Limitation of racers for an event

[Hans Koraeus]

Jadranko just mentioned an interesting topic elsewhere that I have waited for since I started the rankings. Sooner or later with the growth of the slalom skateboard scene there might be need for a way to limit racers at an event. This will probably first happen for the most popular events having high statuses.

To be able to make a good event for everyone there is a limit somewhere of how many racers that is acceptable. What limit to use is hard to say and may vary dependning on race time, number of disciplines, number of classes and format. So the limit will probably be something that the organizer decides. But there could be rules of how to handle situations where a limit is needed.

It's normal that some perhaps may not be allowed to enter a World Championship for example. It even sounds very trivial and could even be good for the sport itself. When people come to see a World Championship or another high status/international competition and you see some beginners in the course... how good is that. That is why a high status event is not always maybe what you want to aim for as an organizer.

When slalom gets really big maybe only one class (a pro class) will be used for the most important events of the year. Am's and rookies would be guided to events with more suitable level of skaters. Seems logical too in the world of sports.

The idea I have had is to use the World Ranking as guideline when setting limit of numbers of racers. A higher ranking gives a place in the event before a lower ranking. This could be used at least until 1 month before the competition. After that if there are places left it could be open to everyone. This is only needed for events where a high status might trigger a lot of people that want to come.

I think this could work but there are some funny situations that could occur. What if there is a limit of 50 pro racers and 50 am racers. There are 60 pros wanting to come so the 10 pro racers with the lowest ranking can't enter. But a lot of much "slower" racers in the am class can. Is this fair? Maybe not or maybe. Even as a pro racer you might have to start collecting points at lower status event to be able to qualify to the very highest class events. And if you can't make it maybe you should go back to the Am class again?

Some day there will be need for setting a limit at some events. Because of too many racers or to just make sure a certain minimum skill level of skaters is made.

Just wanted to hear if there are any thoughts out there on this subject.

[Donald Campbell]

interesting thoughts on a growing sport,corky.
one thing though:
lets say the pro field f.e. is limited to 30 entrants,am the same.
this means that all of the aforementioned racers that qualified in the ranking should attend that certain race.
the question is:will they all come?
that might be impossible as we all know,so the system has to show a certain flexibility which also comes with earlier registratons,which are also needed in order to make this thing work.
next point is:what if an amateur decides to go pro?
he will start in nowhereland-got it?

[YOYO SHULTZ]

Is Slalom really growing that much that we need to decides who's going to race?
It's mainly the older guys that get back into the sport......growing: Yes, but not too much young blood coming in.
Drop the entry fees for the Juniors for example; ok that's another topic.

Of course, as in other sports, the World should have some kind of standard, otherwise some hillbilly who can barely ride his deck through the course will enter.

[Jani Soderhall]

I don't have a solution, but I can add my 2 cents to the discussion.

Yes, I believe it will be good to limit participation in certain cases. High class events should have mostly high level racers, it'll be better for the show. It will also make those events more desirable, but maybe more importantly it will make other events even more important, because lower ranked racers have to go there first to gain their points to enter the bigger events.

- Paris has never had a juniors class. I don't think it's the right location for a juniors discipline. Other organizers decide for themselves.

- Each organizer should always be allowed to "invite" or decide to add a few non-ranked racers "wild cards", either based on some criteria, but more likely completely open.

- Local racers should be given a (slightly) larger number of places than other regions/nations.


The limit to number of participants should be high anyway.
Setting a limit at 50 pros, 50 ams, means that all pros will always be welcome, so it's probably not a good idea. Probably 30-40 pros and 50 ams is the good level. Add the women to that and the total number of participants would be around 100. That's probably about the largest size that's doable in a comfortable way.

Women, no limit of course, the more the better!

/Jani

[Hans Koraeus]

I have always had in mind something like what they use in some high status golf tournaments. Take the Masters (Augusta, USA) for example. All golfers in the world want to play it so they have to have rules to filter out the lucky/skilled players. This is what they use:

The Masters Committee, at its discretion, also invites international players not otherwise qualified.

1. Masters Tournament Champions (Lifetime)
2. US Open Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
3. British Open Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
4. PGA Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 5 years)
5. Winners of The Players Championship (3 years)
6. Current US Amateur Champion (6-A) (Honorary, non-competing after 1 year) and the runner-up (6-B) to the current US Amateur Champion
7. Current British Amateur Champion (Honorary, non-competing after 1 year)
8. Current US Amateur Public Links Champion
9. Current US Mid-Amateur Champion for 2005
10. The first 16 players, including ties, in the 2005 Masters Tournament
11. The first 8 players, including ties, in the 2005 US Open Championship
12. The first 4 players, including ties, in the 2005 British Open Championship
13. The first 4 players, including ties, in the 2005 PGA Championship
14. The 40 leaders on the Final Official PGA Tour Money List for 2005
15. The 10 leaders on the Official PGA Tour Money List published during the week prior to the 2006 Masters Tournament.
16. The 50 leaders on the Final Official World Golf Ranking for 2005.
17. The 50 leaders on the Official World Golf Ranking published during the week prior to the 2006 Masters Tournament

Maybe for slalom World Ranking high status events it could be:

The Event Committee, at its discretion, also invites international racers not otherwise qualified. Can be added on top of the racer limit that is set.

Number of allowed racers in each class (Pro/Am/Women/Juniors) are decided by the event organizer but minimum limit should be...
Major: Pro 40, Am 50 (minimum 90 racer limit)
Main: Pro 32, Am 40 (minimum 72 racer limit)
Prime: Pro 16, Am 32 (minimum 48 racer limit)

The higher the status you have, the minimum amount of racers you must be able to handle, is larger.

- If more racers than the limit use this to filter out racers:
1. Event Tournament Champions (Lifetime)
2. Major Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 4 years)
3. Main Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 4 years)
4. Prime Champions (Honorary, non-competing after 2 year)
5. The first 16 racers, including ties, in the previous years event
6. The first 8 racers, including ties, in the current years Majors
7. The first 4 racers, including ties, in the current years Mains
8. The first 2 racers, including ties, in the current years Primes
9. The 16 leaders on the last years Final Official American Cup
10. The 16 leaders on the last years Final Official European Cup
11. The 32 leaders on the last years Final Official World Ranking
12. The first 8 racers, including ties, in the before previous years event
13. The first 8 racers, including ties, in the previous years Majors
14. The first 4 racers, including ties, in the previous years Mains
15. The first 2 racers, including ties, in the previous years Primes
16. According to the Official World Ranking published 1 month prior to the event

[Chris Favero]

the masters?that is the most exclusive golf club in the states that has no women members and prolly no minorities in there also,oh wait,i think there is a catholic.not a good example.to me slalom is inclusive,not facist.cfav

[Vincent Berruchon]

I'm happy to read about this because it's one of the issues we are debating these days inside Riderz and the federation.

Just think about Giant slalom race day:
100 competitors
~60 seconds course

Two training runs by competitor : 90s by training run
Two race runs to get your times, let's say you need 2mn 30s = 150s per run to:
call the racer, let him prepare, start, ~ 50/70s to race, check and count cones with judges, write the time and cones, put hitted cones back, check course is OK
> > total= 4 x 100 runs

Total time : 200 * 90s + 200 * 150s = 48000s = 800mn = 13h20mn

Perhaps 150s per run is too much if you have a perfect organisation but you know that you'll ever loose time somewhere. You'll see that 100 racers is a lot anyway and it take a lot of time!

In Gruningen there was at least 90 racers and the days were very long!
So organisers have to keep that in mind and rules can help, but if we set rules try to keep them flexible and adaptative.

[Marty Schaub]

CFav,

Good gawd....All Corky did was use the Masters seeding module as a comparitive template to build an idea. To suggest anything otherwise is a dis-service to what Corky is working toward.

If you feel so strongly about what a Good Ol Boy network the folks at the Masters have, then complain to them. Come to Augusta and picket, do whatever besides blast away at Corky for what you perceive as a negative situation completely beyond what his intentions were.

Give him a FREAK(ing) break.

[Chris Favero]

yea marty .you are right.i retract my post,blame it on the french(wine).cfav

[alavoine jean paul]

There's nothing wrong with a glass of good Champagne( La Veuve Cliquot, Pol Roger...) and guess what? IT'S FRENCH!

[Hans Koraeus]

Ok, I'm back again. Couldn't help laugh about your response Chris so don't worry, I didn't take it bad.

I just saw that Texas Sizzler is setting limit at 64 persons. Sooner or later with a growing slalom event scene we will have this cut problem. Normally you could say it's up to the organizer to settle this but when there are worldranking points involved there has to be fair rules of how to handle it. The higher the World Ranking status the more important it will be.

I have no idea of how my suggestion would work in real life. Maybe I could try it out on some events to see how the sort order of signed up riders would look like. Maybe Texas Sizzler would be a good first test object?

[John Gilmour]

I'm happy to read about this because it's one of the issues we are debating these days inside Riderz and the federation.

Just think about Giant slalom race day:
100 competitors
~60 seconds course

Two training runs by competitor : 90s by training run
Two race runs to get your times, let's say you need 2mn 30s = 150s per run to:
call the racer, let him prepare, start, ~ 50/70s to race, check and count cones with judges, write the time and cones, put hitted cones back, check course is OK
> > total= 4 x 100 runs

Total time : 200 * 90s + 200 * 150s = 48000s = 800mn = 13h20mn

Perhaps 150s per run is too much if you have a perfect organisation but you know that you'll ever loose time somewhere. You'll see that 100 racers is a lot anyway and it take a lot of time!

In Gruningen there was at least 90 racers and the days were very long!
So organisers have to keep that in mind and rules can help, but if we set rules try to keep them flexible and adaptative.

In ts with course times being so short often 10-25 seconds it isn't so much an issue.

For the Giant GIANT slalom fields...... we might have to go to a different type of cone. Criddling in GS isn't as crucial as in GS (though Kenny Mollica has made some great rear heel GS criddles- yeah Kenny we all notice- I dig the gutsy move) so if we have a huge giant slalom field we might consider running people staggered in 10-15 second intervals (grouping similar speed racers together) .

Cone marshalls would be assigned 5 cones to watch and gates would have to be flags on flexible fiberglass poles that returned quckly after being hit.

Each cone marshall would report each racer cones on a laptop which shares a common page via wifi. The benefit of doing this is two fold.

1.Since similar racers race together they are nearly under identical wind conditions for most of the course.

2.In a 90 second course you could have the top 10 racers all race 10 seconds apart. That round finishes not in 15 minutes.... but in 3 minutes. But you likely want to toss the fastest guys down the hill first or start adding a few seconds to each guys gap so there is zero chance for overlap. I'll assume no one in the top 10 is going to eat it.