1 A few definitions that are used through out the presentation. A - - PDF document

Welcome to the online presentation of the New Competition Framework and how it relates to the tradition heads and regattas. It is presented by Phillip Clements, Deputy Chairman of the National Competition Committee and a member of the New Competition Framework Working Group. He has been involved in rowing since school and have been

• n the organising committees of many events from small learn to row regattas through to World Cup events.

The purpose of this presentation is to explain how the new framework is expected to work, how crews are arranged into races and the effects on hard pressed event organiser

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A few definitions that are used through out the presentation. A Regatta is side‐by‐side racing where a knock‐out or round‐robin style of competition is used to determine the winner. A Head is a set of processional events where everyone is timed over a course and the fastest crew wins. An Event is a set of races (or a time trial) which are used to determine the winner and possibly the ranking of all the crews Currently we have a system from Elite through Senior, Intermediate down to Novice and other groupings by age, for example Masters A,B,C, U23, Junior 18, Junior 16, etc. With the change of concept of crews entering an event to crews entering a competition and being seeding according to their Ranking Index (more on which later) a Band is how the crews are split into events at the close

• f entry. More on this later as this is the basis of the new framework.

A Championship event is the top event at your Regatta or Head. This means that the top crews at the Metropolitan regatta are the international and crews trying to be selected from Henley Royal regatta, whilst at the Ball Cup Regatta, the Championship crews are the J18 crews in the 4+ event.

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So what are the overriding principles of the new Competition Framework system? The main aim is to create a system where crews are raced in such a way as to give close and exciting racing at all levels of experience and ability. The poor experience of an slower crew being 100’s metres behind the winners should also be reduced. The experience of the effect of the time trials over the last few years and large multi‐lane regattas has shown that the F Finals are as fiercely fought as the A Finals. Crews don’t go to a 6‐lane course just to have a head race to determine who they are racing in the side‐by‐side races, or even to be eliminated at that stage. Sculling and Rowing will be kept separate as in the current system as most club rowers either row or scull, but sometimes want to compete in the other discipline.

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So how do we propose to rank crews in the new system? In the current system, there are 12 levels separating a new beginner rower and an Olympian. Although there have been many tweaks to the number of points needed for the different levels and how many crews are needs for 1 or 2 points. The distribution of points is still very much in the 0‐4 points area. In some regions there are less than 20 rowers with 12 points, and most of those have never regressed their points which they were entitled to do. Also the current system, points are only awarded to the winner of an event and do not take into account for crews racing experience. The new system will look at the experience of crews and not just their wining performances. This means that how well a crew does in an event will determine the number of Ranking Points (making up a ranking Index) are received. Also Heads will be brought into the system. If you ask an rowing if he is competing at a head or just training, they will always respond that they are competing. Also clubs train for heads as much as they train for regattas. Of course, you also need to take into account the number of crews that are competing. The current system tries to take this into account by giving two points for events with 9 or more crews, whereas this system will be far more refined. Another issue is multiple entries of a competitor on the same day. This is how regattas make most of their money by crews entered two more events on a day. This has other problems which I will discuss later and how this can be resolved. This system proposes that the Current Ranking Index (the CRI) only increases by the highest number of RPs of the day. Whilst the Lifetime Ranking Index (the LRI) includes all events entered. The LRI will be an indication of how good a rower or sculler is over his or her career. For example if a rower gains 5 ranking points in the coxless pairs event and 10 ranking points in the coxed fours, then his CRI will increase by 10 RPs whilst the LRI will increase by 15RPs.

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One of the criticisms of the current system, is that is relatively easy to gain points, but very difficult to regress points, because if you win in a year, then you cannot regress and that you have to contact British Rowing HQ to have the point removed. It is proposed that all CRIs are automatically regressed or reduced on the 31st December. Why the 31st December, rather than at the beginning or end of the regatta season. Many years ago, there was a definite distinction between the head season and the regatta season, however nowadays there is a significant overlap between the two. Around the new year there is a two/three week window where there are very few heads and so the regression can be implemented for the new year. The CRI will be reduced by a 1/3 and rounded up, so that a 100 CRI would be reduced to 67. This means that after 3 years, the CRI would be about 20% of the original, providing no more events were entered! The LRI would not be reduced as this is an indication of a rowers career. Finally Novice status could not be returned to, as rowers do attach a lot of sentiment to “winning their novices!” This concept gives a very fast rise and fade to the Ranking Index of a rower. This hopefully reflects the rise and fade of rowers through life and takes into account the effects of life has on a rower. A rower who takes a break in his rowing due to his career or family will be introduced back into racing at about the right level.

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Obviously this is a slightly more complex system that the current points system, although that does has the ability to throw major spanners into regatta planning when a crew rings up on a Monday morning, saying that they won on Saturday and so are no longer novices but are now IM3 status. Please could the regatta completely redraw the day so that they can race at the correct level. Being an regatta organiser myself, I know the problems that this causes and so we have looked at ways of helping regatta (and in future head) organisers. The first thing to help, is that a the Current Ranking Index of a crew (which is the sum of the CRIs of the individuals in the crew) is at 7 days before the official close of entries. Ie If the entries are closed at 1pm on Sunday, then the CRIs as at midnight the previous Saturday are used. The benefits of this are: 1. The competition can form bands of events, which I cover later, knowing the entry. 2. There is no need to have “Winner Previous” crews which are generally not taken up, and mean crews will know what time they need to race A side‐effect is that a competitor may be able to win more than one Novice event before they are no longer allowed to race in novice events. (ie enter and win Novice on the weekend of the entries closing and again at this regatta). This is no different from the old 4 crews to qualify rule. But there is an advantage as they will be gaining CRIs in the novice category so will be racing against other crews of similar ability the following week. The substitution rule needs to be changed slightly to take into account this wish not to change crew’s band. So it is proposed that Subsitutions will not change a crews CRI from the originally declared crew, but there will be a limit in the increase in CRI in a crew of 25%. Ie a crews CRI can increase from 100 to 125 and still be allowed to race. If it changes to 126 then the crew is not able to race in a regatta. The 50% change in a crew would still apply.

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I have been talking quite happily about bands of events and groupings of crews, so what does this mean in reality? First of all, Senior events will not longer be classified as Elite, Senior, IM1 etc, but will be grouped in other ways. The U19, U23, Light‐weight categories remain However Juniors and Masters will retain their age groupings, but competitions will be able to use the CRIs to groups crews in different ways. As I said earlier, due to the attachment competitors have to winning their novices, this remains as a category.

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So if we get rid of all of the current categories how will regattas and head sort out the crews? First of all they can group crews in whatever way they want. For example: Local Clubs, All comers, Colleges Morning 8s, Lunchtime 4s, Afternoon 8s On Current Ranking Index – Mixing fast Juniors with fast Senior crews. Time in sport (Beginners) New Juniors/ Masters (use CRI not age bands) Experienced Juniors/ Masters And within these groups, crews can be banded, which I will explain later. At the end of the day, the regattas and heads know their clientele and who they are aiming to attract to their event. This concludes th first part of the presentation, and in the next part I will talk in more detail about how heads and regattas can be organised.

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I will now go into a bit more detail on Heads and Regattas, how they could be organised and the number of Ranking Points given out. First I will talk about heads. The advantage of heads are that they are all timed and there is a level playing field for all crews. This means that it is easy to allocated RPs to every crew, therefore there will be a scaled table published to determine the number of RPs per position. I will show a possible such table on the next slide. Also all crews will gain ranking points, including “time only”. This is because the awarding of pennants and medals is separated from the Ranking. Finally the number of Ranking Points will be determined by the boat type rather than the class or event

• entered. This means that, for example, all coxless fours from J15 through to Masters J are taken together to

work out the number of RPs gained. Also the number of Eights will not have an effect on the RPs for the coxless fours. This also means that a fast J16 crew will gain more RPs than a slow Senior Crew so placing the J16 crew at the right level, rather than capping them as at the moment. Also J13 and below will be taken separately so that they do have an effect on the main RPs. However they will gain RPs which will be their base when they become J14s so that new J14s are not having to race scullers who have been learning and racing for a few years. It must be remembered that with the 3 year rise and fade, the RPs gained as a J14 are only worth 20% by the time they become J18. This is also the same for a J18 not racing during university and returning to a club.

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Here is a possible Head ranking table. This is still very much work in progress, I am currently looking at the BROE data to work out the levels. However already it is interesting that the number of crews in a boat type at most heads is under 20, with a few notable exceptions, such as the 8’s heads. For these events, I am looking at capping the number of RPs given out, for example at 150 for the winner and the rest of the positions getting the relevant proportion. I must state that this is still work in progress. The most important feature of the table is that in events with small numbers of crews, only a few RPs are allocated.

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In regattas the number of RPs are determined by the number of crews in the event as created by the regatta

• rganisers. I will talk about events with large numbers of crews and how they can be split up.

First of all RPs are gained in all age groups. There is no exceptions due to the fade built into the system. Secondly, the losers in the first round, don’t gain any RPs as there is no way of knowing how much better or worse crews are in different races, as there is no requirement in the rules of racing to go as fast as possible, just to beat other crews. To stop crews from scratching, not finishing, or getting disqualified, to avoid gaining RPs, they will gain the RPs already accrued in the event. This will become clearer in a few slides time. If a regatta offers a “Plate” event for the first round losers, then this is treated as a new event and will gain the number of RPs correct for that size of event. Therefore an event which had 8 entries would have Quarter Finals, Semi‐Finals and a Final whilst the Plate event would have Semi‐Finals and Finals for 4 crews. Finally crews with Byes into later rounds, do not get RPs for the rounds that they did not have to compete in. This is recognising that they have not had as many races.

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To help regatta organisers, here are a few ideas how Junior events could be organised to create “close and exciting” racing. Juniors would normally race in age categories as now. Remembering that the RPs gained as a J14 are reduced to less than 20% by J18. However regattas could offer events according the Current Ranking Index rather than by age or as a combination of both. For example, arranging events by experience could lead to having races for “New” J18s with no or very few RPs and “Experienced” J18s with lots of RPs! Also offering J14 to J16 in age categories for experienced rowers and a combined J14 to J16 event for “New” rowers. Also when Juniors race in Senior Events, then they will be grouped according to the CRIs which should create a more level playing field. Also Regattas could separate Juniors and Adults into different events.

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The same applies for Masters. The Masters would be raced according to their CRI with the handicap tables used if there is a large difference in CRI or age. Also events could be offered according to the local demand, for example if there is a large number of “learn to row” masters in the local clubs, then the regatta could offer “Young” and “Old” Novices to give them racing experience. Also Masters, like Juniors, would race in Senior events according to their CRIs. This would mean that an experienced Master “E” would race lower CRI crews than an experienced Master “A”.

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I have spent a reasonable length of time talking about how the system would work, what will it look like in

• practice. I will now go through a few examples.

Please note that I will talk about 1, 2, 3 Ranking Points for the different wins. I am still looking at the number for each round to make sure that there is sensible relationship between the number RPs for heads and regattas. These examples are related to 2 lane regattas as this is the majority of the regattas in this country. The same principles apply to 3 lanes and above and I will show this later. My first example is a very common experience in local regattas where 4 crews enter. The first round is two races (could be called the Semi‐Final) and there is a winner in each heat. These winners gain 1 RP each for winning the round and getting to the final. Later in the day, the final is run and there is an overall winner. This crew then gains another 2 RPs for winning the event and so ends up with 3 RPs per crew member.

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My next example is for a 8 crew event. The first round is four races and there is a winner in each heat. These winners gain 1 RP each for winning the round and getting to the semi‐finals. The semi‐final races come down the river and of course there are 2 winners. As they have won they gain 2 more RPs for winning the semi‐finals and so have 3 RPs. In the early evening, the final is run and there is an overall winner. This crew then gains another 3 RPs for winning the event and so ends up with 6 RPs per crew member. As I am sure you have realised, the number of RPs goes up for each round so larger events gain more RPs. In this way smaller events are no penalised and larger events gain the recognition that they require.

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The last few examples are great for very small regattas. How can a regatta with large entries split them up to have a sensible number of races in a day? In the past the Elite, IM2 etc categories gave one way of breaking out the races, however due to the current points being skewed to the lower end, it was generally feast or famine for entries. The proposal is to allow regattas to split up the crews after entries have closed into sensible bands according to those entries. This is a change of mind‐set from the crews deciding the level to the regatta deciding the level, but something similar already happen at the close when regattas try to make races up. This would mean that clubs would enter 8s for the regatta and then they would be split into bands. I have some suggestion on the next few slides. This has the advantage that racing is determined by the entries and not the 440 current events possible. The posters would become simpler to offered Open 8s in the Morning and Afternoon, Lunchtime 4s etc. The crews would be split into bands and to make sure that higher bands get more RPs than lower bands, they would have a starting point of the semi‐finals of the next lower band.

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So how could this work in practice. Magic Town Regatta offers morning 8s and 20 crews enter. At the close of entries, they had the following split: 4 Crews have 100‐150 RPs 8 Crews have 25‐75 RPs 8 Crews have 0RPs (Novices) This shows a natural groupings into 3 bands. The regatta decides to put the top 4 crews into the Championship event for the Magic Town Challenge Cup. The next 8 crews become the Group 2 crews for the Magic Town Medallion And the last 8 crews race as novices for the Magic Town Silver Tea spoon.

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Now the bands have been decided, how would the RPs be allocated? I am going to show the races band by band, but obviously they would all be intermixed during the regatta! The novices have their races and the first round winners get 1 RP each, the Semi‐Final winners another 2 RPs (3 in total) and the overall winner wins the Novice Event, gets 6RPs and remembers their first Novice Event win. The first round of the Group 2 races happens and the winners get 1 RP for winning the race. As this is in the next band up from the Novices, they also gain 3RPs from the lower band, so actually have 4RPs. The first round losers gain no RPs not even the base. This event continues through the semi‐finals to the finals, where the overall winner gains 6RPs for winning + 3RPs from the previous band giving a total of 9RPs. Finally the Championship events happens. The first round winners get 7RPs (6 + 1 for winning) ending up with the overall winner getting 9 RPs (6 + 3RP)

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A second example. Magic Town Regatta moves to the afternoon 8s and 16 crews enter. At the close of entries, they had the following split: 8 Crews have 100‐150 RPs 6 Crews have 50‐75 RPs 2 Crews have <20RPs This shows another natural groupings into 3 bands. The regatta decides to put the top 8 crews into the Championship event for the Magic Town Square Challenge Vase. The next 6 crews become the Group 2 crews for the Magic Town Square Cup And the last 2 crews race as novices for the Magic Town Square Medal.

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Now the bands have been decided, how would the RPs be allocated? I am going to show the races band by band, but obviously they would all be intermixed during the regatta! The two novices have their race and the winners get 1 RP each. The first round of the Group 2 races happens and the winners get 1 RP for winning the race.. As this is in the next band up, they also gain 1RPs from the lower band, so actually have 2RPs. The first round losers gain no RPs not even the base. This event continues through the semi‐finals to the finals, where the overall winner gains 6RPs for winning + 1RPs from the previous band giving a total of 7RPs. The crews which had a bye would have 1 less point than the others. Finally the Championship events happens. The first round winners get 5RPs (4 + 1 for winning) ending up with the overall winner getting 10 RPs (6 + 4)

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So how could this work in practice. Brass Pot Town Regatta offers morning 8s and 20 crews enter. At the close of entries, they had the following split: 16 Crews have 5‐75 RPs 8 Crews have 0RPs (Novices) This suggests a grouping set of 16 crews in 2 Divisions and 8 crews in Novice.

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Now the bands have been decided, how would the RPs be allocated? I am going to show the races band by band, but obviously they would all be intermixed during the regatta!

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Multilane regattas would have exactly the same principles as 2 lane regattas. The difference is in how crews get to the finals and how it works with minor finals and time trials.

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Round Robin events are designed to work out the fastest crew by racing crews against each other. As this generally gives a ranking to all crews, the head table can be used to work out the Ranking Points from the positions

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The implementation of the whole system requires new software to support the principles. It is clear that if the new software is not correct then we cannot go forward. The new BROE needs to help event organisers create the actual events for the day and calculate the Ranking Points awarded. This will need more information from the regattas, but if software is being used to generate the draw and send out information, then it should be able to have the results of the day so that the BROE can be easily updated. Also it is proposed that the competitor or rower profile is linked together so that a competitor can see which events they have competed in. An interesting idea is that the system automatically emails a competitor whenever their CRI changes. This would also help stop problems that happen when the wrong person is allocated points and only realises a year or two later. The hours of telephone support have also been discussed with the staff to try to make sure that the correct support is available when it is needed.

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The rules of racing will need to be revised, especially in the sections on competitor classification and entry requirements. The rules for the conduct of the race, protests, etc will not be changed as how a crew gets from A to B in a race is not changing.

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Currently in the rules, a head or regatta can be held for 4 or less clubs. There are some simple requirements to be able to hold such matches, such as no advertising. This is still very much encouraged in the proposed system as it allows for short‐notice ad‐hoc inter‐club racing. These regattas and heads will not have ranking points associated with them. However larger private matches are going to be looked at.

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There is a large body of rowers in Universities and Colleges. There is an on‐going discussion with BUCS on how we can approach this. It is proposed (providing BUCS agree) that the major university events are included in the new system but smaller “Boat Races” are not included. These are equivalent to private matches.

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Under the current system, all crews at international regattas (such as Ghent) need to declare their results. In fact they need to ask permission first! It is proposed that there will be a simple form to fill out with the results so that the correct RPs can be attributed to the competitors using the same rules as for BR regattas and Heads. For athletes looking to be or are on the GB pathway, then it is proposed that the trials system is used to allocate Ranking Points. At some point through the process, the RPs for sculling and rowing will be combined due to the nature of the trials system. This is still being discussed with the GB Rowing Team.

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