Here is my suggestion for a single slalom divisional system in the UK:-
IT IS VERY MUCH 'ROUGH AND READY' AND DESIGNED TO CREATE DISCUSSION.
Paddlers would be given a bib number from 1 to xxx depending on last season's results.
All the slalom events would be given a 'grading' 1-10 depending on the difficulty of the water / technicality / etc.
If you race on a grade 10 course then the points would be 1000 max, grade 9 900 max etc (on a suitable sliding scale).
Entry fees would be grade dependant.
Paddlers would be allowed to enter more than one grade, depending on their current ranking position.
EG.
Grade 1 would be open to bibs 1 - 140
Grade 2 would be open to bibs 70 - 190
Grade 4 would be open to bibs 220 - 350
etc.
Paddler's current ranking position would be based on their best five events in the current season / last season's points - whichever is higher. This allows paddlers to 'freely' move up and down the division through out the season, 'protected' from early 'demotion' by last season's results.
The larger the range of bibs that an event is open to the larger entry they would get.
More able paddlers would get the chance of entering a higher level of event than at present.
The steps up through the system can be as small as a paddler wishes.
Possibly there can be two ranges of bibs allowed to enter -
Band A centered on that event's grade.
Band B a larger range allowed to enter 7 days before the event to fill any empty spaces.
A fully web / computer based entry and results system needs to be implemented.
Paddlers would register and obtain their bib at the beginning of the season. A secure database would hold paddlers details for use when they enter. (bottom end =present div 4, would have a bib number assigned to them for the event).
New paddlers at a low grade event would have to fill in all their details, sign at the event and show / take out temp BCU membership.
Entry and payment would be fully on-line web based; this removes ALL the possibilities of late entries / missing details.
All the payments would go directly to the Slalom Execs account, once the event is over and the results sent in, (electronically, immediately after the event), the appropriate portion is returned to the club. The cost of electronic payment could be offset by the continuous balance held in Exec's account, the cost saving of not having entry cards and by a small increase in entry fees. (eg 30p - half the amount of postage that would be saved!).
At the event the results system would display (and print out) details of the paddlers times and penalties / gates.
Once the results are posed and protest time is over then results are taken as accepted.
BENEFITS:-
Correct grading of events.
Larger potential entry for each event, more inclination for clubs to send a mixed 'ranking' group.
Paddlers have more choice of venue therefore less travelling. (You would still have to travel further to the high grade events but at least events like Llandysul / Shepperton / Washburn would have a reasonable points grading and still be 'local' to a lot more paddlers).
A LOT less hassle and work for race organisers.
MORE events open to MORE paddlers = MORE participation = Better quality at the top end = MORE MEDALS!
PADDLERS - WHAT DO YOU WANT?
????????????
Only One Division? - Ideas for a single slalom division.
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oldandslow
- Posts: 180
- Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 9:11 pm
- Location: Peak District
This all sounds good! A couple of questions...
1) I presume that you would still suggest M/W and different classes?
2) When would an event be catagorised? Presumably close to the event - at the moment Matlock is struggling towards Grade 1/10? (div 4 level) (I think there is a mistake up there!) but generally would be middling (div 2) and rarely can produce 8/3 (div 1)
1) I presume that you would still suggest M/W and different classes?
2) When would an event be catagorised? Presumably close to the event - at the moment Matlock is struggling towards Grade 1/10? (div 4 level) (I think there is a mistake up there!) but generally would be middling (div 2) and rarely can produce 8/3 (div 1)
Life is what happens when you're making other plans.
Yes - Still have M/W and different classes.
Events would have to be graded in advance to allow the calender to be fixed but could be regraded +/- up to 7 days before. This could stop the likes of Shepp / Dysul cancelling a 'Div 1' due to low water - just drop a grade.
Judges - as per the present really but "encourage" more paddlers to judge at events.
"Encourage" = Paddlers loose 30/20/10% of their points until they have judged at 1/2/3 events ?
Timing team and section judges would only be used at higher grade events. (As per now).
Next level down events should have 2 judges per section, at least one of which should be a qualified gate judge.
H&S - Paddlers are limited to the grades they can enter by their current ranking position. (A novice could not enter above grade 3 for example)
Dave.
Events would have to be graded in advance to allow the calender to be fixed but could be regraded +/- up to 7 days before. This could stop the likes of Shepp / Dysul cancelling a 'Div 1' due to low water - just drop a grade.
Judges - as per the present really but "encourage" more paddlers to judge at events.
"Encourage" = Paddlers loose 30/20/10% of their points until they have judged at 1/2/3 events ?
Timing team and section judges would only be used at higher grade events. (As per now).
Next level down events should have 2 judges per section, at least one of which should be a qualified gate judge.
H&S - Paddlers are limited to the grades they can enter by their current ranking position. (A novice could not enter above grade 3 for example)
Dave.
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Dave Crosbee
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 11:18 am
I've been following the various topics on structure with some interest, as has been an ongoing ebate for a number of years.
Please find below the text from a document I developed in 2002 (apologies for the length!) when I was working for the World Class programmes.
Unfortunately due to work commitments at the time, and then moving jobs I was never really able to follow through with the ideas.
Now, some of the document is out of date regarding rules (no cumulative runs now - again!), but some of the basic ideas I still believe are relevant.
Anyway - have a look and see what you think
UK Canoe Slalom in the 21st Century – Where is it going?
The views expressed below are my own personal thoughts and at no point are intended to represent the thoughts or policies of the World Class Programme or any other member of those programmes.
Before we can decide what to do with the domestic programme of Canoe Slalom in the UK, we have to ask what are its objectives? In no particular order I feel we should be trying to provide the following:
1. An enjoyable sport for the ‘recreational’ competitor, who enjoys going out and competing for fun, has no serious ambitions to represent GB, but does want the opportunity to test themselves against other competitors at a similar level to themselves. They also want good ‘value for money’, i.e. a good amount of water time in the weekend, not having to travel too far to attend races all of the time, and possibly not having to spend all weekend at a race.
2. A training ground for athletes who aspire to representing GB and hopefully winning medals and major championships on the world stage.
Unfortunately these 2 objectives do not sit easily beside each other, and our current domestic set up is probably meeting neither of these objectives, and infact seems to be making both of the above groups unhappy with the current state of the sport, while at the same time not attracting people into the sport.
What can be done? I feel we have probably gone past the point of tinkering, and some radical thought needs to go into where we should be going.
My first thoughts are going to concern how do we prepare athletes for success on the international stage?
In the past the GB team has been pretty successful, winning many international honours and World Championships, but over time our medal haul at the World Championships has steadily declined. There are a number of reasons for this including funding at the critical period when the sport was re-introduced to the Olympics in 1992, size of the sport in the GB restricting the talent pool, government support for the sport at a ‘grass roots’ level (in comparison to e.g. France with their massive structure of employed club coaches). But I feel one major reason is that the Premier series of races no longer provides the athletes with the competitive preparation that it used to. Since 1993 at an international competition you have a Qualification race, followed by a Final. 9 years later we still have no such race format in the UK!
Since 1997, practice runs were banned and both runs were added together to obtain the final result. It took 2 years in the UK to remove practice runs from Premier!
This is ridiculous. If we are serious about winning medals on the international stage then we have to have domestic races that follow the same format as internationals, so that our top competitors are used to this type of racing! How can you seriously expect them to do well internationally if they only get to race the format abroad?
We need to establish a focussed series of races, say 4 or 5, which have a Qualification/Final format. This would provide valuable preparation for our international hopefuls and would also provide a good vehicle for the promotion of our sport, as this number of races if carefully placed in the calendar would allow all of our top racers to compete to determine a meaningful British Champion, rather than the current situation where the end of season rankings are generally meaningless due to the amount of top boats that choose not to compete at a large proportion of the races due to international commitments and fatigue.
As for the argument that it would mean only the same top few boats would get to race on Sunday, this does not have to be the case. You could have an A, B and C final, with prizes for the winners of each, so that every-one has a chance of success at their own particular level.
I now want to look at the ‘recreational competitors’ needs. Is the current national ranking system meeting their needs? My feelings are that it is not. Do we really need a ranking system that goes all the way from the elite at the top to people who are starting out?
I think we could learn a lot by looking at sports like mountain biking. Why do we not move from a national system to a more relaxed regional system? From this regional system athletes can then qualify for the national series I mentioned above.
At the regional races simplify the divisional system into 3 levels; Novice, National & Elite.
Initially you can enter whichever level you choose, but once you have won say 3 prizes at the level you are entering you have to enter the next level, but there is nothing to stop you entering the next level up if you so feel, even if you haven’t won any prizes. So you can control the rate at which you progress, a concern for some, especially in the K1W and C1 classes at times.
There isn’t any end of season rankings so you can choose how many races you want to attend, a serious issue with some paddlers who struggle to attend enough races to stay in the division they like to compete at.
In each region there would be a couple of designated ‘qualification races’ for the national series, the Regional Championship, this would allow paddlers to try to achieve a ‘title’, which would be motivational, would allow some local publicity and then would allow them to move on to challenge the international standard paddlers in the UK.
Obviously some sites would be more suited to certain standards of paddlers than others, but this would be down to the athletes to decide which sites they want to visit, there would also be nothing stopping organisers designating certain gates in each course only for specific levels of paddler, e.g. the up on the stopper, gate 8, is to be missed by the novice & national level paddlers, but is included in the course for the elite level paddlers. This is a measure that happens at mountain biking and orienteering, where multi-level events take place on the same venue, but the courses are progressively more difficult for the higher levels.
Also some regions do not have a wide range of courses, but there is nothing to stop a club from this region running an event at a venue outside their region, and also for paddlers to attend events outside their region if they want to broaden their horizons and visit new sites, it is their choice, and they are not forced to travel around the country if they do not have the time or money.
To aid progression through the levels I suggest that the rules are different for each level.
At novice level there is unlimited practice (as far as the event timetable allows), 2 competitive runs, with the best run counting.
At National level, there is limited practice, say 2 or 3 runs. Still 2 competitive runs, best run counting.
At Elite level, 1 practice run, 2 competitive runs with a cumulative total.
In addition to this there would also be team runs, and the teams can be made up of paddlers from any level, and a paddler can enter more than 1 team and class.
I believe the success of events such as the Stone mini-slaloms show these types of events are viable, and if the organiser so feels they could, as at Stone, run a handicap system to get an ‘overall’ winner for the event.
For the National 4or 5 race series these would be run strictly to international rules, no practice, 2 cumulative runs, Qualification Saturday, Finals on Sunday. Team races following the individual races.
This then allows paddlers to ‘learn their trade’ of putting fast runs down without the pressure of having to do 2 good runs immediately. Then the amount of practice is steadily restricted, until they have to produce cumulative runs, and then they finally move up to the International rules.
I hope this paper will stimulate discussion, I do not pretend to have all the answers, especially on the detail of how exactly to organise the regional structure, but I think it is time for us to move on, the sport has been fairly stagnant in the UK for too long, we must no longer burden ourselves with the attitude of, “no we can’t do that, because we do it this way”, but to look for active change and positive reform.
Thank you for you time in reading this and hope you find it a positive step in the right direction.
Dave Crosbee
March 2002
Please find below the text from a document I developed in 2002 (apologies for the length!) when I was working for the World Class programmes.
Unfortunately due to work commitments at the time, and then moving jobs I was never really able to follow through with the ideas.
Now, some of the document is out of date regarding rules (no cumulative runs now - again!), but some of the basic ideas I still believe are relevant.
Anyway - have a look and see what you think
UK Canoe Slalom in the 21st Century – Where is it going?
The views expressed below are my own personal thoughts and at no point are intended to represent the thoughts or policies of the World Class Programme or any other member of those programmes.
Before we can decide what to do with the domestic programme of Canoe Slalom in the UK, we have to ask what are its objectives? In no particular order I feel we should be trying to provide the following:
1. An enjoyable sport for the ‘recreational’ competitor, who enjoys going out and competing for fun, has no serious ambitions to represent GB, but does want the opportunity to test themselves against other competitors at a similar level to themselves. They also want good ‘value for money’, i.e. a good amount of water time in the weekend, not having to travel too far to attend races all of the time, and possibly not having to spend all weekend at a race.
2. A training ground for athletes who aspire to representing GB and hopefully winning medals and major championships on the world stage.
Unfortunately these 2 objectives do not sit easily beside each other, and our current domestic set up is probably meeting neither of these objectives, and infact seems to be making both of the above groups unhappy with the current state of the sport, while at the same time not attracting people into the sport.
What can be done? I feel we have probably gone past the point of tinkering, and some radical thought needs to go into where we should be going.
My first thoughts are going to concern how do we prepare athletes for success on the international stage?
In the past the GB team has been pretty successful, winning many international honours and World Championships, but over time our medal haul at the World Championships has steadily declined. There are a number of reasons for this including funding at the critical period when the sport was re-introduced to the Olympics in 1992, size of the sport in the GB restricting the talent pool, government support for the sport at a ‘grass roots’ level (in comparison to e.g. France with their massive structure of employed club coaches). But I feel one major reason is that the Premier series of races no longer provides the athletes with the competitive preparation that it used to. Since 1993 at an international competition you have a Qualification race, followed by a Final. 9 years later we still have no such race format in the UK!
Since 1997, practice runs were banned and both runs were added together to obtain the final result. It took 2 years in the UK to remove practice runs from Premier!
This is ridiculous. If we are serious about winning medals on the international stage then we have to have domestic races that follow the same format as internationals, so that our top competitors are used to this type of racing! How can you seriously expect them to do well internationally if they only get to race the format abroad?
We need to establish a focussed series of races, say 4 or 5, which have a Qualification/Final format. This would provide valuable preparation for our international hopefuls and would also provide a good vehicle for the promotion of our sport, as this number of races if carefully placed in the calendar would allow all of our top racers to compete to determine a meaningful British Champion, rather than the current situation where the end of season rankings are generally meaningless due to the amount of top boats that choose not to compete at a large proportion of the races due to international commitments and fatigue.
As for the argument that it would mean only the same top few boats would get to race on Sunday, this does not have to be the case. You could have an A, B and C final, with prizes for the winners of each, so that every-one has a chance of success at their own particular level.
I now want to look at the ‘recreational competitors’ needs. Is the current national ranking system meeting their needs? My feelings are that it is not. Do we really need a ranking system that goes all the way from the elite at the top to people who are starting out?
I think we could learn a lot by looking at sports like mountain biking. Why do we not move from a national system to a more relaxed regional system? From this regional system athletes can then qualify for the national series I mentioned above.
At the regional races simplify the divisional system into 3 levels; Novice, National & Elite.
Initially you can enter whichever level you choose, but once you have won say 3 prizes at the level you are entering you have to enter the next level, but there is nothing to stop you entering the next level up if you so feel, even if you haven’t won any prizes. So you can control the rate at which you progress, a concern for some, especially in the K1W and C1 classes at times.
There isn’t any end of season rankings so you can choose how many races you want to attend, a serious issue with some paddlers who struggle to attend enough races to stay in the division they like to compete at.
In each region there would be a couple of designated ‘qualification races’ for the national series, the Regional Championship, this would allow paddlers to try to achieve a ‘title’, which would be motivational, would allow some local publicity and then would allow them to move on to challenge the international standard paddlers in the UK.
Obviously some sites would be more suited to certain standards of paddlers than others, but this would be down to the athletes to decide which sites they want to visit, there would also be nothing stopping organisers designating certain gates in each course only for specific levels of paddler, e.g. the up on the stopper, gate 8, is to be missed by the novice & national level paddlers, but is included in the course for the elite level paddlers. This is a measure that happens at mountain biking and orienteering, where multi-level events take place on the same venue, but the courses are progressively more difficult for the higher levels.
Also some regions do not have a wide range of courses, but there is nothing to stop a club from this region running an event at a venue outside their region, and also for paddlers to attend events outside their region if they want to broaden their horizons and visit new sites, it is their choice, and they are not forced to travel around the country if they do not have the time or money.
To aid progression through the levels I suggest that the rules are different for each level.
At novice level there is unlimited practice (as far as the event timetable allows), 2 competitive runs, with the best run counting.
At National level, there is limited practice, say 2 or 3 runs. Still 2 competitive runs, best run counting.
At Elite level, 1 practice run, 2 competitive runs with a cumulative total.
In addition to this there would also be team runs, and the teams can be made up of paddlers from any level, and a paddler can enter more than 1 team and class.
I believe the success of events such as the Stone mini-slaloms show these types of events are viable, and if the organiser so feels they could, as at Stone, run a handicap system to get an ‘overall’ winner for the event.
For the National 4or 5 race series these would be run strictly to international rules, no practice, 2 cumulative runs, Qualification Saturday, Finals on Sunday. Team races following the individual races.
This then allows paddlers to ‘learn their trade’ of putting fast runs down without the pressure of having to do 2 good runs immediately. Then the amount of practice is steadily restricted, until they have to produce cumulative runs, and then they finally move up to the International rules.
I hope this paper will stimulate discussion, I do not pretend to have all the answers, especially on the detail of how exactly to organise the regional structure, but I think it is time for us to move on, the sport has been fairly stagnant in the UK for too long, we must no longer burden ourselves with the attitude of, “no we can’t do that, because we do it this way”, but to look for active change and positive reform.
Thank you for you time in reading this and hope you find it a positive step in the right direction.
Dave Crosbee
March 2002
[QUOTE Judges - as per the present really but "encourage" more paddlers to judge at events.
"Encourage" = Paddlers loose 30/20/10% of their points until they have judged at 1/2/3 events ?]
Thats all very well if you dont have work and family commitments, its all i can do at present to race at div 1 races. With no chance of attending races to judge!! So why should i loose a percentage of any points i gain for leading a busy life? If you are to have a percentage of poibnts deducted then you either have to do an extra race to make up for deficit or seriously consider the point of racing!!!
"Encourage" = Paddlers loose 30/20/10% of their points until they have judged at 1/2/3 events ?]
Thats all very well if you dont have work and family commitments, its all i can do at present to race at div 1 races. With no chance of attending races to judge!! So why should i loose a percentage of any points i gain for leading a busy life? If you are to have a percentage of poibnts deducted then you either have to do an extra race to make up for deficit or seriously consider the point of racing!!!
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roodthomas
- Posts: 37
- Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2009 9:33 pm
- Location: Barnsley
Carl
99% of the work running slaloms is done by volunteers. If it weren't for volunteers the sport wouldn't exist in it's present form. It certainly costs me several hundreds of pounds a year in time off work.
I ASSUME THAT YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO PAY FOR OTHERS TO DO THE WORK RATHER THAN VOLUNTEER YOURSELF?
I suspect that if everyone volunteered then once a season judging or helping would be enough.
This can easily be accomplished at Div 1/P or Div 1/2 events and therefore no extra weekend required.
Paddlers wouldn't be able to make up their lost % with an extra event as only the best 5 would count.
Dave.
99% of the work running slaloms is done by volunteers. If it weren't for volunteers the sport wouldn't exist in it's present form. It certainly costs me several hundreds of pounds a year in time off work.
I ASSUME THAT YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO PAY FOR OTHERS TO DO THE WORK RATHER THAN VOLUNTEER YOURSELF?
I suspect that if everyone volunteered then once a season judging or helping would be enough.
This can easily be accomplished at Div 1/P or Div 1/2 events and therefore no extra weekend required.
Paddlers wouldn't be able to make up their lost % with an extra event as only the best 5 would count.
Dave.
roodthomas wrote:A 1 division system is pointless if you are going pigeon hole paddlers.
Their is no suggestion of 'pigeon holing' paddlers.
At the moment you can only paddle in one division (until promoted).
The single division system allows entry into several different gradings and keeps a real live ranking position for everyone through out the season. I haven't done the calculations but if a paddler was good enough and entered enough events it might be possible to go from new entrant to ranking position 1 in a season although I suspect not!
Dave.
Dave, I pay my money to race and for me thats all i can do!! when i was a youngster i was always at away at slaloms judging but those days are over for me. If i could race for nothing and volunteer then great, wouldnt we all. I know how hard it is to get volunteers to help run events as i am organiser of a slalom myself. As for volunteering to judge at a Div1 & 2 thats not what i am in the sport for (selfish i know) i am there to race and do not want to be sitting on the bank judging between my runs. Why should i pay to race then have to help judge (only if entry late and not enough judges at Div 1 P event).
I do believe thats what the entry fee is for to enter a competition of your division and race!!!!!
I do believe thats what the entry fee is for to enter a competition of your division and race!!!!!
Dave, I do find that the prospect of winning promotion is a huge motivator, and when achieved (even D4 up to 3) the mums n dads are so proud you have them hooked.
But I do like the idea of more fluidity. I like the idea of "doubles", so kids in (say) D2 can check out their results against the lower end of D1. How about running doubles in todays format, but letting the lower Div paddlers claim points from their own Div PLUS ANY THEY NOTIONALLY GET FROM THE DIV ABOVE. So winner at D2 could get (say) 1000 from his win PLUS (say) a couple of hundred from his notional standing in the D1 race (wouldn't affect D1 paddlers scores). Crank up the points needed for promotion to (say) 5000. Or is that too whacky?
But I do like the idea of more fluidity. I like the idea of "doubles", so kids in (say) D2 can check out their results against the lower end of D1. How about running doubles in todays format, but letting the lower Div paddlers claim points from their own Div PLUS ANY THEY NOTIONALLY GET FROM THE DIV ABOVE. So winner at D2 could get (say) 1000 from his win PLUS (say) a couple of hundred from his notional standing in the D1 race (wouldn't affect D1 paddlers scores). Crank up the points needed for promotion to (say) 5000. Or is that too whacky?
Not sure that would work flipper. am i going to go to a div 1/2 to get 900 points or a p/1 to get 900 plus say 200? i think the sums speak for themselves, and anyone who can beat even a single boat from the division above is not going to bother racing if they are the top division at a race. especially if its not going to be a counting race if you need 5000 points to get up.
And Dave i'm pretty sure i havent judged since i came back into the sport 3 years ago. why? because i dont have the time. We run several races a year, polo competitions, i race div 1 oh and i have a wife i like to spend time with on occasion!
If your going to try and dock me points because i'm too busy to judge as were running races forget it! Don't try to penalise people for not volunteering to judge. make it more attractive by giving them a 10/15/20% discount voucher for their next race entry fee, like the new promotees get? lets not nark off the people who do help and run races, lets keep them and try to encourage in a positve way more people to join in!
And Dave i'm pretty sure i havent judged since i came back into the sport 3 years ago. why? because i dont have the time. We run several races a year, polo competitions, i race div 1 oh and i have a wife i like to spend time with on occasion!
If your going to try and dock me points because i'm too busy to judge as were running races forget it! Don't try to penalise people for not volunteering to judge. make it more attractive by giving them a 10/15/20% discount voucher for their next race entry fee, like the new promotees get? lets not nark off the people who do help and run races, lets keep them and try to encourage in a positve way more people to join in!
Dave's idea is broadly the same as the one I put forward on the structure of the sport thread, and it's good that finally we are getting some reasoned discussion around other possibilities than the divisional system.
I would agree with those against the idea of penalising pointwise those that don't judge during the course of the season. A carrot is always much better than a stick, thus we should offer incentives to judge, such as a discounted rate for your next ranking race, as suggested.
Where I am somewhat more radical than Dave is on the need to limit who can enter each grading of race based on their ranking. I would leave it totally open, and to those who will say that will just attract people unable to cope with the water and cause chaos, I would say why? Why are we unable to allow paddlers/parents/coaches to exercise their own common sense and discretion? It would not remotely be in the interests of a paddler, who for instance had no previous experience of grade 3 or above water, to enter a race at HPP, so why does anyone think they would want to?
What a truely open system would allow is for all paddlers/parents/coaches to make their own, in theory more informed, decisions about how fast/slow to progress up the grading ladder, rather than be shoehorned into a lowest common demoninator divisional system.
I would agree with those against the idea of penalising pointwise those that don't judge during the course of the season. A carrot is always much better than a stick, thus we should offer incentives to judge, such as a discounted rate for your next ranking race, as suggested.
Where I am somewhat more radical than Dave is on the need to limit who can enter each grading of race based on their ranking. I would leave it totally open, and to those who will say that will just attract people unable to cope with the water and cause chaos, I would say why? Why are we unable to allow paddlers/parents/coaches to exercise their own common sense and discretion? It would not remotely be in the interests of a paddler, who for instance had no previous experience of grade 3 or above water, to enter a race at HPP, so why does anyone think they would want to?
What a truely open system would allow is for all paddlers/parents/coaches to make their own, in theory more informed, decisions about how fast/slow to progress up the grading ladder, rather than be shoehorned into a lowest common demoninator divisional system.
I can see the attractions of having just the one ranking system...however I also agree with Flipper, in that moving through the divisional system as it stands is a great motivator for parents and kids - only last night my son was marking off his progress and achievements so far by looking at the certificates for promotion to Div 3, then 2, then 1 throughout the last couple of years.
If you are ranked 421th for example- then being number one or the top ten (even for a fleeting moment), will seem a heck of a long way off! And juniors need those smaller reachable goals. So any other system would need to have that in some form.
If you are ranked 421th for example- then being number one or the top ten (even for a fleeting moment), will seem a heck of a long way off! And juniors need those smaller reachable goals. So any other system would need to have that in some form.