the pressure on water time would effectively restrict free practice anyway, making the rule irrelevant.

[John Sturgess]

As non-paddler, Dave and others say, this is really a coaching question, because it differs from paddler to paddler, and only a paddler's regular coach can call that one.

As a rule, on the day itself I tell paddlers new to the Division to get as much practise as hey can/want, but make sure they take their official practice run as a race run.

However paddlers who have a fighting chance of a useful score - 900+ - I tell to take only their official practice run.

However where practice as available the night before, I have no problem with their going on, because youngsters (which is who I coach) will recover fully by the next day.

And what's all this about coaches favouring ending practice? I am a coach (I think)