Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

I'm afraid that I don't think that your idea would work Dee. Unfortunately the nature of river hydrology in the UK means that most of them go up and down like sinks with the plug constantly put in and removed. This is true even more in the summer when the slalom season takes place than in the winter, and as a river runner I have personal experience of how difficult it can be to get river levels right even then. A river that is at spate level on a Saturday can back down to a normal summer level by the Monday. Thus a four week lead time on a final decision for an event is not going to guarantee water levels. The decision would have to be made within a week of an event - not a sustainable position for either the event organisers or competitors.

I guess i'm getting old and grumpy about the fact its possible to get to prem without ever getting your BA wet!

BaldockBabe wrote:
Im not sure why the no Div 2/3/4 seems to be a "surprise". I wasn't at last years ACM but during the previous ones it was stated that it would not be allowed and Cardington was warned. They were the last one to be phased out to give them time to sort it out. Other clubs have had to deal with it without the warning.

Having used some google foo i can not find this in an of the ACM or other meeting minutes. can you help? also where are the rules for a short course? can find them on here or in my quick look through a year book.

Page 52 of the year book (Division 4 Slaloms)

Page 52 is the div 4 rules and no mention of a "short course"
so this "short course" doesn't exist. its just the div four rules which means we have been running it to the rules. we can run a "SC" with all the gates and it meets the rules!

Vkcmikey wrote:

BaldockBabe wrote:
Im not sure why the no Div 2/3/4 seems to be a "surprise". I wasn't at last years ACM but during the previous ones it was stated that it would not be allowed and Cardington was warned. They were the last one to be phased out to give them time to sort it out. Other clubs have had to deal with it without the warning.

Having used some google foo i can not find this in an of the ACM or other meeting minutes. can you help? also where are the rules for a short course? can find them on here or in my quick look through a year book.

Unfortunately it seems to have fallen in the "there was a long discussion surrounding the proposed calendar" section (6) in the 2010 minutes (which was the last meeting I was at). The discussion regarding Llandysul Div 1 was also in that category - I know for a fact that was brought up as I was one of the ones who did bring it up! However, the rep (or the person holding the vote for Viking - iirc Jim) should have also passed it on.

pg52 in the rule book is quite clear that div 4 courses have to be a minimum of 12 gates long 4 of which must be upstreams!

Given that the standard course is 18-25 gates, 6 or 7 of which must be upstreams, the div 4 short course is implied; which to me is quite obviously telling people that there are going to be few more than 12 gates (given that you could have a 25 gate div 4 course).

It would be good to just accept that no single course is adequately challenging for a spread of 3 divisions! Time and effort would be better spent promoting the sport more in the local area and then hosting more div 4 events encouraging people to get further up the ladder in the sport, instead of bickering on a forum about an event that really shouldn't have 3 divisions attend. If an event isn't particularly well attended then questions should be asked of the venue with regard to when it is hosted in relation to other events. E.g. does it clash with another event of the same division(s), is it suitably challenging for that division!? The features of a div 4 are that they are easier, cheaper and quicker to run than a normal event, so we should be putting more effort into growing the grass roots layer and the divisional system will sort itself out later! That will take a couple of years to happen.

Is there scope within the rules to simply run a 2/3 alongside a 4 on the same course but the 4 misses out several of the harder gates?

Tangent - In light of the awesome Olympic success at LV, is there likely to be a review of the use of new artificial courses at Div 1?
I recall the debate over costs etc and conscious that it has been touched on before, are Cardiff or LV and I note the comment about possible use of Tees in 2013, ever gonna feature?
I know there are purists who support the use of natural courses, of which we have some good ones, and so do I.
But it seems that those great facilities would be a shame to stand idle.
I don't know how many course on the international stage are artificial, or natural for that matter.
Interested to hear the views of others as always,

James Hastings wrote:In my view, Cardington is not, never has been, and never should be, a division 2 standard slalom course

A paddler from Yorkshire. A county where there are more events than anywhere else. Come down South and you'd be a lot less picky.

roodthomas wrote:It would be good to just accept that no single course is adequately challenging for a spread of 3 divisions! Time and effort would be better spent promoting the sport more in the local area and then hosting more div 4 events encouraging people to get further up the ladder in the sport, instead of bickering on a forum about an event that really shouldn't have 3 divisions attend. If an event isn't particularly well attended then questions should be asked of the venue with regard to when it is hosted in relation to other events. E.g. does it clash with another event of the same division(s), is it suitably challenging for that division!? The features of a div 4 are that they are easier, cheaper and quicker to run than a normal event, so we should be putting more effort into growing the grass roots layer and the divisional system will sort itself out later! That will take a couple of years to happen.

Well that's OK then. I'd never have thought of that.

You have no idea.

roodthomas wrote:promoting the sport more...

Do you think we don't do that?

Who are these people who argue against bracketed events? Do they race in the lower divisions? Do they coach paddlers in the lower divisions? Where they get all trained up and nowhere to race. Has this been thought through?

We've already lost Loddon. It looks like we've lost Cardington as well now. There aren't many left.

Look. I totally agree that some events are easy. But easy events are much better than no events.

I think the expensive courses is a separate issue and certainly not for the committee to decide. Clubs are free to propose an event. Teesside was cancelled this year due to cost, we simply couldn't make the maths work and a club cannot chose to run an event knowing that all the effort that goes into organising it is going to be costing them a great deal of money too.

A lot of work has gone into getting Teesside in the calendar and it will run in 2013. As for the other events, if the management aren't willing to negotiate a price that is at least break even, they simply can't run. The issue with div 1 is the requirement of practice, so an additional amount if time to be pumped.

Also, I din't think that there can be too much of an arguement about division 2 representing a much more skilful paddlers ability that the novice division. I agree that the water doesn't have to provide the challenge, but I don't believe that a 2/3/4 can challenge all abilities yet provide a suitable start for the beginners. We have run a sc div 4 alongside a 2/3 event where div 4s start at gate 6 or 7. The most challenging section is therefore removed for the div 4s. Nene does this same thing too, can cardington not? Logistically this hasn't proved too difficult as you don't need to use tutti for timing, we just use a stop watch, proteus time and judge at the winter slaloms with a stop watch, I don't think that it is too difficult a situation to remedy.

On the flip side of this though, should the acm not be consulted on this? I'm still a bit of a learner on the old slalom politics!

Perhaps you can run Cardington as a div 2/3 with a sc div 4 where the short course is actually all of the gates. I would also run the div 4 in two parts, part 1 after the 1st runs and part 2 after the 2nd runs. The upshot of this is that you cannot mix other classes in - ie no C2's out of sequence because of boat sharing.

Hi Jeff,
That's what we do at the moment, both div 4 runs need to be after completion of the 2/3 runs. I.e. totally separate event.

For the last couple of years I have run the West Lothian Canoe Club slalom at Fairnilee. When our application for a 2/3/4 slalom in 2013 was rejected it was a bit of a surprise. Before I go any further it's worth noting that I'm speaking from experience at Fairnilee and I don't have too much knowledge of other div4 venues.

We've not had a problem with running a div4 before, and we always bear our competitors in mind when setting up the course. I think we're really lucky with our venue as I can't recall there being any issues when validating our course for divisions 2, 3 and 4. In previous years we have actually discussed scrapping div4 but never got round to it, mainly to help ensure that newbies have as many ways as possible into our sport (especially given how few div4 events there are in Scotland). We've been running the same slalom for many years now, and I'm surprised that this is the first time div4 at Fairnilee has been raised as an issue.

I'm sure it's possible to run a short course but it would inevitably end up using the main feature - the tiny chute we call horseshoe fall - which makes me wonder what the advantage of said short course would be? Our thoughts are that we get such a small number of div4 entries that it hardly seems worth the hassle which would be involved. In my understanding a short course is very poorly defined so we can skip a couple of gates and call it a short course.

I have asked that the decision is reviewed and that they allow us to run a double 2/3/4 in 2013, as we have for many years now. I invited someone from the committee to visit our 2013 event to see what they make of it. It seems my plea fell on deaf ears. If anything this should be a venue-specific rule, rather than a one-size-fits-all.

I would expect the SCA/ BCU to be encouraging div4 wherever possible, instead of making it harder for us to run them. What will happen to the number of competitors in other divisions if we don't provide enough opportunities for people to enter into the sport...? The number of div4 venues in Scotland can be counted on one hand.

I'm glad I got that off my chest...


Andy