3B.4 Protests
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3B.4 Protests
Protests must be filed on an official form within two hours of the posting of event results.
Every effort will be made for all protests to be handled within 30 minutes from the time
they are received.
The problem is that sometimes the results are posted with huge delays and in unknown time.
I would suggest something like:
If the results are posted within four hours after competition, protests must be filed on an official form within two hours of the posting of event results. Every effort will be made for all protests to be handled within 30 minutes from the time they are received. In other case the protests must be filled within 24 hours and should be handled within 24 hours.
Comment
Would we then hold medals for 24h to accommodate the protest period? that is a big shift from what current practices are, and rather difficult in several situations. I suppose it incentivizes organizers to make sure that results appear within 4 hours, but that can be difficult. Although i would love to give better consistency in publishing results, I think in practice this would have a big impact on event flow. I wonder if we could find a better balance.
Comment
I think this should really rise to the general committee and any change be to 1C.10, as i don’t think treating timeliness of results as a road specific issue makes much sense. Something like “Results posted between 8pm and 9am shall have their protest period end 11am” might achieve a lot of the same effect, allowing people to have some guidance for when to check for results with a smaller impact on event flow, and prevents people from feeling an urgent need to contact a director at 10pm if they have a protest.
Comment
I do think that it is a very discipline-specific problem. In track races, for example, the results are known immediately after the race and are usually published shortly after the race. An objection period of several hours would make the entire competition process, as it is currently practiced, impossible.
What I could imagine, however, would be to give the organizer more freedom in terms of extending the protest time. Of course, this would have to be communicated to the participants accordingly. But this could ensure that the minimum protest time of 30 minutes can be applied at events where the results are published immediately (e.g. smaller one-day events) and if the organizer is of the opinion that he needs a lot of time to publish the results and the 30 minutes are not realistic, then he can extend the possible protest time.
Comment
Track racing by nature of having finals would be exceptionally difficult to accommodate a long protest period. I think the problem of variable protest time is there is no definite way for people to be made aware of how long until the protest time ends. Maybe protest time could be set to be any period >= 2 hours, and the end of protest period be added to the result page in UDA. This still would rely on riders who may be competing or volunteering in other events to keep an eye out for results being published.
If we imagine a 10k in the morning, followed by trials, it is very possible that people who would typically be entering results might be occupied with other responsibilities for a few hours. If we did something like i suggested, you'd simply publish results at 8:01pm, giving people a long time to protest and if a competitor checks at 9am each day they would have confidence that any results posted in the evening would still be protestable. This also gives organizers a more predicable timing to work with for awards. Trials frequently has a lot of manual entry to be done, so they could expect to do trials awards at 11am or thereabouts and 10k at the same time if it were necessary.
Comment
> I think the problem of variable protest time is there is no definite way for people to be made aware of how long until the protest time ends.
If the protest time is communicated in advance of the event, I don't see a problem.
I think a bad thing in unicycling is that there are often no real official announcements of the events, which makes it very difficult for participants to find out which rules actually apply. In Germany, it is completely normal for every event to have an official announcement (one single document!) describing which rules apply, provided the rulebook allows various options. This makes it extremely easy for participants to find out which rules apply.
But even if the rules are communicated in a different form, which is prescribed by the rulebook, it should be clear to every participant which rules apply.
> If we imagine a 10k in the morning, followed by trials, it is very possible that people who would typically be entering results might be occupied with other responsibilities for a few hours. If we did something like i suggested, you'd simply publish results at 8:01pm, giving people a long time to protest and if a competitor checks at 9am each day they would have confidence that any results posted in the evening would still be protestable. This also gives organizers a more predicable timing to work with for awards. Trials frequently has a lot of manual entry to be done, so they could expect to do trials awards at 11am or thereabouts and 10k at the same time if it were necessary.
This makes perfect sense for events like Unicon and I can imagine that it would work very well there - but the rules are not just for Unicons and must also work for all other events.
And for small events in particular, a two-hour objection period is already extremely long - I'm thinking of a small event with a criterium, for example. You start with the qualifying heats and then want to do the finals. A two-hour objection period after publication of the results of the last qualifying heat makes such a competition virtually impossible.
To make it very clear once again: I think it's extremely good that the rules stipulate a minimum objection period that drivers can always rely on. And I also think it's good if the organizer has the option of extending this objection period according to the conditions of his event - but of course this must be announced to the participants accordingly. But we should always keep in mind that also smaller events remain feasible with the requirements of the rules.
Comment
Thanks for good observations.
I think that we cannot request organizers of events other than Unicon to respect protesting schedule.
For Unicon,
To protect competitors we should allow for for the realistic protest time, taking consideration that both organizers and competitors may be occupied with other planned events. Things comes more handy if the results are presented online and the protest are filed electronically. I think that both sides would appreciate the electronic form. I am not sure how realistic is to request the host of presenting the rules online immediately after they are ready.
What about this?
For Unicons:
If the results are presented on the day of competition, the protest must be filed electronically within two hours of posting of event results (Race Director can extend this period). Every effort will be made for such protests to be handled within 30 minutes from the time they are received.
In case the results are presented on another day, the protest must be filled electronically before 12 p.m. (noon time) of the following day. Every effort will be made of such protests to be handled within same day and no latest than 2 hour before awards.
Comment
I agree with what has been said. If the current rules can't be applied, Maksym's proposal sounds good to me.
On the other hand, recommendations will have to be made to improve the timing of road races (especially UNICON), as it seems to me that it's timing problems that force postponement of the official publication of results.
Comment
Do I understand the proposal correctly that if the results of a competition (let's say it took place on Monday) are published one day later (i.e. on Tuesday), the objection period goes until the following day at 12 p.m. (i.e. Wednesday)? I don't know if this is really practicable. I'm also wondering whether we don't also need a shorter objection period than two hours, especially for criteriums with qualifying and final heats.
I had the following in mind:
1. Protests must be filed on an official form. Mistakes in paperwork, inaccuracies in placing, and interference from other riders or other sources are all grounds for protests. All Referee decisions are final, and cannot be protested.
2. The default protest time (counting from the posting of results) depends on the type of event and the time after the competition within the results are published. The default protest time can be extended or shortend up to the minimum by the Race Director. Every deviation from the default protest time has to be clearly announced when the results are posted, including stating the protest deadline on the results list itself. The protest time may be extended for riders who have to be in other races during the protest period.
2.1 For a large event such as Unicon or continental championships, for all results published within 90 minutes after the end of the competiotion, the default protest time is 120 minutes, the minimum is 30 minutes. For results published more than 90 minutes after the end of the competition but before 8 p.m. of the same day, the minimum protest time is 120 minutes. For all results published after 8 p.m. on the same day or on another day, the protest deadline is 12 p.m. (noon time) on the day after publication.
2.2 For smaller events, for all results published within 90 minutes after the end of the competiotion, the default protest time is 60 minutes, the minimum is 15 minutes. For results published more than 90 minutes after the end of the competition, the minimum protest time is 60 minutes.
3. All protests will be acknowledged within 30 minutes from the time they are received, and an effort will be made to settle the issue within those 30 minutes.
Comment
What do all the other members of this committee think about the proposed rule? Is it ready for an officiall proposal?
Comment
Since there were no further comments here, I have made an official proposal from my preliminary proposal here in the discussion. If there are any comments on my proposal, I really hope that they will be made here in the upcoming days.
But I just have the feeling that a lot of good discussions have been started, but the participation in the discussions has decreased a lot, which is a pity. We should bring the good ideas to a successful outcome.
Comment
I think it may be clearer to competitors that any Preliminary events have a default 15 minute protest period rather than some distinction between smaller and larger events (unclear where that line is drawn, and it is less important to have a short protest period any time it does not impact holding a final).
also a small typo in 2.2's first instance of competition
Comment
The distinction between large events, such as the Unicon or continental championships, and smaller competitions has proven itself in the field of Track for many years, which is why I have taken the wording from there. In the examples given for large events, many disciplines are held in parallel, many international participants are present, which sometimes leads to language barriers, etc. - All in all, I think it makes sense to have a longer protest time period than for smaller events. In fact, it was also the case in the Track disciplines that the longer period was the standard for a long time, only because this was problematic for many smaller competitions, it was decided to give these smaller competitions the opportunity to use shorter protest times, which works very well in practice.
The rule doesn't just say 'larger' and 'smaller', but 'a large event such as Unicon or Continental Championships’ and ‘smaller events’. This basically provides a definition that you can use as a guide.
I corrected the typo :)
Comment
I have only one objection to the current proposal.
It states that the protest must be filled on an official form. I don't remember to see any official forms in the past. I would rather require that protest must be filed in writing.
Comment
I am now revising the starting order, and realized that we could add here also the protests for the Starting Order.
Something like: As for default, if the starting order is published before 12 p.m. on the day before the competition, the protest time ends 4 p.m. on that day. If the starting order is published later, the protest time ends 2 hours before competition. Race Director can extend the protest time.
Comment
> It states that the protest must be filled on an official form. I don't remember to see any official forms in the past. I would rather require that protest must be filed in writing.
So there were definitely official forms for this at the various competitions. The rule does not say that the same form has to be used at all competitions. The organizer should simply provide an official one - how this looks is at the discretion of the organizer, as the rulebook does not make any further specifications here. However, I would definitely be in favor of retaining that there should be an official form from the organizer.
> I am now revising the starting order, and realized that we could add here also the protests for the Starting Order.
I have already written something about this in the corresponding discussion. I don't really see any need for changes here.