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Hello to all in the skim community. I am starting to blog our story, our thoughts on our sport, and any other useful information that I think we should be talking about. Please tune in often, I will try to produce something a few times a week at first.
– Tex
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TODAY: CONTEST CRITERIA
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- Decent venue, waves, parking, bathrooms, etc.
- 3 judges for Amateur, preferably older, more responsible, with some honor to lose if they fudge scores. If you are afraid of them not understanding the tricks, educate them. There is no substitute for age, experience and a sense of fairness. 5 judges for Pro heats, representing a wide range of manufacturers, and areas if possible. Head judge breaks tie decisions.
- There must be a priority system. He who has just gone has least priority. He who has waited longest has priority. Announcer calls this, head judge backs this up. If man with priority does not go, next in line may go, etc. Easy because announcer calls the situation as it occurs.
- Cut-off penalty is loss of highest scoring ride. By judge’s decision, after heat has finished. Contestants do not have to request a ruling.
- Riders must go left and right to get a decent score. Because we are testing the contestants to see who is best, the most versatile, the most skilled. 3 rides from one direction 2 from the other. Or 2 rides from one direction and 1 from the other. Anything less is not a good test of skills.
- Timer for contestants to see.
- Judges area is either up above crowd, or separated from crowd, but all together so information may be shared if rides are missed. Spreading out judges in two areas hinders communication and is too open to second guessing by the bystanders. There must be a head judge.
- There must be an announcer. He must be upbeat, complimentary, promote the sponsors and minimize the team affiliations comments, so it is less of a commercial. He should announce a possible interference when he sees it.
- Live scoring is nice, but final results should not be revealed until judges have concurred there were no interference problems.
- Man on man heats are great for the judges, but far less exciting for the spectators. It is far more of a certain outcome for two riders than for three and that keeps the excitement going.
- If a contest cannot meet these minimal standards, it should not be considered a major event.
- A major contest should have a pro field of at least 20 pros.
- A contest series should kept local enough for all the contestants to be able to afford to attend.
- A decent contest series could include the Vic, The Oktoberfest (with improvements), and one other. Preferably in LA or Santa Cruz. Although I consider the Santa Cruz to be too small in number of contestants and too understaffed (Older judges needed) to be qualified. Judges should be hired, $200 per weekend. Judges are the key.
- The winners of the regional contest series, West Coast, East Coast, Hawaii, Mexico, Australia, Japan, Chile, would be invited to a World Championships in a revolving location hopefully as geographically centrally located as possible.
- It would be nice if all contests had waiting periods of one week. However this may not be possible.
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