Vkcmikey says
by banning 2/3/4 races it doesn't then improve div1 races. It will reduce the number of people entering the sport
. I couldn't agree more.
It is harder now to get newcomers into the sport, we have to compete against other sports who have moved to make entry level competion easier and more fun. Slalom, on the other hand is in a vicious downward spiral of fewer events - fewer new entrants - fewer supportive parents - fewer events. Niel H's 2010 survey listed 60 - yes
60 - venues that have been lost from the calendar. The SW has pretty much gone (only Frome left), South (only Winchester), SE (soon only Sheppy events), London has nowt, for slalom LV is the white elephant some predicted. John Kent is absolutely right - for us the screaming priority right now is to have some sort of accessible calendar at the lower divisions. All the debates about the finer points of course complexity/ paddler competence/ points/ divisions are obviously valid, but they distract us from the real crisis and sometimes even make things worse (this whole D2/3/4 debate is an example).
Here are the maveric views of a duffer who stumbled into paddling in his 50's and never got anywhere...
1. The whole issue of trying to set
minimum water levels for each division misses the point. There should be NO prescribed minimum water level at ANY division. Even on a mill pond, to get a 1000 points you have to beat the best of the rest. Fact. We're not competing against the river, we're trying to beat the other bastards over the same bit of water. Yup, some levels
may favour some paddlers but man up, deal with it. Anyway, didn't I read that a D1 on Serpents Tail didn't raise any surprises? So, if a D1 is scheduled at Shepp, then on the day the water is disappointingly flat, hey-ho. Race anyway. Set the course as best you can and it's 1000 pts to the winner.
Just to be clear, I DO feel that the calendar should be set so that promotion can't be achieved without a high score on at least a couple of courses that promise to be a tad frisky, but if on the day they are not, DON'T CANCEL
2. On the other hand the MAXIMUM levels at each division should be set. No value in scaring the crap out of the parents at their precious kid's first D4. So I like the idea of giving guideline "
expected" gradings to different venues (which will vary across the season so should be published with the details on the calendar). Forewarned is forearmed.
3. If newly promoted kids turn up at HPP or wherever and the water's obviously going to be too big for them, that's a matter for their coach, their parents, their club. It's not a matter for the race organsisers or the slalom committee. Go away, get some coaching and come back when you are ready. Go and do some judging at your previous division if you need more development. Go and buy some time on the Legacy course, or run some rivers somewhere. In the meantime just race at events in your division that have "expected" water gradings you can handle, knowing that you will progress but won't get enough points to be promoted. Next year, eh?
4. Bracketted events - 2/3/4 0r 2/3 or 3/4 - are essential. It was OK in the good ol' days to expect competitors to drive distances and camp. Nowadays most racers are under 17 and the parents are the taxi drivers. Parents have kids spanning all these divisions (sometimes more).I've had promising kids switch to
golf (!!!) after half a season in D2, their parents couldn't hack the headaches of dragging younger siblings around the country without them also having a paddling opportunity.
5. For the same reasons as above, we need lots more
local events. Right now there is only ONE D2 event south of London, even that nearly went in the 2010 kerfuffle.
I'd say we need to promote D3/4s,D2/3s, D1/2s and certainly embrace D2/3/4s as well. If there were more of them locally the travel prob would disappear. So the need for events to be doubles would also be much less - but that also means that only a smaller set-up effort is justified. My paradise would be coaching early Sat morning, a single D4 late Saturday morning, a single D3 Saturday afternoon (include promotees from the morning), then on Sunday a single D2/3 on a harder course using more of whatever water features we have.
6. Change the regs so D3/4 races are even easier and faster to set up. The max rigging effort should be 2 hours for one car-load of volunteers. Not a full Friday for two van-loads. Obviously don't change the regs for D2/3, these are a step up. For a Sunday D2/3 we can use lumps of the previous day's D3/4, there will be plenty of people around to upgrade the course during Saturday prizegiving.
7. I really don't see the probs in D4 courses missing gates from a D3 setting. Or use alternative gates. We've done it and the paddlers all remembered (with a few yells from the bank) that they didn't have to try that cross or this break-out. Dave Waine ran a brill D3/4 event this way at Sheppy with 4 sluices roaring. Nobody drowned.
Oh. I could go on and on. "You already have" I hear you say.