I just wanted to share with you some questions that started to bother me when I had a closer look at the the Final 2009 World Ranking list.

The published 2009 ranking looks like this:

1. Lasse 374
2. Erik 350
3. Viktor 349
4. Ruslan 338
5. Jiri 305
6. Tobias 304

No surprises here, these are the best athletes in MTBO.  (Adrian is sadly missing because he had only 5 qualifying results instead of 8)


What makes this interesting is that it could have looked like this:

1. Viktor 349
2. Ruslan 338
3. Jiri 305
4. Tobias 304
5. Erik 299
6. Lasse 298
  Beat S 298

The difference? Change in the dates and the program of two Danish WREs in October. This allowed two 2008 Danish WREs to count towards the 2009 Final ranking and clearly limited the field for the last WREs in 2009.

The two Danish WREs were scheduled for 17-18 October as Long and Sprint (day). On 21 September it was announced on the Danish Federation website that the dates were changed (9-10 September), as well as the program (Night Sprint and Long ) with a remark "Invitations for the 2 Danish WRE are ready. English information will be ready very soon on the websites."  So there was no English invitation less then 3 weeks before a World Ranking Event that was rescheduled for a week earlier.

As one could guess, the race rescheduled for Friday night was not very popular: only 6 local riders (albeit a strong field) took on the night challenge in ME to collect precious WR points.


I see three questions to discuss:
- Does it matter?
- Were there rules broken?
- What can be done?


Does it matter?

It did for the Danes: a day after the above events (before official World Ranking could possibly be published!) it was announced on the website of the Danish Federation, that Danish riders took the #1 and #2 spot in MTBO World Ranking for 2009.

We may assume that for Viktor, Ruslan and Jiri (and for their federations and sponsors!) it also matters whether their athletes are on the podium or not in World Ranking.

And it should matter for our sport to ensure that international results are fair and respected.


Were there rules broken?

The dates (by a week) and the program (from Day to Night Sprint) were changed.
Rule 3.1 of Competition Rules for IOF Events states that  "The event dates and programme are proposed by the organiser and approved by the IOF Council." The IOF Council member most interested in MTBO had no recollection of any request to change the dates and the program of the Danish World Ranking Events.

The Night Sprint was a sub-standard event
The athletes I talked to revealed that the event was on the level of a club training, to the extent that there were even no flags placed on the controls - a specific breach of Rule 19.2 for IOF Events.

Sporting fairness suffered
This is a principle, but it is also set in Rule 2.6. Short notice that a World Ranking Event is rescheduled for an earlier date AND changed to a rarely practiced format (Night MTBO) should have called for action by the IOF Advisor responsible for the fairness of the race.


What can be done?

The first step is obvious: if rules were broken, the competitions should be void as IOF Events and the World Ranking for 2009 should be restated.

The World Ranking rules should be clarified to ensure that Final ranking should be based only on results achieved in the actual year. This would limit the impact of similar changes when 2008 results counted for 2009 Final ranking.

The World Ranking rules should be reconsidered to limit the impact of small races with few local participants. Even according to the new (2010) point calculation method Erik would have received practically the same number of points for winning the "local" Night Sprint with 6 participants (1387 points) as for his #2 place on the EOC Sprint (1393 points) - a clearly very different class of achievement!



I think these are matters that need to be discussed.
What are your feelings?  

--Last edited by s.talas on 2009-11-06 23:13:15 --