Trials Finals when there are few competitors (Closed for comments)
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12D.11 Final
In this rule it says that the minimum number of riders for a finals is 6. However, it never says anything about what happens if there are fewer than 6 competitors. For example, at NAUCC there are typically fewer than 6 females who compete in the advanced category. This year, there were only 3. And because there weren't enough for finals the females didn't have finals and so there was no North American Female Trials champion despite there being female competitors.
I would suggest amending the rule to have something like, "If there are fewer than six competitors in the highest level category, no final is necessary. The results from the prelims will be taken as the final results and the top rider will be declared the champion."
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Yes please, totally agree with that!
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Yes that is better
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What about ties in qualif with less than 6 people?
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All categories have to follow the tie break rules in 12D.12 Tie Breaking. The way it is written it seems to apply to everything, even age groups.
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Totally agree with the idea.
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Yes we discuss that before Unicon and in real live there is often no finals in that situation so YES, lets embed it clear in the rules to stopp any discussion. I would maybe add that in case of a clear result in qualification where the Top 3 riders has at least 3 or more lines between them won't require a finals. It is still possible then to do one but not needed by force.
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Okay it sounds like we have a consensus on my point.
As to Olaf's point, what do people think? We could leave it up to host discretion?
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Patricia would you create a proposal from your discussion?
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I can't find the button to create a proposal from this discussion. I'm guessing it's because I am a non-voting member for this discipline. Emile, would you be willing to make it? I think all that's needed is to take the old rule and add the part I have in quotations in my first comment.
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I see the proposal now but I don't think it target the issue completely. It siply talk about less then 6 riders which is not the main factor for finals from my opinion. The number of 6 is written in the rule and it also leads to the proposal but in reality the finalist group should always be a group which is very close together by points. Once there is a bigger gap between a rider and the rider on the next place, I never see that this rider had any chance in the finals. I often see constilations like:
1st 68 pt, 2nd 67 pt, 3rd 67 pt, 4rd 66 pt, 5th 65 pt, 6th 59 pt (here you have 6 riders while 6th has hardly any chance to beat the others in the final, often he dont manage any finals obstacle, only 5 riders should do the finals.
1st 68 pt, 2nd 67 pt, 3rd 67 pt, 4rd 66 pt, 5th 65 pt, 6th 65 pt, 7th 65 pt, 8th 64 pt, 9th 58 pt (here 8 rider join the finals).
For the femal riders it looks simmilar, as long as they are very close together, finals can make sense even for 4 rider. If there are big gaps between them, finals dont make sense even they are 6 riders.
Finals was created to make the sport much more attractive and understandable for the audience and also to provide the top rider a plattform to show their skills which they deserve. This went out well and riders and audience like finals a lot. In a perfect final run its highly exciting to see any riders fight on any lines on a very close level. Nobody wnat to see riders there that manage not one obstacle at all and its also no fun for the rider to manage not one of the lines.
While I wrote all this I realise that the new point system wich change the possibility, to find the right gap for the finalist group, a lot and will make it also even more different fro female riders (which is one thing im ambivalent about the point system rule). However, the proposal for finals don't fix the issue realy from my opinion.
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The main issue I wanted to address with this proposal was small competitions, or competitions where perhaps there are a lot of males (and they need a final) but there are almost no females. I think this proposal addresses that issue.
However, I agree with Olaf. But I think that we need to wait and see what happens with the points proposal and then this would be a separate discussion. I think it makes sense to continue with this proposal for now.
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It looks like the point proposal is going to pass. How can we continue here?
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I would like to get rid of the number 6 while keeping tge option to have no finals if it is useless. We can vote for the existing proposal and do a new one or change the existing one. In any case Patricias main Idea is right and a change is needed.