Championship Format in Prem

[JimW]

I am surprised and disappointed by the tone of the responses in this thread. I have decided to leave chatter and won't be reading it again.

Obviously my response was the final straw, I'm not sure why - I could have been a lot more blunt, I thought I was being nice about it.

[Sven]

OK so yet another person has dropped out of chatter because of arguably ill judged penmanship. I feel there is a pattern - chatter is dominated by a few contributors - many thanks for the inputs - but actually the views of others involved in the sport who are not so prolific is needed and is valuable to get a balanced perspective. It is also an opportunity to let people know about situations and issues that THEY OTHERWISE WOULDNT KNOW ABOUT. I do actually think some of the posting by people on here can comes across at times as rude and I know derived almost certainly by frustration. Why remarks are always taken as personal I dont know. But here's the thing, if there is a limited volunteer base at this level - why? Could it be that people see it as a closed shop and not a group they would be welcome into? I don't know, I am just playing devils advocate. However there have been a number of occasions when those who are active in the volunteering front in terms of organising national events do frankly get a bit rude on chatter when someone makes a comment they decide is out of line. Stop and think a bit many people have no idea of what goes into volunteering and while I would suggest moaning about volunteering (it is a choice!) on chatter is not the way to go. People could be encouraged to understand whats involved rather than being shot down / humiliated on a public forum. This does nothing to encourage people to step up and volunteer at these events. Tin hat is now firmly screwed onto head!

[BaldockBabe]

(it is a choice!)

Perhaps you are right but to be honest at the moment I don't feel it is. I genuinely feel pressured into doing what I do because if I don't my husband and friends will have to do it and they far more patient and tolerant than I am so won't walk away and leave people in the lurch.

I long to be able to have back my time both during the week and the weekend, we (along with many others) give up far more time than just those hours we are seen on the riverbank. I see the same people time and time again going out of their way to make the sport happen and enjoyable for the participants (whether this be organising, coaching etc.). Some of these people have family involved in the sport and see how important it is for them to "give back" (many hands make light work), some had family involved in the sport who have long left the sport but they have a camaraderie with the friends they have met over the years, some are involved themselves.

However, over the last 18 months there have been a significant number of occasions where I have seen these valuable volunteers abused/ slated/ winged about either online or in person by parents and/ or paddlers, or, I see comments such as the one above which, in my opinion, was rude. It was taken personally and I cannot see how else it should have been taken. The post clearly showed concern about the posters time and their money and no thought for why that might have been the case. It was not constructive and if it had intended to be it could have been written as such (i.e. by asking why things were done the way they were or suggesting how they could be done).

So, apologies if I am overly protective of those volunteers but at the moment I feel someone needs to be and yes (both online and at events), I accept it is probably driven by frustration.

[Dee]

Dee:
"You mean those VOLUNTEERS who give up their own TIME to run the sport and spend equal amount of THEIR OWN money on accommodation etc. so that YOU can compete?

I don't know whey they bother."

I was not meaning to be rude about volunteers, our family volunteers a very significant amount time to support canoeing. I just want to express that it is expensive and the more we can be organised and share information early in the future, the more helpful it is for participants, who can then avoid unnecessary costs.

I'm not sure what I've got to do with this - the quote isn't mine nor the one before it. Now it could be the river Dee, but last time I looked the Dee did not reach Lee Valley. Have I slept through the apocalypse?




PS Having just read through the rest of the thread, maybe I did

[John Sturgess]

At some stage this thread was shanghaied from being a discussion about the difficulties caused by Prem formats (see title) to become an 'us and them' battle between paddlers and volunteers. Not only is this a pity - it is, I think, a misrepresentation. There is a 70% - 80% crossover between volunteers and paddlers/their parents: ie a high proportion of those who paddled at/ brought paddlers to/coached paddlers at the British Open are also involved in volunteering to run events, and know something about the pressures involved (and vice-versa).
On the particular problem that set this off:
I did not discover until Friday morning that a large proportion of the KIM entrants - 55 out of 95 - would have finished their involvement in the weekend by lunchtime on the Saturday. However not quite early enough (by about an hour) to be able to cancel Premier Inn bookings for Saturday night ...
Almost all the October events have already published enough information - either on a start list or on Event Info - for people to be able to find out what their time commitment is for the weekend ...
If the format used for the British Open makes it impossible for that sort of information to be presented early enough, then that is in itself a valid reason for not using that complicated format!

[stevepearson]

One thing i missed when posting this thread is what is the problem that needs to be fixed......

I believe the problem with the championship format is:

guaranteed 2 days racing vs no guarantee
Where paddlers are coming through form div1 and used to 2 runs they then go to championship & probably dont get to race on teh Sunday in current format, this then creates issues such as...
1. cost of accomodation
2. cost of race entry (1 day vs 2 days)
3. perceived fairness

Points
Points awarded (only 2nd run counts) and my perception is Graveyard is aiming to deal with this


There will be more - but what was the championship format supposed to fix? if we don't know then why did we change it? if we do know then can we develop it?


Lets also remember all ideas are good ideas

[mally]

First off, a big thank you to all the volunteers. I'm deeply grateful to be able to turn up and race knowing that people are working hard behind the scenes.

I think its a good thing to try different 'championship' formats, as we saw at Bala last weekend. Why? Because the divisional system in Britain is absolutely brilliant at providing a development pathway for paddlers, and the ultimate destination of the pathway is international racing. So even though there will only be a minority who go on to race internationally, surely we should be looking for creative ways that prepare paddlers for the specific challenges they will face. Like delivering on one run, rather than best of two. So long as all paddlers get two runs (as they did at Bala), and the format is clearly explained in advance, I don't see the problem. For most of us it ran like a 'normal' race anyway! I'm also in favour of more double Prem races, to make the most of travel / accommodation investment, as raised on a different thread.

[JBS]

Perhaps a simple survey sent out with the bib vouchers could get to the bottom of what current premier paddlers would like??

[Debs]

I attended treweryn prem this weekend who were trialing two race formats, neither of which were successful in the eyes of most people we spoke to.
Saturday
7 through to final from run 1, 3 through to final from run 2, from each category, apart from C2.
That left 40 people in the finals at the end of the day. Water time being tight due to release times, and people had been turned away from this race.
40 runs on Saturday if done in the normal best of two runs format, would have meant entries to Saturday's race for another 20 paddlers. That's £390 in race entry fees just for Saturday. And 20 happy paddlers!
Sunday
10 paddlers through to final from first runs, then the top ten paddlers raced in final at the end of second runs. Therefore if you didn't make the final from first runs you could not finish any higher than 11th after two runs. Even if your second run was faster and cleaner than paddlers in the final! And losing out on ranking points.
I believe there is a place for championship format and super finals, but only at championship races such as the British Open and the McConkey Championship. Standard premier races should remain the best of two runs I believe this is a fairer way to run a slalom competition.

[SilverSurfer]

Totally agree with Debs, I don't see the need or point of a championship format in domestic races. If padders were asked up front, I'm sure they would also say they don't want the championship format. The format on Sunday was ridiculous and many paddlers who didn't make the final on the first run, even considered not doing their second run. There are only 9 Premier races, so all paddlers want to maximise their time and opportunity of getting points, the championship format does not do that. Credit to those trying to do something different in the sport, but not when it's change for the sake of change.

Who ever is putting the championship format forward, please can you explain why and who is it actually benefitting ?

[andy n]

In response to both Debs and Silver Surfer:

The Saturday format gave three runs to just 12 paddlers (3 per category), everyone else had the normal two runs. Therefore, this format only denied race opportunity to 6 paddlers not 20!

With the Sunday format no significant extra time is needed.

Premier is the top division in our sport and for the best paddlers who compete on the International stage, or aspire to, (from ECA Junior Cup through to Olympics) there is a requirement to deliver on every run. Personally, I prefer the Sunday format which I regard as a big semi-final with opportunity to gain a place in a final. It's not a qualification with a 2nd chance to make the final. This format should be considered when there is opportunity to showcase the sport and have the best 10 boats battle for victory with a good audience - this could be a live audience on a Sunday afternoon at HPP or Lee Valley or for TV as with the Scottish Adventure Show.

The point is made about paddlers not wishing to take their 2nd run having missed the final - this would mainly be paddlers where 11th is not good enough to improve their ranking. Understandable perhaps but not acceptable? In a classic race, paddlers putting down a good 1st run will often quit on 2nd run when mistakes are made and the 1st run cannot be bettered, also perhaps understandable but not acceptable? Our best paddlers are also the role models.

There have now been several race formats in Prem this season and hopefully there will now be consultation (which should primarily be with the Prem paddlers) before decisions are made for 2018. I'm not sure how this is planned to happen?

[CeeBee]

My son raced at the weekend and was happy with the format of having x paddlers in a final.

From both a simplicity and organisational point of view, I think it is better that all those racing in the final have had the same number of runs and so having 10 boats through from run 1 is better than 7 from run 1 and 3 from run 2. This also means that there is no difference in the number of competitors that can enter the race.

Sport is always changing and we do need to adapt otherwise we would still have 10 second penalties per gate , events with team events only on Saturday and individual events on Sunday. I remember people objecting when the penalties changed from 10 seconds to 5 seconds then 2 seconds.

The majority of the paddlers had their points based on the best of 2 runs and the final format made little difference to the majority of the paddlers. On Sunday, for K1 Men, those finishing from 20th downwards were not affected by the final. Those finishing 11-19th would have finished 1 or 2 places higher on the best of 2 runs format. Racing to make a final is good pressure for those at the top of Prem as it is these paddlers who are aiming to race Internationally and they benefit from this experience.

Personally, I think there should be a % of the entrants that go through to the final rather than 10 e.g. 20-25%. There were only 17 C1W, so 10 qualifying for the final was too easy whereas there were 67 men, so 10 qualifying for the final was relatively harder.