Outaouais Ski Zone Official’s Level II Case Studies 2011

1. Outaouais Ski Zone Official’s Level IICase Studies2011

2. Start List • You are the Race Administrator for Saturday’s J1 Provincial National Points List. • You downloaded the Points list from www.acapoints.caon Thursday, but to be safe you download another list at 5:00 before you leave for the 7:00 coaches meeting. • At the coaches meeting roll call is taken, you print off a points list and the draw is done electronically. • Coaches go wild. (Video available at www.coachesgonewild.com ) • There was an uncertified error in the points upload this week. Half the athletes have last week’s race included, half do not. • What options does the Jury have? What can you do to help?

3. Monitors? • K2 SL National Points Race. • Racer #3 completes their run and no racer follows. • Start Referee informs the Jury that there is a timing hold as the scoring system monitor has been fried. • The timing crew is reticent to continue until replacement monitor arrives. • What do you do? • The 2nd monitor explodes as well. Timers are beyond reticent. • What do you do now?

4. Gate Judges, What Gate Judges? • On a very cold day only 14 gate judges are available out of the 25 that had originally signed up, but the course contains 59 gates. • a) What should the Jury do? • b) Is there any change in the Jury’s approach to handling protests against DSQ’s? • c) What might the TD include in his report?

5. Conflict • You are the Referee and one of your club’s athletes has been DSQ’d. A colleague coach has filed a protest and a Jury meeting has been called to hear the protest. • The TD and COR inform you that you cannot participate in the Jury meeting due to your “conflict of interest”. • What are your considerations and what actions might you take?

6. Timer – An entity unto itself • The intervals have slowed and you find out that the Starter has been taking contrary directions from the timing crew. • When you ask the Starter to revert to your instructions the timing crew start to steam and explain that they are in charge because the COR is an idiot and so are you. This is broadcast over the Jury channel and the loudspeaker at the finish. • You can’t leave your station. • What to do?

7. Initial Timing Failure • After the forerunners had gone, racer #1 was started as usual but the start gate did not register a start. He had an excellent run but only hand time was available. The race was stopped and the problem fixed. An emergency Jury meeting was called to decide what to do. • Should the hand time be taken for all racers as there had been “total failure of the electric timing" for all racers so far? • Should the hand timing be taken for that one racer and electric for all the rest? • Should the race be started over with #1?

8. Who’s the Referee here anyway? • The Finish Referee, Finish Controller and Chief Timer saw a racer miss a gate and ski through two poles of a GS gate, however the Gate Judge missed the fault. • The TD refused to allow the Finish Referee to DSQ the racer as the Gate Judge marked clear passage. • What would you do as a member of the Jury?

9. Fault or No-Fault? • After the second run of a men’s slalom, there is a protest of DSQ for a hooked tip. • The coach protested the DSQ claiming that the competitor should not be DSQ’d in that he had crossed the plane defined by the verticals above the points where the gate poles entered the snow with both feet and both ski tips. • The coach argued that although the video clearly showed one tip passing outside of one gate pole, the video tape did not prove that the gate pole was vertical. Therefore, there was reasonable doubt involved and the racer should be favoured. • What does the Jury decide?

10. Lonesome Technical Delegate • You arrive at the hill at 8:15 and see a vast expanse of white. • No course, fences gates or people are apparent. • What do you do? • (Assume you are at the correct area on the correct day.)

11. Referee – Different Time Zone • It was your birthday Saturday night and when you wake up late on race day you wish you had been wearing your helmet the night before and you notice that your eyes are bleeding severely. • Arriving late at the hill, you catch up to the COR and TD as they have halfway inspected the course. They have words on your late arrival. They offer you bandages for your eyes. • As you are conducting your high speed inspection to catch the Jury, you notice several course set issues. • The slalom course has too many combinations and is not particularly set to the skill level of the full field. • What are you considerations with respect to your rights and responsibilities?

12. Snow Seedless Sour Grapes • As referee, you are ½ way through the second run of a 100 racer GS. It starts to snow heavily and snow starts to accumulate increasing the risk elements on the course. • There are no capable course crew and when you approach coaches to help slip you are met with icy stares. • You call for a Jury meeting to discuss the situation with a 1st time COR and a poorly equipped TD. • What are your choices at a jury meeting to discuss the situation? • Are your considerations the same the first race of the season and the last?

13. Referee # 5 & 6 • You show up to do the Referee report and there are missing gate cards and no Referee Report form. What do you do? • The results are not going to be posted until 4:00 and you have home work / date / nothing waiting at home? You decide to leave without results posted. What happens now?

14. Course Setter BluesParts 1 and 2 • Last night you watched “Get Shorty” and “Be Cool”. Your testosterone level is at an all-time high. • You are setting a wonderful GS and the Jury decides that your legal set is out of sync with existing safety. What can happen? • You are setting a fine GS with two well-respected course setters as assistants. The Referee decides to make major changes “because he can”. What are your considerations and possible actions?

15. A Coach’s Dilemma • You are standing beside the TD during the race and your racer DSQs in view of both of you. • Your athlete’s parents insist you protest. The mother is President of your race club. • You approach the TD (who along with you witnessed the DSQ) and advise that you are going to protest. • You file a protest. • What can you expect at the Jury meeting?

16. Announcer • In GS, a racer finds the next to last gate missing but reacts to the missing gate and completes his run. The announcer tells him to go to the start for a re-run. His re-run time is better than his first run. • In the meantime, a second racer passes the same place and the gate is again down. He continues across the finish and is told by the announcer to take a re-run. He does but his time is slower than his first run.

17. Double Finish • A racer is completes a SL but after crossing the finish line realizes she missed the last gate. • Back she goes, corrects her gate passage and finishes one more time. • 1st Electronic Time and 2nd Hand Time • Which one do you use?

18. Chief of Course • In a spring series ladies FIS giant slalom, the first 3 racers negotiated the course without incident. Racer #4 fell, knocking out a gate in the soft snow, and the gate was replaced by a course crew worker. • Five more competitors raced the course before the Referee realized that the gate had been replaced nearly 1 meter from the original dye mark in a dye mark from the previous day's racing. • He at once radioed the TD to hold the next racer.

19. Course Inspection • During the course inspection, the TD notes that the course setter has taken the skiers on a traverse, over a knoll towards the tree line at the edge of the course. The line then calls for a sharp turn back to centre. • It is the TD's opinion that this radical change will have a severe impact on the field. • Although both the referee and assistant referee agree with this, they feel that it is the course setter's prerogative to set this way.

20. Race Termination • A race with 90 starters has to be cancelled because of bad visibility after #72. What do you do as TD in regard to the race points? • What is the exact number of racers to have a result?

21. Save what you can! • During the Junior Provincial Championship, at the end of the 1st run, a volunteer tears off the wire at the finish line.  System A and B are not functional any more.  After a downtime, it is noon.  There are 80 women and 100 men. • The 2nd run of the women is completed. The 2nd run of the men is begun but, after 2 racers, the chief timer informs you that it has only an electronic time for the first racer.  He confirms that he has manual times for the 2nd racer. • What do you do?

22. Quiet in the Balcony! • During a K2 Provincial Championship, you are at Coaches’ Corner where there are approximately 15 people.  A course crew worker is 2 gates higher and seems to you both conscientious and arduous. You ask him, several times, to not rake the snow which is becoming overwhelmed with each blow of the rake. • With the 3rd request, he shouts extremely loud and with clear advice that includes “sex and travel”. • What do you do?

23. Parent-help! • During the 1st run of a zone level K2 race, you see a relative who follows his daughter at the side of the track during her run offering technical instructions intermingled with encouragements. This same unknown gentlemen (in the broadest use of term) had earlier provided unsolicited comments on both the start order, snow conditions and safety set-up. • What do you do?

24. Without a Hope! • It’s a K1 SL at the zone level. At the time of the inspection, you notice a combination that reflects an unusual gate placement that brings back a clouded memory of the dashing Patrick Russell of France. Several coaches inquire and indeed raised objection to the set and ask that the combination be reset. • What do you do?

25. 1 for the cost of 2 • At a J1 Provincial Championship a racer, Brad Luck, finishes his first run and, it is not known why, but his time is missing. By chance, the timer tells you that they do not have “access” to manual times. The reason that there is no access is because one watch slept in and the other watch is suffering an over-use injury and is too tired to function. • In fact there is no manual timing. • The coach of the racer requests a rerun that was granted and taken. Following the resumption of the race course, Phil Forensic, the Chief of Timing, “finds” the missing electronic time. The time of the first run is faster. • What do you do?

26. Carrie • After the 1st run of her child, while the 1st run is still underway the mother barges into the timing hut in panic and outrage to denounce the posted time of her child, Sweetness Andlight. She insists that the time is too slow and that it is surely a miscalculation. • Mrs. Andlight is also the COR. • What do you do?

27. Racers not at start • GS Race is to start at 9:30. At the call by the COR “5 Minutes to 1st Forerunner” you are advised by the Start Referee that very few racers have arrived. • Numbers 1, 3, 4, 7, 11 are there plus a few more. (Any idea what the next number in the sequence is?) • You are advised that high winds is causing the Gondola to run slower than parliament. • What do you do?

28. Rerun confirmation During the 1st Run of the Slalom you receive information through the radio from the Referee that competitor # 5 was disturbed in front of him and he requests a rerun. You agree. After the 1st Run the Referee posted the results with no DSQ. During the protest time the Jury receives a protest against the rerun of # 5. You know that there is also a video.

29. Striking publicity • An advertising balloon installed by volunteers flies away and seriously wounds one race parent/volunteer. • Presuming it is not your ex-spouse, what do you do?

30. Pedal to the Medal • On Thursday morning you are at Tim’s picking up a large double double, reflecting in the your success as TD for a Provincial Championship qualifier that ended on Sunday. • Mrs. Slowburn is in line behind you. • Her daughter Heidi placed 3rd in the GS did not qualify for the Provincials, but her team mate Cheater Girl placed 2nd and did qualify. • Unfortunately, Cheater Girl was DSQ’d on the second run. Her DSQ was not noticed by the Ref and she took the medal anyway while her Coach watched. • As luck would have it their Coach, CroMagnon, is the a cook at Tim’s (I know – two dream jobs for any young man) and admits that he knew all of this to be true on Sunday but thought that Cheater Girl had a better chance at the Provincials.

31. Coach Crash Dummy Test • At the time of the inspection of the course of GS it morning of the race, you have a serious doubt about the difficulty of one pitch which seems too difficult to you for the category of athlete. • You ask one coach, Ben Dover, who is passing on the chairlift to test the course. The test run is carried out but Ben takes a malicious yard sale and finishes in the soft snow near the fence by breaking one of his poles. • Why does he have poles?

32. Video proof • After the 2nd run of a National Points GS, a coach brings you a video showing clearly showing that a racer has well straddled gate number 31. • On the other hand the number of the racer is not very clear. • What can you do? Checking for crotch burn on skin suits is not an option.