Races or Sunday promenades

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Hans Koraeus
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Post by Hans Koraeus » Thu Jun 26, 2003 10:10 pm

Head to head racing can be fun but also a waste of time. With the current system there are many heats that are of no interest for the audience and the skaters themselves. When the skill difference is too big between the racers it becomes more of a Sunday walk than a race.

Is there no way we could make it better? The current system 1-32 or 1-16 maybe works ok for other sports but I just get the feeling it doesn't give us the racing we want with skateboard slalom. I haven't done much Head to head racing myself but it was apparent for me after the Swizz race. Am I the only one feeling this or...? There must be other more interesting way of doing a head to head? I'm sure there is.

Bruce Brewington
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Post by Bruce Brewington » Thu Jun 26, 2003 10:54 pm

John Gilmour has extensively researched this question and has a number of ideas to make head-to-head racing more exciting as well as keeping the faster racers seeded higher. He used one of these ideas at last year's July 4th International Slalomboard event. He has discussed these in prior ncdsa.com posts, but I tried a quick search and couln't find it.

Howard Gordon
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Post by Howard Gordon » Fri Jun 27, 2003 12:30 am

At La Costa in 2001, Henry Hester created an "A pro" and "B pro" groups. The A pros were those who qualified 1-32, and the B pros qualified 33-64. He ran two separate elimination rounds, and the B pro finals ended up matching Hutson vs Skoldberg. It was great.

Must be a 18 months ago, Gilmour and I talked about a bracketing system which divides the qualified riders into groups of 7 or 8, so the bottom 8 would run head to head eliminations, with the winner moving up to the low spot in the next group of 8. Racing within each group would be much better matched, and therefore more interesting for the competitors. Only practical problem with that system is having to wait for riders to get back up to the top of the hill once you hit the round of 4 and round of 2.

Pat Chewning
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Post by Pat Chewning » Fri Jun 27, 2003 3:16 am

A discussion of bracketing alternatives (to make it more exciting than 1vs32 ... can be found under the "Random Slalom Topics/Double Standard"

viewtopic.php?topic=253&forum=43&13

In our race series in Portland Oregon, we are using a "ladder bracket" system which keeps all the racers going through to the end, and it does not match the best against the worst.

-- Pat

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