Hi everyone,
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
We will keep checking this post until the end of the week. To see if anyone else has any thoughts, but thank you to everyone who came along to support, and for your positive comments and constructive criticism, so far.
Thank you
S&SCC
On a personal Note:
In relation to point b. Course for Saturday.
I set the course on Friday evening, I was in a rush as i had to return to school to parents evening...I conceed that the gate sequence 8, 9, 10, was too tight for c2's, and could have been wider spaced. But apart from that, i defend the course entirely. The entire course has been labelled as fiddly, however, the majority of the course was TOUGH, but not fiddly.
It was a challenge, and every person I heard near the course was talking about a different section of it, the moves were not muscle or ridiculous crunch moves, (as C1W and judges were able to complete the course without 50's), but there were a lot of sections which were technical, and meant you had to prepare for the sequence of gates before you got to it, instead of necking the gate last minute and carrying on, as it appears is the current trend, work had to be done to set up the boat prior to the gates. This is the level of difficulty we should be aiming for now that we have shorter boats, which are easier to manouver.
Statement 1 for discussion:
I believe this is the STANDARD ALL PREMIER courses should be aiming for. (Baring 8,9,10). If every premier course was this difficult, every paddler in Prem would be better. Obviously initially it would be difficult, but it would raise the standard of paddling down the division, preparing all of our paddlers for racing, and better preparing them for racing abroad.
Evidence:
Noticeably, the course though tough and with a fiddly section, was nearly exactly the same length for Joe Clarke and Joe Morley, on both days. (evidence that they are very able paddlers who could race on the course)
The top 10 men were split by over 10 seconds after 1st runs.
There was 1 clear run in the K1w
There were no clear runs in C2
There were 4 clear runs in K1M.
This shows that the majority of Prem struggled on a hard technical course, but it was possible to get down cleanly. (Even if i wasn't the person to demonstrate as such with a 50 on one run and a touch on the other)
Statement 2 for discussion:
Where possible, we should do Championship format races for Prem races.
This better prepares the paddlers for racing abroad.
This gives Premier paddlers more water time for their entry.
This means there are more Premier judges on Sunday.
This means the Div 1's have a better understanding of how top paddlers would approach a course.
This means Div 1's have a greater number of role models to come in contact with, on and off the water.
Anyone else have a view on this? Something to raise at ACM level?
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