Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

Re Tacen: "Gate 1 was a conventional upstream in an eddy"? No it wasn't. Tim and Etienne describe it "Gate 1 was a downstream at the bottom of the river right eddy". But the gate wasn't in the eddy. It was tight on the next step down, and required a 180 very much in the downstream flow and with a r...

I'm actually quite interested in whether a light boat is, on balance, a "good thing". Remember, I don't really paddle but I spend a lot of time on the bank watching other people do it. It's quite clear that there are places where a light boat/paddler gets blown out while a heavy one (especially a C...

Judging slalom is not about "understanding the paddler's perspective" Don, not at any level. It's about applying the rules of the sport honestly and to the best of our ability. None of us are infallible, but some of us "amiable old codgers" are rather good at it, and without the "amiable old codger...

One of the ranking compilers here.... We run a simple system that gives points on your place in the race, promotion when you achieve a published target, and end of year demotion if your points are really low. It's as straightforward, open and fair as we can make it, and we hope that at the end of t...

I haven't been around long enough to know how the minimum weight rule came about, but having looked at a (fibreglass) boat built for the 1972 Olympics (there's a little museum at Augsburg) I suspect that boats - especially decks - were being built dangerously flimsy. You'd really have to be careful...

Mikey If I read your last post to say "I was too angry to listen properly to what the jury told me, and I threw the toys out of the pram and drove off in a huff before the paperwork was published" would I really be mistaken? Jury chairmen and members don't come more fair and reasonable than the two...

This is on the Slalom UK website home page but it needs to be seen as widely as possible, so I'm putting it here, too: The promotion criteria as published in the Yearbook are wrong. We have not reverted to promotion on three events. The text (page 58 Rule 4.1 and 4.2 Page 59 Rule 5.1) should read, ...

On the slightly off-topic subject of whistling, from a judge: getting the whistle right is difficult. It's too easy for a judge to whistle early, or unnecessarily, because it's hard to cope with more than one boat in a section at a time. We are human too. On the other hand, in the effort to give bo...

Re-reading this thread I realised that Fison's argument is so weird that it needs a response, even if it is a bit late. The 'line' for promotion was subject to the Committee's discretion when we promoted at the end of the year, but it was always somewhere around 4750 - that's why we chose to make 4...

Quite a lot of thought (and common sense, K) goes into end of year promotions and demotions; and anyone can have a look at the points and the individual results we base them on. It's very difficult to be fair and transparent other than by drawing a line and demoting those below it, but as Slow n Di...

To go back to your original post, Steve: there are judges who do it for the paddling (and for practice on the water for an event the next day), judges who do it because they have to and judges who enjoy it. As I don't paddle and I've lost count of the number of races I've judged at, I must enjoy it...

No John, I agree with you that the main purpose of the divisional system is so that paddlers of similar ability can race against one another - and on water and courses of appropriate difficulty. There is a problem, though, which is that the ideal makeup of each group changes quite fast. New paddler...

Sorry Quaker, but I'm smiling about this whole thread. A race in Div 1 costs us something like £30 in fuel for the car, £40 or more for family meals and sometimes £50 for accommodation. And of course a proportion of the price of a boat and other kit. £15 or so for the actual race is the least of ou...