Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

General slalom chatter...rant about the bad, rave about the good
Nick Penfold
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 8:21 pm

Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Nick Penfold » Thu Oct 20, 2016 6:44 pm

Given the tiny numbers racing in C2 (it's almost never quorate) and the heavy admin burden (easily the hardest class to manage) does it make sense to have C2 as a ranking class at all?
Should I duck?
I for one would love to see a healthy level of C2 racing, but we haven't got it. A lot of paddlers have a lot of fun doing it. Lots paddle C2 for fun, pairing up just for one weekend and never applying for a bib. The numbers racing "seriously" are very small, and races are almost never quorate.
Please discuss!

harratts
Posts: 141
Joined: Fri May 18, 2012 3:51 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by harratts » Thu Oct 20, 2016 8:47 pm

There are several different C2 crews in our house of different abilities and therefore different ranking status.

We all enjoy paddling in this class as it offers a welcome relief from the pressures involved in paddling our respective individual boats as I am sure many other C2 crews do.

For me as the parent it is absolutely fabulous to share an experience with either of my two boys.

Why not let any C2 crew enter any division they wish to race at? One single class with us all in it.

Whether their class is quorate or not makes no difference. Their ranking points could all be calculated against the K1 Men's class times after a suitable % time allowance has been applied. This % allowance could be different for each Division.

If the new Portable Points system is introduced, those C2 crews who only wish to race on Division 3 water will secure fewer points than the boys at the top of their game willing to paddle on Premier Division water.

There are quite valid safety reasons why many C2 crews have not done more races this season as to enter more that 1 or 2 Division 2 events and do quite well would mean that you are then expected to paddle on water beyond your abilities.

As with the Vet's classes, "Leave us alone as we are not hurting anyone!"
Steve

CeeBee
Posts: 331
Joined: Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:12 pm
Location: Falkirk

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by CeeBee » Thu Oct 20, 2016 9:54 pm

I would retain C2 as a class. It is such a shame that so few are now paddling C2 as it is such good fun and develops excellent life skills in youngsters having to work together to race. I know my son has benefitted enormously from this and it gave him 2 classes to race in so there wasn't the same pressure on doing well in a solo class.

I know paddlers don't race just so they can make GB Junior teams but my son''s coach recognised that he had a chance of making the GN junior team in C2 at J16 when he wasn't good enough yet to make the GB team in C1. This gave him a fantastic opportunity to race abroad for the British team. So, some of our aspiring juniors who will not quite make the Junior team next year, should consider doing C2 to gain experience which will help them race internationally if they get selected in subsequent years for a solo class.

I take the point about getting promoted too quickly to Div 1 water and so we could increase the points to get from Div 2/3 to Prem/Div 1. Under portable points, I presume a Div 2/3 C2 could paddle in a Division 1 race if they wanted.

I liked an earlier suggestion to encourage participation in C2, to have a reduced entry fee. I think this could be trialled for a year at Div 2-4 to see if this has any impact. I would happily let paddlers race C2 for free/minimal charge at our Alva 3/4 if they have already paid an entry fee for a solo class.

Mark H
Posts: 42
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2013 8:09 am

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Mark H » Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:17 pm

How about we try and encourage people to do C2 rather than just give up on it.
I understand Mixed crews have just been added to the worlds so why would we want to
de rank it? Young crews are starting to take C2 up and gain great experience from the class.
let's try and encourage and not just give up because it's difficult. It's difficult to find demo's for prem
so let's drop them and give more time over to the race itself? It would be more cost effective to use the water time that way. Maybe it would be better to have an have a go at racing C2 for an hour in this session at no cost so crews can challenge themselves on more difficult water and gain experience with full safety in place?

As Stated previously in the chat C2 is a great way for young paddlers to gain international experience.
It seems very strange to me that races have been run on championship format so paddlers get to experience
international rules but we are looking to stop crews paddling in international competitions.
Why not encourage crews to paddle internationally to let them experience the worlds or euro's and to carry that experience
forward into their other classes.

I know that there is no funding from British Canoeing for C2 but may be home nations could help fund these boats to race abroad as the English did for Ben and Finn. As you say there aren't that many of them to support (yet) Or give the parents chance to self fund the boats.
Build don't destroy

Mike Mitchell
Posts: 180
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:44 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Mike Mitchell » Sat Oct 22, 2016 8:43 pm

I agree with Steve, Mark and Cee Bee on this one.

Think we need to encourage C2.

How about as Steve says have One division for the Class.
So any C2 can enter any division they wish to enter.

Points something like for a win. Prem -1000./ Div 1- 750./ Div2,- 500./ Div 3/4 - 250.
No maximum number of events to collect point at and scrap in quorate rule for C2.
So winner takes full points.

At the end of the season split the ranking into British Champion - Mens, Mixed and Ladies C2. [I will donate any prizes.]
Then possibly we will get world champions in 3 classes.

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by JimW » Sat Oct 22, 2016 11:23 pm

Teamwork.

I'm not even vaguely qualified to talk about C2, I struggle to harmonise in a tandem open canoe so I'm never likely to try and get in a slalom C2 with someone else, but I do play polo so have some experience of working as a team in separate boats, as well as the teamwork aspects of river running.

I wonder if it is any co-incidence that 2 of the C2 crews racing at the Scottish champs today also play polo?
Fortunately the senior champions and fastest boat are in my team :) but at they same time they are relatively new to polo. We have a couple of quite experienced players, myself with some good experience but a long time away, and some others from a coaching background that are also new to polo. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but if you train together and get to know each others strengths and weaknesses you can play to them. This principle is at the heart of C2, the basic requirement is to match a paddler who is weak on the left with one who is weak on the right and then get them to train until they instinctively know what each other are going to and trust each other do what they expect.

The other crew that play polo is a junior crew (and champions) recently formed in div 2/3 who I think hadn't actually paddled Pinkston on full flow solo before, just a couple of C2 sessions over the last couple of weeks where they have perfected their swimming and boat repair techniques. Always cheerful, always up for getting back in and trying again, clearly they trust each other enough to tackle the trickier water - I don't know if that comes from their polo training or if it is something their club generates or all just down to their personalities, but there is probably also an element of encouraging each other. They are a long way from developing the instinctive paddling that the senior crew have, but clearly their short partnership has been good for them.

So many forms of racing are all about the individual, solo racing encourages selfishness and self absorption, whilst the focus, discipline and progress of so many of our young competitors is astounding, there is a chance that some of them might not function well in a team if all they ever do is solo paddling. Encouraging more of them to do C2 can only be beneficial, both for them and for the sport.

Unfortunately for most it is always going to be the second (or third) class, and they may well need to try several partners before they find a person they work well with so the admin is likely to be a nightmare no matter what, but I think it is probably worth continuing with as a ranking class, because without ranking there will be no incentive for people to do it.

WindsorCC
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2016 8:22 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by WindsorCC » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:16 am

I like Steve and Mike's suggestion of a single class and being able to enter whatever division you like, with points allocated accordingly.

Me and Ethan (10 years old) have just gone up to Prem/1 this weekend, which will mean that we don't race next year, as the nearby races (LV, Shepperton on decent levels & HPP) will probably be too big for him, and the ones that we might be ok on (Llandysul and Washburn) too far to go if they fall in term-time.

It'd be great if we could carry on racing for longer on div-2 water, while getting more experience on larger water over the years.

I like the idea of splitting it into C2M, C2W and C2Mixed.

I'm in two minds about scrapping the quorate rule as Mike has suggested, as often there's only a single boat so no incentive, other than innate competitiveness, to race hard if you know you're getting 1st and full points whatever happens.

Very interesting idea, but given it's a radical change, I question if there's enough time to give it proper consideration and get a sensible motion together for Thursday...

P

harratts
Posts: 141
Joined: Fri May 18, 2012 3:51 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by harratts » Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:00 pm

Congratulations to you and Ethan, Paul.

This is exactly the problem I experience with the current Prem. / 1 and Div. 2 / 3 ranking classes for C2.

Me and George are not competent enough to race on many Div. 1 events but get promoted if we do any more than 1 or 2 Div. 2 events in any single season.

It would be great to do a full season of Div. 2 events without the need to worry about being promoted above our abilities.

I even asked if we could declare as a Vet.'s C2 crew last year to avoid being promoted but was told that he would be too young for us to be able to do so.

So we ended up stuck as you now find yourself, not able to enter races next season apart from doing 1 Div. 1 event to secure less than 400 points, which would mean that you would then be re-ranked into the lower division for the same thing to happen in the 2018 season.

You need a 2nd son to paddle C2 with you in the alternate seasons.

Steve

Nick Penfold
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 8:21 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Nick Penfold » Mon Oct 24, 2016 5:46 pm

All the responses above are things I'd like to agree with, but please look at the hard facts. Stuart points out that the C2 numbers racing at Div 1 and Prem races this year were:

Number of C2 pairs competing in Division 1 events:
1, 0, 1, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 4, 3, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0; giving an average of 1. Not one of these events was quorate.

Number competing in Premier Division events:
5, 4, 5, 5, 0, 2, 4, 4, 1, 4; giving an average of 3.4
3 of the pairings in the 3 quorate races have retired or are not racing next year, and two of the quorate events were selection events.

This really isn't meaningful competition.

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by JimW » Mon Oct 24, 2016 6:33 pm

I think we need to understand what Nick actually means by dropping C2 as a ranking event (ICF word for class) - does this mean dropping it altogether, or allowing C2's to race on a 'cup' basis (can win prizes on the day) but not bother to work out points any more, or just not officially compiling the rankings due to the overhead, but maintain racing as it is and allow a third party to draw up league tables if they wish? (like officials competition). If there are no points or no compilation of points there can be no promotion, so if Nick intends for C2's to continue racing at meets (until the event is strong enough to make ranking worthwhile) then maybe Mike's suggestion achieves the non-ranking goal, but still gives C2s a reason to race? Points could still be awarded at races and someone with a passion for C2 can do something with them if they want.

The only problem I can see with nominating your divisions and then just racing for silverware on the day, is that, say, a GB crew could opt to enter all the division 3 competitions next year and collect all the trophies - not that any crews would be that mean, but when crews like Steve & George and Paul & Ethan have previously qualified for a higher division, others may call foul even though they have chosen the most appropriate division?

WindsorCC
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2016 8:22 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by WindsorCC » Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:53 pm

Thanks Steve, I do actually have eight year old twin boys as well, so have a few options. Maybe we could make races quorate on our own as we could make up six crews... ;)

To summarise..

I'm sure organisers will be happy to keep C2, it's another couple of entry fees and easy to accommodate.

Lots of people enjoy C2, as Steve has said it's lovely to do with your children, and it's quite a fun class for juniors generally (and for seniors, seeing Mal and Kim racing at the British Open...), and obviously there are those who've paddled together for years and just love the teamwork aspect.

But, at the end of the day we all want to race so there needs to be some competition there. As Steve knows (as they beat us..) we had a great weekend of racing at Cardington with 10/11 boats on each day, great spirit, great racing. However that's the exception rather than the rule, and as Nick has seen at P/1, and often at 2/3, there are usually only a few boats, sometimes just one. So it needs some form of points system so that even if you're the only boat there, you're still motivated to race for an end of season ranking.

Nick, you'll be able to advise on the admin overhead, but I really like the suggestion that we have a single C2 class with no divisions, crews can paddle whatever division they like, points are based on the division and we use the current 1.2 calculation against K1M times. Then there are end of year champions (not necessarily with prizes) for C2M, C2W, C2Mixed, etc, so still something to race for, even if you're the only crew at a race.

I suspect if there's no overall ranking then that'll kill C2 off completely, and probably permanently, in the UK. Although it's no longer an Olympic class, it's obviously still an international class, and will expand with mixed C2. I guess we could still have the class for selection, but I can't see how we're going to field strong boats internationally (as we have for many years) without much in the way of domestic competition.

Paul.

Mike Mitchell
Posts: 180
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2014 10:44 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Mike Mitchell » Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:52 pm

If we are going to save C2 looks like we need a proposal before this Thursday!

Numbers- Nick. If 3 Prem C2 are giving up there are 4 getting promoted from Div2/3 so not much change in numbers there.
There are currently 15 ranked P/1 and 58 number 2/3 with 4 getting promoted.
Not like back in the early 90s when we had probably 20 in Prem.
I remember entering Double Prems in K1, C1 and C2 with C2 my main boat and on long courses.
It just need an incentive to race.

There is no easy solution but something should be done to stop the Class from disappearing.

I personally think 1 division would be the best short term solution with declining points for each lower division.

Races that are not Quorate.
If you take a look at Tully prem with 5- C2 entries.
The winning C2 = 3rd place C1 and so would have got 923 points
The 2nd C2 = 14th place C1 and so 500 points
The 5th C2 = 25th place C1 and so 196 points.
So perhaps its better to compare C2 with the C1 results and just give them the equivalent.
Mixed C2 and Ladies C2 would compare with Ladies C1. :?:

Nick Penfold
Posts: 338
Joined: Thu May 27, 2004 8:21 pm

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Nick Penfold » Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:29 pm

Re the admin issues for C2, Stuart is the one who takes the pain and knows the ins and outs but I don't think Prem/1 is a problem because (a) it's small and (b) the paddlers are serious about it and apply for bibs.

Div 2/3 is a nightmare to manage because half the crews who race in any year are doing it for fun (yes, I know that's a good reason) get together, self-ranked, for a single weekend and have no intention of getting together again. So they don't formalise their status by applying for bibs. As a result an enormous proportion of results have dummy bib numbers.
Add to this that, while as individuals we all have quite consistent names, the same pair of C2s can appear in different results as John Smith and Steve Jones, Steve Jones and John Smith, S Jones and J Smith and the reverse, Smith and Jones and the reverse, and a few other options as well. Brothers sometimes come in as "The Smiths" and (because entry is so casual) we even get "John and Steve". In the case of K1 and C1 the ranking database matches up names about 95% of the time: for C2, more like 5%, so Stuart has to do all the matching up for around 100 pairs by inspection. Running C2 as a single division won't fix this.

My own view is that it's not a good idea to rush to a proposal. We should get this on the agenda for discussion at the ACM and (if we're going to change anything) take it to next year's ACM.

JimW
Posts: 570
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 2:17 pm
Location: Pinkston

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by JimW » Tue Oct 25, 2016 12:20 am

I have a feeling that if portable points gets voted in, the idea of letting any C2 enter any race will work pretty well. Since the points available double as you increase a host division, crews will be encouraged to race in the hardest host division they can, perhaps even cherry picking a few venues where they are more confident to paddle in the higher division whilst generally paddling in a lower division (kind of like paddling up). For example a normally division 2 (or 3) crew that train at Pinkston on 3 pumps, might enter div 2 (or 3) races all over the country, but also enter the div 1 at Pinkston to try to use home venue advantage to get some extra points.

As Nick says, this is probably something to get on the ACM agenda as a discussion point rather than a motion for a change this year.
Mike Mitchell wrote: Races that are not Quorate.
.......
So perhaps its better to compare C2 with the C1 results and just give them the equivalent.
Mixed C2 and Ladies C2 would compare with Ladies C1. :?:
Without wanting to drag this off topic too far, if you look at CeeBee's proposal for div 4 promotion (the motion has been submitted, I'm sure CanadianPaddler will have the final text posted up for consideration soon after Thursday's closing date), the key to it is where a C1 event is not quorate, to compare it with the K1 event for the same gender, (if the K1W event is inquorate they are compared to K1M, which will roll down to C1W too). Unfortunately C2 got a bit forgotten about and is pencilled in to compare against K1M, which might be a bit harsh, but when I noticed it this afternoon I was basically thinking the same thing - it would be much more equitable (but even more admin) if C2 results were separated by gender.... At present all C2s are basically considered the same as C1W.

Canadian Paddler
Posts: 1480
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 8:31 am
Location: Peterborough
Contact:

Re: Is C2 Viable as a ranking class?

Post by Canadian Paddler » Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:41 am

Do not hold your breath. Motions will not be up until after Saturdays British committee meeting to confirm committee motions and the order of motions
.
BTW there are a lot of motions this year and some will be hotly debated. So might be an interesting meeting with little time / energy for general discussion at the end.

Still time to nominate new coordinators.
All spelling errors are intentional and are there to show new and improved ways of spelling old words. Grammatical errors are due to too many English classes/teachers.
Old. Fat. Slow. Bad tempered. And those are my good points

Post Reply