Accommodating Junior Paddlers to have closer racing.

Exemptions for Junior Paddlers

Accommodating Junior Paddlers to have closer racing.

• Junior paddlers could compete in a Junior Category on equal terms, but we do not have the numbers yet to make them a meaningful category.
• Junior paddlers can compete as the 2 out of age paddlers allowed for a standard senior team.
• Junior paddlers can compete as members of a Prem team without restriction.

With the limited cohort of Prem paddlers at the clubs that have significant junior members, the fielded Prems/Juniors teams are not sufficiently competitive to podium.

The previous approach (old Bylaws) permitted 8 juniors to join a Senior team.

This facilitated junior composite teams consistently podiuming in some race categories and formats where youth physique/stamina/strength had a significant advantage to the senior teams.

This is an encouraging outcome for the juniors, but is not universally seen as fair to tall boats that paddled with compliant crews and were displaced from the podium by an approved yet non-compliant with the bylaws crew with Juniors.

The challenge is to encourage juniors by giving them an opportunity to podium with good performance, yet not displace a compliant crew for the category from the podium where they would have been if not for a non-conforming, approved,  team.

We are developing a solution to this and and it comprises three parts at the moment.

Part 1. Fairest for all boats

Maintain the integrity of the competition for teams that conform with the standard bylaws. Eg Award the Standard Senior Results as per results for Sen A, B or C or where standard handicapping is applied.

Part 2. Facilitate junior articipation

Allow a team to be Sub-categorised as “Junior Combined” with up to 8 juniors to added to a standard boat (4 in a small) in addition to the other exemptions allowed in the bylaws. Without displacing the Standard Senior Results, if Junior Combined Teams result would have earned them 1^st 2^nd or 3^rd Trophy – Award them a trophy in addition to the Standard Senior Trophy.

Part 3. Authentic competition - Juniors earn it.

In many categories / distances the addition of the younger age paddlers is expected to have a distinct performance advantage – We acknowledge this with the handicaps we apply to Sen A, B and C when they race each other. In reality, half the boat underage makes an otherwise Senior A team a Senior A+ team.

Therefore, to ensure that the A+ team aspect is recognised and the Junior Combined competition is maintained as an authentic race sub category, the Junior combined team will be handicapped a further 1%

This is a trial at LNY - Exemptions requested with more out of age paddlers than permitted under the bylaws will be appoved this way. The results will be reviewed before deciding whether to implement at Vic Champs with any modifications learnt from LNY insights.

The challenge is to encourage juniors by giving them an opportunity to podium with good performance, yet not displace a compliant boat for the category from the podium where they would have been, if not for a non-conforming, approved,  team.