Once Women's Match Racing was confirmed as an Olympic event for the London 2012 Games, ISAF and organisers of the Sailing World Cup competitions have tried hard to integrate this very different form of sailing into the more normal fleet racing programme. A laudable objective helping to make the WMR athletes feel part of the event.
However, anomalies do occur. An interesting example would be the use of Starndard Penalties - an increasingly used innovation where Protest Committees refer to a list of specified rules breaches and associated penalties, some of which can even be imposed on athletes without a hearing by the Race Committee. In itself this is a great scheme as infringements and their associated penalties become standardised and consistency between different decisions and between events increases dramatically, a big improvement for competitors and spectators alike.
Though there are pit-falls; here in Weymouth & Portland there are designated Competition Areas, bounded by lines of buoys. There is a Standard Penalty for straying outside this boundaries, a penalty of 3 points can be imposed by the Race Committee without a hearing. This of course all sounds very reasonable, to a fleet racer .......... if you are a match racer having 3 points deducted is equivalent of being disqualified in three races, rather over the top by anyone's view!
This got me thinking - a dangerous situation I know! What about the difference between the 49er fleets and the others? The former race an Opening Series of 15 races and the latter only 10, thus the 49er athletes race 50% more. So the impact of a 3 point penalty is very different. Indeed an athlete with a high score is impacted less than an athlete with a lower score ........ should we go to penalties based on a percentage of an athletes score? If so which score, the one at the time of the infringement or their final score?
Comments?
However, anomalies do occur. An interesting example would be the use of Starndard Penalties - an increasingly used innovation where Protest Committees refer to a list of specified rules breaches and associated penalties, some of which can even be imposed on athletes without a hearing by the Race Committee. In itself this is a great scheme as infringements and their associated penalties become standardised and consistency between different decisions and between events increases dramatically, a big improvement for competitors and spectators alike.
Though there are pit-falls; here in Weymouth & Portland there are designated Competition Areas, bounded by lines of buoys. There is a Standard Penalty for straying outside this boundaries, a penalty of 3 points can be imposed by the Race Committee without a hearing. This of course all sounds very reasonable, to a fleet racer .......... if you are a match racer having 3 points deducted is equivalent of being disqualified in three races, rather over the top by anyone's view!
This got me thinking - a dangerous situation I know! What about the difference between the 49er fleets and the others? The former race an Opening Series of 15 races and the latter only 10, thus the 49er athletes race 50% more. So the impact of a 3 point penalty is very different. Indeed an athlete with a high score is impacted less than an athlete with a lower score ........ should we go to penalties based on a percentage of an athletes score? If so which score, the one at the time of the infringement or their final score?
Comments?
No comments:
Post a Comment