Racing format & detailed schedule

[Hans Koraeus]

- Introduction

We will run a slightly different race format on our slalomdisciplines than what most of you are used to.
The aim is to get more racing for the racers but in an efficient and balanced way.

Often the case is that most racers only get two runs and it's goodbye.
And the top 4 racers in H2H finals they get too much of it.
You who have been among the top 4 racers doing H2H finals knows what I'm talking about.
The last Semi Finals and the races for 3rd and 1st place is intense.
You normally have a hard time getting up to the start before it's your turn again to race.
Normally we give racers a breather in these situations but now we have a better solution for this.

This has very much to do with how we present our racing to the audience.
Normally we only race for ourselves and we do not think so much about it.
It's long days and often when we get to the end of the day when the best are racing audience have gone home. :-|

The biggest audience though is the ones who will look at a Webcast or a TV-production.
Webcast being a bit more loose and with TV-production being very strict and controlled timewise.

Those of you who have tried either Webcasting or TV broadcasting you events knows what it takes.
There has been a need to think through our racing format for these cases.

- We have only two classes. Men and Women.
- We have only one discipline per day.
- We have the luxary of having many days.
- We have an initial practice day for all to come in place with no stress.

- GS: We have a race format giving more racing for all.
- GS: We will try and produce mid times for the GS racing.
We have made this effort to bring some more exitement into a webcasted Giant Slalom race that can be a bit difficiult with many long single runs.
- GS: We will have also have Semis and Finals. Raced in order from slowest to fastest.

- Dual: We have a race format giving more racing for all outside of the top 8.
- Dual: Top 8 race as a normal H2H and not affected of the extra racing for place 9 and up.
- Dual: We give the chance for racers outside of Top 8 to have a more accurate placing.
Top 9 and up will be in a "Semi Qualification" with possiblility to better their placements by single placement steps.
And paired with a racers of the same level according to the two qualificaton runs.
Top 8 and up will not necessarily be stuck with the results from qualification.

- H2H: We have a lightened up the very stressful Semi and Third place/Finals racing in the H2H racing.
- We will have a H2H final Top 8 Men and Women intertwined. See detailed schema below.
This will ease up the top 4 Semi and Final part.
Giving some more time to top 4 racers having a breather while we still can keep up the action for the webcast.

This is how we have envisioned the racing at WSG.

- Giant Slalom
2 Qualification runs
1 Semi-final run. n racers ordered by results. Slowest to fastest.
1 Final run. Top 6 racers only.

- Duals (HS, TS Straight, TS Special)
2 Qualification runs
8 best riders directly in the H2H quarter final.
9 and up goes to the "Semi qualification".
2 Semi qualification runs
Racers ordered in heats by results. Slowest to fastest.
Number of heats may be limited depending on time situation.
If we are on time all racers will be able to run.
Top 8 H2H Final.
Women and Men (intertwined)

Detailed schedule




Q&A
There you have something to chew on during your travel.
You can ask questions here or in the chat.
I will try and gather all Q&A in this forum topic.

Note!
All original answered question posts will be deleted to keep it as compact as possible.
But the question text is always copied into the answer.
Questions may also come from the chat, e-mails or messages. That way all questions will be treated the same.

[Hans Koraeus]

In the GS, the third run is called a “semi-final”. Does that mean the first two times are thrown away? Or is it more like “best of three”?
If the first two times are thrown away and everyone makes the semifinals, then what is the incentive to do well in the first two runs? Why waste your energy?

See it as a third qualification run. It is called Semi due to possibility to cut down the field id needed. All previous run times are counted.

The same goes for the Finals. All previous time counts.

Additional comment concerning "GS final" in general.
But you could imaging a version for the GS final where you actually run from scratch. With few racers (6) running at the same time it could be more fair having the final from scratch giving that the finalists will then all get the same weather conditions for their final run. But for WSG the idea is to count all 4 runs for the finals as well and we hope that weather conditions are fair. If we see coming to the finals that times in the morning are all much faster than in the late afternoon we might have to have a riders meeting about it. The leader(s) will of course tend to want to count the faster runs in the morning so maybe we have to decide if this option is possible or not before hand. So we might need to discuss this a bit and get some input from all of you riders also.

If we decide to have the option to run the GS finals from scratch then that would be a descision from the event judge committee. To be officially announced before the race.

[Lynn Kramer]

Sounds fun!
It would be best to keep all times because the rules clearly state “fastest run or two in two or more runs.” There isn’t a provision for a finals in a single lane race. While we want to be exciting to the spectators, One week before Worlds isn’t the place to start changing it all up.


Have you given consideration to the semifinal cut being percentage based? EG: On a 30 second run, a racer would need a 34.5 second time to advance?
Or, just have a two run quail and a two run final. Best time of quails gets you to the final, then best time of two final runs places?
Thinking ahead.

[Jani Soderhall]

Due the to nature of this being a World Skate event, a new set of rules have been developed, but due to the lengthy process of approval, you will only discover them on site. But no worries. We tried sticking to the usual ISSA rules, but we wanted to tweak it a bit but not adding any potentially negative surprise. Just adding more possibilities for more runs for those outside of the top cut.

[Hans Koraeus]

Sounds fun!
It would be best to keep all times because the rules clearly state “fastest run or two in two or more runs.” There isn’t a provision for a finals in a single lane race. While we want to be exciting to the spectators, One week before Worlds isn’t the place to start changing it all up.


Have you given consideration to the semifinal cut being percentage based? EG: On a 30 second run, a racer would need a 34.5 second time to advance?
Or, just have a two run quali and a two run final. Best time of qualis gets you to the final, then best time of two final runs places?
Thinking ahead.

Sorry we did not have time to discuss this more before the GS race. As you know we decided in the last minute to make the final fourth run for the 6 best from scratch. I.e. not counting run 1-3 There were not much voices raised from the racers and maybe they did not really understand what we were talking about. :-| The weather conditions was a bit variable and wind came and went all the time. We believe that our decision was not very good concerning this looking back. We thought we were doing it more fair but probably made it more unfair in reality. Luckily the leaders after run 3 made good runs in the final run as well so nothing changed there. The most fair would have been to count all 4 runs as first was planned. The positive thing though was that it became a very exciting final. But we will have to think this through better if wanting to run from scratch like we did. With variable wind it's better counting all 4 runs. Running from scratch is only an option if nobody seems to be able to beat their earlier run times when coming into the afternoon. And I don't think that was the case.