Combining age groups
Comments about this discussion:
Started
Section 1C.7.2 Combining age groups says:
"Male age groups and female age groups are never combined"
but 9D.4 Categories says:
"If there are less than three females or less than three males overall, the male and female categories may be merged."
I personally agree with 1C.7.2 that male and female age groups should not be combined. This section suggests that the smallest age group could be merged to its smallest neighbouring age group (whether up or down). So therefore I would suggest to remove the mentioned part from 9D.4.
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*This section suggests that the smallest age group could be merged to its smallest neighbouring age group if necessary.
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Agreed
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I personally agree with 1C.7.2 as well.
Age groups would depend on the results of the other discussion group. I think there is a strong point not to merge junior/senior age groups whether that's 15+ or 16+.
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Oooh yes thanks for pointing that out Marie. I strongly suggest to never merge junior/adult age groups!
If there is only one junior rider, they should get a reward for that. They are the only one having the courage to compete, they win! This gives motivation.
Having them compete against adult riders will kill their motivation.
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Clarifying question. Does the merging of categories mentioned in section 9D.4 refer to merging male and female categories for awards, or for the prelims and battles as a whole?
At NAUCC 2015 we merged the advanced male and expert female flatland categories as there were only 3 riders signed up for female flat. Everyone battled together, but awards were given to the top 3 male and top 3 female riders. This was done in discussion with the chief judge and riders, who decided that it would be more fun to have the chance to battle a larger group of folks rather than be in just a pool of 3 people. I think this would be beneficial to keep as an option, if deemed appropriate for the event and everyone consents to the combination.
I do agree with 1C.7.2 that male and female categories should not be combined in terms of awards given, and definitely that junior and adult categories should never be merged.
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I believe the section suggests to merge categories for everything (prelims, battles, awards). As for me, I agree with all of you, that female and male categories should not be merged, and I also agree that junior and expert categories are also better to keep separate, even if there are less than 5 or even less than 3 competitors. As Ian said, just because they are the only competitors in their category, it does not mean that their performance should not be valued appropriately - and if we are merging them to an older age group it will probably lower their chances to rank high.
In general it is an important question to discuss (not only for Flatland actually, but for other disciplines too) what to do if there is only 1 or 2 competitors in an age group. 1C7.2 says that at least 3 competitors are required to run an age group, and 6 is recommended. In my opinion I agree that it is better to award riders even if they are a single competitor in their age group - BUT maybe merge them into another age group for competing.
Though I have mixed feelings about combining age groups for the competition too (and have separate awards). On one hand I see it can help with event flow and could be a better experience for the riders as they have a bigger group to do battles with - but I also think that it can be a starting ground for protests too (whether officially filed or not).
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If there is at least two riders in an age group, there could battle it out between them. It would at least give them some kind of competition.
For Flatland they could go for a quick (maybe shorter) prelim just to settle who get's to decide the starting order for a battle, then have a final battle.
For Street a short prelim could decide the starting order also, with the better rider going last, and then also have a final.
If there is only one rider we have a problem. Either they just do a run and get their medal (this would be really sad to be honest) or they join another category, but as Mark said this brings some difficulties with it. It would be theoretically possible that they kick out some other rider who would have advanced further so it could skew the results in that category.
Any ideas how to solve that issue? If not I would actually prefer the option to have them do a run and automatically let them win their category.
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I think there should be no merging, regardless of number of entries. If it's just one junior rider, then they are still the best junior rider.
In terms of competition format, I would probably not do prelims if there is less than 3 riders in a category. Just have a final, saves time. But what are other people's thoughts on this?
In terms of just one rider, they just do a prelim I think and unfortunately that's it.
This is if we speak of UNICON. I think at a local competition you can always decide to go against IUF rules. For example, we did self-judging in UK (creating placing points out of absolute scores) as we did not have any qualified judges and I joined the male riders for the prelims and battles. But obviously I took someone else's spot in the battles in that moment, which could be problematic at UNICON. So I don't think this should be in the rulebook.
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The prelim could still happen at the time of the battles of the other categories though.
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One more thing that I just realised:
Could someone who is also in the Street committee share the things in our discussion that are applicable to Street as well?
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There are no members in the Street committee, that aren't here as well. If we agree on this we can just do a proposal there as well.
To move this along, I would propose to change it something like this for Flatland:
- Categories should never be merged.
- Minimum amount of riders to do a category lowered to 1.
- If there is only one rider they do a Prelim run during Finals of the other categories.
- If there is 2-4 riders they do a Prelim run as well to settle seading for Finals but all of them advance. (this will not account for too much time in Prelims, but since it might affect junior categories more often, I would like them to have a run before Battles to have that experience as well and to get into riding in front of an audience if they have never done that) If it's 3 riders, the lower two Prelim runs have a semi final, the best one is set for Final.
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@Mark, you will need to submit this proposal, since you started the discussion.
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Although I've just seen that this would change the same paragraph of the rulebook as the new age groups, so let's leave this here and we'll just propose it together with the age groups then I guess.
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I agree with the points Ian, thanks for setting them.
One question though: 1C.7.2 Combining Age Groups says the following: "In a competition with more than 50 riders, six riders are needed to complete an age
group."
So there would be a clash between different parts of the Rulebook unless we change this part too.
Maybe @Connie could give us advice on this?