ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

Another thing to take into account is to see if people are using the number of results they have the right to. For the Pro's that is 8 result points. I'm happy to see that everybody except Luca have their 8 result points (among the top 20). So in this sence Luca is actually punished extra hard by the system this year. Only six discipline points and no Major competition results.

In the Am ranking there are three persons not using the 6 result points you have the right to count (among the top 20). Henrik Madsen, SWE (6), John Ravitch, USA (14) and Stephan Hinzen, GER (20).

Note! You are not punished as hard as in the initial WR calculation rules by not using the number of result points you are entitled to. If you are missing discipline results you will get some extra points for those missing results weighted on your average point. But it's done in a way so that it still would have been an advantage if you would have competed. For first missed result you get 50% of your average point. For 2:nd-4:th results you only get 25% of your average point. For 5:th and up you get no extra points. This is why the ranking point for some people are higher than what you get by only adding their result points manually. In cases where discipline results are missing you must then also add the weight points as explained above. I don't use a calculation program for no reason.

No problem Vlad.

Among the the top 20 in the PRO season ranking there are only 2 that did not attend any "Major". Luca Giammarco, ITA (10) and Noah Heinle, USA (20). Almost the same for the top 20 in the AM season ranking. Only Anders Hellqvist, SWE (11) and Aaron Morris, USA (19) did not attend one of the 2 "Majors" of the season.

It is tough to fight for good places in the World Ranking if you do not attend the Majors. The system is constructed so that at least once a year, on each side of the Atlantic, most of the skaters will show up at the same time for the ultimate challenge.

Corky,

how many top 20s didn't attend the Worlds and the EU Championships this year?

I remember you had this statitstic last year... if it's too much hustle, don't worry about it.

Thanks.

Jeff, Rick,

Yes, it does seem strange doesn't it. Gareth who placed after Jeff in the GS will gain some points compared to his previous result but Jeff will not. Until we have put up the possibility to check race results for a specific racer it will take a lot of work to figure it out. But luckily I'm here to help out.

Jeff Goad
The six best results count per racer and year. In Jeff's case the lowest point of his 6 best results from the 2004 season is 213 points from his 10:th place in The Farm 4 - Sold out (Special Am). Jeff's 4:th place in the Hood GS gave him 200 points. Since this point is not higher than his 213 points above it does not change his total Am Ranking point.
Note! His 10:th Farm place gives better point than his 4:th Hood place because the status of the Farm Event was higher.

Gareth Roe
Gareths lowest point of his 6 best results from the 2004 season was 126 points from his 2:nd place in a Cascade Slalom Association event. Gareth's 7:th place in the Hood GS gave him 175 points. Since this point is higher than his 126 points above it does add 49 points to his earlier total Am Ranking point. This was possible because he had a very high point (1:st place in Special Am at the World Championships in Morro Bay) mixed with a very low point. This did not show in his average point where they balanced each other out.

Now, 49 points added is not much but it just happens that he was in a pack of racers that was very tight. From 5:th to 13 place in the Am season ranking it only differs 70 points.
If Gareth would have had another 2 points he would have been 6. If he would have had another 10 points he would have been 5. If Rick Stanziale would have had an extra 10 points somewhere he would have been ahead of Gareth. It's all very close. Just noted another funny thing. There are almost only Swedes and Americans in this group.

Well, there it is. Everyone will later be able to list all their personal results from the season at http://www.slalomranking.com. Unfortunately we don't have time to do all that we want at once. But we do advance. One little step at a time.

handin' out trophies like the government got cheese

did i get points for the g.s? i drop, while other people that placed lower than me in the g.s get bumped higher than me. i dont get it.

There have been some small fixes with the rank data again. The biggest thing being that the GS in "2004 Gorge Games" (Hood River, CA, USA) had not been entered into the system. Now it is. For you who did enter the GS in Hood River may have gained in the rankings. Here is what I found out.

Season Ranking Pro (2004)
14 Barrett Deck +1 (15-14)
20 Noah Heinle 0 (20) Gain points but stay put
24 Tay Hunt +1 (25-24)
54 Terrence Kirby +7 (61-54)

Season Ranking Am (2004)
07 Gareth Roe +4 (11-7)
18 Paul Howard +11 (29-18 )
67 Pete Ingraham +11 (78-67)
69 Glenn Chapman +5 (74-69)
Further down the rankings we have some great Am climbers
109 Dan Hughes +58 (167-109)
150 Steven King +96 (246-150)
209 David Bryant +133 (342-209)
220 Aaron Burks +83 (303-220)

Season Ranking Women (2004)
29 Sarah Loveland +6 (35-29)

For complete rankings check out http://www.slalomranking.com

Hi Vincent,

I knew you were joking, no offense was taken. Now if Corky would have counted the JPL race I won last year I may have been ranked even higher.

Just kidding...

Have fun!

Jack

Your thoughts are correct Vincent but for the World Ranking these competitions have a very small impact and in most cases no impact at all. So far I think it's more important having them show to encourage everybody to throw down competitions. Sure with time rules and definitions will get tightened up. But for the lowest status competitions they will never have a great impact on the ranking. See them more like a way of sucking up as many slalom competitors as possible on the international slalom scene. If you start to care about your World Ranking placement these competitions you enter more for fun and practice. But don't forget that they could of course be important for other loacal series or rankings. To do good in the world ranking you have to enter the high status competitions of the year.

For WR high status competitons I agree we should start to set up some rules about pre announcements. For example that a competition date and status must be announced/published at least x months in advance. For example: 5 months for a Major, 3 months for a Main and 1 Month for a Prime. For the Basic status there is no need since they have such a low impact on the rankings.

And Jack your #248 in the world didn't sound correct to me. Here are the correct data for you.
Season 2004: #105 TOT and #49 AM
World Ranking (4-year): #78 TOT and #23 AM

Jack Smith wrote:Vincent...relax

Cambria Calling was nothing more than a fun weekend race. I have no idea why it was included in the rankings. Did it actually effect the rankings in any way? I can't believe it did.

I didn't "own" this site at the time of the event.

Jack Smith
#248 in the World!

No problem Jack
And no matter that you own the site or not, it was just a joke! (fun to see that you probably organize the biggest race in the word but you also participate one of the smallest!! any personal attack in that. Thanks again for your investment in slalom)

It's not really important that this one or another is included.
In fact even if I think that it's great to see a lot of races in the event list
perhaps rules should specify something about the number of racers (in our French championship, there is a minimum number required - I didn't find something like that in rules I've found...)

Perhaps this kind of races should only give really few points (perhaps we could make exception for countries with very few racers)

One other point to include a race in the ranking should be that the race have been well anounced (at least on this forum for example)

Vincent...relax

Cambria Calling was nothing more than a fun weekend race. I have no idea why it was included in the rankings. Did it actually effect the rankings in any way? I can't believe it did.

I didn't "own" this site at the time of the event.

Jack Smith
#248 in the World!

Hum.. don't want to create polemics but I was thinking that there was a minimum of racers needed for an event .
Should a race with three people be counted in the ranking?
for exemple this one:
<A href="http://www.slalomranking.com/rankings/e ... ddd0392031">
Cambria Calling Cambria (CA, USA) 0 23.05.2004 B USW </A>
I know nothing about it but was it raining? or nobody want to race with the owner of this forum

At the same time I can also see a only <a href="http://www.slalomranking.com/rankings/e ... ddd0392031"> ?Venezuelan? race</a> count only 3 racers too,
but perhaps there is not much racers in this country and it's great that they appear here.

Millie Chapman is a 12 year old Girl. 2004 was her first year of racing and she lives in Beverly, MA. USA.

Yes

No - She is from the San Diego area.

Girl ranking questions.

Is Millie Chapman a girl?

Is Isabelle Caudle French?

Thanks for all the good words on Slalomranking.com.

It is a pleasure for me to do all that work for the slalom comunity.
It is fun and it is very constructive to work together with Corky!

And I try my best to not to work to hard in the nights, but this season makes it easier to sit in front of the computer instead of running though the cones on the board.

Have fun with it!

Daniel

Ok ok ok ,
heiko just told me that the race in Austria , the OSS jam, counted also for the rankings !
Thats sounds ok to me !

Hi Corky,
the 2nd column in the world ranking says No.
Does the number describe the amount of races I entered ?
In my case it says 3, but I only started GS/TS at the ESC2004 in Cologne.
In my understanding that would be 2 ! Is that right ?

Just wanted to add a thanks for all the hard work getting this ranking system together... even if it has its flaws, it's a great personal measuring tool - it just feels good to appear on the radar... even if only as a little blip!

Latest update of the World Ranking is done with "BLR Outlaw Pump Station GS". And a couple of other small fixes. Some girls where registered as men by mistake and didn't show up in the women rankings. Also the Junior rankings will always be a problem until all juniors give their correct birth year. Now it's a little bit of a guessing game.

There have been a lot of talk around the 2004 1-year ranking so far which is natural during the season I guess. But it is the 4-year ranking that is the real thing and longterm goal in my view. That's the one that will get published in magazines and here it's not a one year story. It's a more longtime committement. For now there are only 2 seasons (2003 and 2004) counted but after next year we will have the first complete one. Well almost. To be exact you will need 4 years but the 4:th year (your lowest year point of the last four years) does not count.

Gilmour with his year off has fallen from 4:th to 39:th place this year (PRO 4-year ranking). But after next season 2005 he will already take back some of this fall in the ranking and after the 2006 season his year off (2004) will not count anymore.

Here is the "real" PRO World (4-year) Ranking after the 2004 season.

PRO World Ranking 2004
1 Kenny Mollica, USA (+1, 2-1)
2 Maurus Strobel, SUI (+1, 3-2)
3 Luca Giammarco, ITA (-2, 1-3)
4 Richy Carrasco, USA (+2, 6-4)
5 Michael Dong, USA (no change)
6 Paul Price, GBR (+1, 7-6)
7 Barrett Deck, USA (+3, 10-7)
8 Steve Olson, USA (+5, 13-8 )
9 Keith Hollien, USA (+3, 12-9)
10 Jani Söderhäll, SWE (-1, 9-10)
11 Chris Hart, SUI (+19, 30-11) New top 20!
12 Gary Fluitt, USA (+25, 37-12) New top 20!
13 Bobby Mandarino, USA (+2, 15-13)
14 Mike Maysey, USA (-6, 8-14)
15 Dhyan Fischer, SUI (-4, 11-15)
16 Vlad Popov, RUS (+1, 17-16)
17 Martin Siegrist, SUI (+21, 38-17) New top 20!
18 Brent Kosick, USA (+2, 20-18 )
19 Steve Evans, USA (+9, 28-19) New top 20!
20 Michael Stride, GBR (+15, 35-20) New top 20!
For complete ranking please visit http://www.slalomranking.com

Top 20 climbers coming into top 20
Gary Fluitt, USA (+25, from 37 to 12)
Martin Siegrist, SUI (+21, from 38 to 17)
Chris Hart, SUI (+19, from 30 to 11)

Top 20 droppers from top 20 last year
John Gilmour, USA (-35, from 4 to 39)
Gianluca Ferrero, ITA (-31, from 16 to 47)
Eric Groff, USA (-24, from 14 to 38 )
Mark McCree, USA (-7, from 18 to 25)
Jojo Linder, SUI (-2, from 19 to 21)

Here are 4 Am's that after this year are candidates for moving up to Pro according to their 6 best ranking points this season.

- David Pirnack, USA
1:st and a 3:rd at the Worlds (Major). Four (Main) 1:st places (La Costa Open, U.S. Championships of Skateboard Racing, The Farm 4 - Sold out)

- Henrik Madsen, SWE
1:st and 2:nd at the European Championships (Major). Only two (Main) results, 5:th and 7:th in Paris World Cup.

- Anders Hellquist, SWE
No "Major" results. Four "Main" results, 1:st and 2:nd in Paris World Cup and two 1:st places in Antibes.

- Stephan Hinzen, GER
1:st and 5:th at the European Championships (Major). No other results.

I think Pirnack, Madsen and Hellquist are ready for the Pros. Hinzen could be too maybe. Apart from these four I don't see any other who has reason to go Pro. Just because you win one Am race doesn't mean you must "turn Pro". But if you start collecting them...

What are the wages at Cone Racing ? Will Vinz get money for every picture in a Magazine, as all pros should ? Will he also change nationalities???

Team ConeRacing occupies four out of the top ten slots in the Am 2004 ranking:

2004 AM Ranking
2. Vincent Berruchon, FRA
5. Hans Koraeus, SWE
6. Henrik Madsen, SWE
10. Anders Hellqvist, SWE

Well done boys! All four have committed to improve their skills for next year. At least two of these will go Pro next year. At least one is likely to stay Am 2005...

We'll come back in time for the 2005 season with the official team presentation and announce the Pro/Am status of our racers.

/Jani

Isn't Vinz turning pro next year???

Well done Corky for all your work! I think a ranking system like this is great and its really cool to see "where you are"...
ps. Hope to get above you Vincent and Heiko next year!!!!

By the way, http://www.slalomranking.com have been updated with 3rd Annual Mountain State Slalom Skate in Fayetteville (WV, USA). No big changes for the big guys now at the end of the season. They have already taken their "high" points for the season. One exception though is Vlad. He had some results missing. He advanced from 39 to 30 in the 2004 PRO ranking. He would have been higher if he wouldn't have missed some of the high status competitions this year.

Same goes for the Ams. No big changes for the top guys at the end of the season. Brian Parson made a little jump. That's all I could see among the top 30 Ams for 2004.

For the women I noticed a small calculation error at the last update. Noemi Reichel had got a little bit too many points. Like she needed it. She actually have a World Ranking "straight flush". The maximum point possible for a women season, 2760 points. 2 Major wins (600x2) + 4 Main wins (390x4). This makes her number one on the Women season ranking for this year (2004). But on the 4-year ranking Lynn Kramer still holds on to the first place.

2004 PRO Ranking
1 Maurus Strobel, SUI
2 Kenny Mollica, USA
3 Richy Carrasco, USA
4 Chris Hart, SUI
5 Jason Mitchell, USA
6 Gary Fluitt, USA
7 Ramón Königshausen, SUI
8 Paul Price, GBR
9 Chris Barker, USA
10 Luca Giammarco, ITA

2004 Women TOT Ranking
1 Noemi Reichel, SUI
2 Lynn Kramer, USA
3 Nastasja Wolfensberger, SUI
4 Joy Spearing, SUI
5 Lienite Skaraine, LAT
6 Judi Oyama, USA
7 Kathrin Sehl, GER
8 Daniella Berger, SUI
9 Bettina Luginbühl, SUI
10 Keli Benko, USA

2004 AM Ranking
1 David Pirnack, USA
2 Vincent Berruchon, FRA
3 Heiko Schöller, GER
4 Jonathan Harms, USA
5 Hans Koraeus, SWE
6 Henrik Madsen, SWE
7 Rick Stanziale, USA
8 Jeff Goad, USA
9 Martin Drayton, TRI
10 Anders Hellqvist, SWE

See http://www.SlalomRanking.com for more details and complete listings.

I think contests should appeal to everybody. Many of the youngsters will come to competitions because of the older generation (sometimes parents). The more local competitions the more for the youngsters maybe. The young skaters doesn't have the same possibility to travel around as the older ones. But if the older slalomers travel they can often bring along the younger ones too.

To make slalom appeal more to youngsters is very much a media thing. If media thinks slalom is cool youngsters will too. The media is the answer. So let's start mediate.

Well, I've also been into footworking...I know that a series of small steps can get us far. I'm not really into programming as you must have guessed by now, but if I can be of any help. My (long) experience of slalom racing might come in handy.
The feeling I get (from browsing on this site) is that we are moving towards the creation of an International Federation of some sort (ISSA again?) which could be an answer to many of the quarrels that have arisen on this site in the last few months. And as Jack Smith mentioned elsewhere, we should pay more attention to the fact that many of us are not in their 20's any longer, and that our contests should appeal more to younger skaters.

Alavoine wrote:P.S.: I don't know how you manage to find the time to do all this.

Well, I don't even want to think about that. It wasn't done over a night. It has been an ongoing project since a long time ago. Also, be a nice guy and don't tell Jani about the time consuming part. Daniel Poweleit helps out a lot too for the moment with the web programming. It's all a hobby so it will only advance in very small steps. But many small steps are powerful. They can get you to the top of a mountain. It's just a questions of time. So I just keep on walking...

Vincent Berruchon wrote:"Bravo" to Hans and people involved SlalomRanking.com !

Approved by me, and most of the French skaters I suppose.

P.S.: I don't know how you manage to find the time to do all this. Keep up the good work!

"Bravo" to Hans and people involved SlalomRanking.com
it's great
I'm waiting for your next improvement.. It'll be fun to see racer's season and profile pages will be great too!

Thanks Ricky,
I'm greatful for all little bits of information that I can get. For the juniors I have problems unless they have entered an actual -17, -14 or -11 class. Then I assume they are 17, 14 or 11 years old that year. But even that is not perfect. What I use in the database is a birth year. I just update it as good as I can by looking at classes they enter. The best would of course be if I knew the birth year of all juniors from start. Now I know Sarah's for sure. And I will assume Matt's age is 14. The rest is still a partial guessing game.

For all juniors "virtual results" are created for each class depending on registered birth year. So if you are 11 years old and enter the general Open Am class the ranking will also calculate a "virtual result" for the -17, -14 and -11 class. If the same person enters the -17 class a "virtual result" will be created for -14 and -11 class and so on. If you are a girl/woman and enter a boys/mens class the ranking will also create "virtual results" for the girl/women rankings.

Now you understand why there is a need of a program calculating it all. And this is still just a small part of the reasons.

Just a couple of bits of info for the www.slalomranking.com site...

Matt Gandy also show in the Boys/Girls (-14) rankings and Sarah Byrd belongs in the Girls (-11), my little angel is 10.

Thanks for the hard work! Great site!

Kevin,
For the outlaws events January 17:th is in there and October 3:rd will soon be in there after the upcoming update tomorrow. Next to come are November 13th and December 4th. Any other Outlaws event than these I don't know of or don't have results for.

Wes,
Also, none of the 2004 DC Summer Outlaw races are on the events list.

O.K. let's try it again,
In a nutshell:
M.S.S.S 2004 Slalom Results
1 Mollica
2 Vlad
3 Paul Price
4 Keith Hollien
5 Brian Parsons
6 Wes E.
7 Jadranko
8 J. Harms
9 Rick "66" Stanziale
10 Dave "LBK" Riordon
11 Tod Oles
12 Scott O'brian
13 Noemi
14 Greg F
15 Kevin Gamble
16 Chris Favero
17 Jeff Goad
18 Chris Bara
19 Alan Sidlo
20 Wesley Tucker
21 Jeff McCullar
22 Ben Barkley
23 Lenny Poage
24 Marc Fuentes
25 Craig Condon
26 Frederick Carter

My bad Corky/WesE. I posted them (Iswear) but I have been having pc troubles(it lets me work a crap load ..then disconects) so it never went through apparently! Right after I get these munchkin heads fed, I'll try again!

Exactly the point WesE. I only have the first day 77 cone race. I'm eagerly awaiting the second day results so I can do the next update. There are a couple of small person data fixes too. And maybe some sensitive result changes for the... Woooorlds. Ooooh.

All slalom results are welcome. If you see some results missing in the WR it is a mistake. Just send them to me and I will add them.

Dave Gale wrote:Have you decided not to include the Mountain State Slalom Skate this year??

Have you made the results available? I certainly haven't seen them posted anywhere.

Corky and all who have helped with www.slalomranking.com ...Thank you!

I just now took a look at the site...WOW!

I love it. Please keep up the great work.

Jack

Have you decided not to include the Mountain State Slalom Skate this year?? I think Price Mollica Vlad Harms Stanziale etc... would like to have theyir points accounted!!! I saw no place in the "rankings" for 2004 results
Enjoy,
Dave G

Rick wrote:Corky - don't apologize! The World Rankings may do more to promote slalom skateboard racing than any other single effort! We now have a resource the media can refer to before a race, something that was lacking before (sure we have SS.com, but it can be a b*tch to wade through the posts, and NCDSA...well I'm sure I'm not the only one who has stopped sending anyone with an interest in skateboard racing to that website).

And as an added bonus - we can see that the number of racers grew by 14% from 2003 to 2004. Not bad, not bad.

There is a lot of interesting things hidden in numerical data. That's why we got statisticians. Like Rick.

There are almost 800 persons in the ranking already after two years. And it could have been more if only all competitions out there was registered. There are still many missing. Ok, maybe they are maybe often smaller ones but they too do also help out the sport. The smaller and more local races are where most new racers step in. Making them count will help the ranking person file grow which could be our way of proving that the sport grows for external people. So don't be shy to send in local competition results. I should maybe say though that they should be serious competitions but that doesn't mean they have to be on a world level. One small sign for me of a somewhat serious competition is if you pay to enter it, even though it's just a buck or two.

Making statistical analyses like Rick is great fun. I will continue on his path and add some more analyses and some more data facts.

Number of persons in the ranking
2003 473 men and 40 women
2004 542 men and 35 women
Total 758 men and 58 women

About data facts the Men ranking is in theory and Open ranking since women and juniors may attend the mens class. This is why there are also some women in the mens ranking. When women compete in a mens class they get both men and women points.

Rick is getting the whole idea. Forums can only go that far in promoting the sport. There is also a need for another face towards the "none slalom nerds". Hopefully slalomranking.com can be such a place. It's not much to shout about yet. But just wait until we get up the personal profile pages and get a little "style" on it. Only with the ranking info you get quite a good profile of a racer. Adding some photos and some racer intro will make it even better. A forum is not a part of such a site in my view. That is already taken cared of elsewhere.

This idea is not new. We had started to get something going and had a worldranking up when the scene collapsed in 1995. Since then all the ideas have been kept in my drawer. When I got involved in slalom again I was way ahead of the new scene. I have eagerly waited it out but I think it starts to get some steam now. Now it's up to us all to decide where we want to take it.

By keeping my tentacles out I knew I would sooner or later get in contact with someone who could give a hand. Daniel Poweleit is such a person that popped up from nowhere to help. Without his web programming help this project would not have been up and running on the web at this point.

The Events button is implemented at http://www.slalomranking.com. This means you can now list the result lists for all event discipline classes that are included in the World Ranking database.

Daniel Poweleit is doing some good programming work behind the scene. Next is the Racers button that will list all registered results for a specific racer.

Sorry for the very simple design of the site so far. We are concentrating ourselves on the data output first.

Claude,
David did enter AM class in 2003 but for 2004 this has not been possible since all races in US has been OPEN's. I moved up Noah Heinle and Chris Barker to PRO though (without their consent). They topped the 2003 AM ranking and looking at their results for 2004 I think it was correct. For David I had no reason to do that though unless he had himself asked for a pro status. I think he is worth his AM top spot. I have said it before that some of the top Am's are halfways Pro's and the system also reflects this with how the points are set. He is ranked 20 in the 2003 total ranking including both Pro and Am skaters. The goal for David is now to defend that position running as pro in 2005. Another interesting story to follow next year.

Talking about this let's have a look at how Noah Heinle and Chris Barker managed to defend their positions this year. After the 2003 season Noah had 23:rd place in the total ranking running as Am. In 2004 he managed to defend that position as Pro with his current 21:st place. But if he would have been able to enter the Worlds he would have been even higher, believe me. Chris Barker was 34 in the total ranking running as Am in 2003. This year running as Pro he is 9:th! That is what I call "Rookie of the year". Another forgotten hero of 2004. Why is nobody chearing and screaming for him? I think the ranking can sometimes put the finger on things that is not awlays so easy to see.

Pierre,
Thanks again for helping out with double names. Making the ranking official and more public in the future will hopefully make these things less common.

I'm just awaiting the results from the "3rd Annual Mountain State Slalom Skate". Then we can close the books for 2004. This does not mean that other competition results might not be added but with this one those with higher statuses are done.

Another double racer.
Adrien Hochart (his true name) and Adrien Auchare 321 and 340 in the scracth 2004 ranking.
Organizer please take care with orthograf ))!!

I 'm sure that Jonyx and Jon Warburton 203 and 291 on the 4 years total ranking are the same personne too. But may be the brits know that better than me.

The lycra was a desperate last ditch attempt at speed. Sorry about that. Next year I will return to more sombre, conservative apparel.


Picture: Horton-Stephens private collection (somewhere near the Van Gogh)

Yup. Definitely something more pub-worthy.

Hans this is all very good. I was impressed with the stats you picked up from the few Canadian racers and races.

One thing that is skewed (spelling?) from all of this is that David is no Amateur on a Global scale. His skill level on cetain courses and certain days are amongts the best in the field of Slalom Skateboard Racing.

Notheless the stats are worthwhile and the longer it is accurately fed the cream will rise to the top. Of course some of the cream will always consist for those who make it to contests over some of those who refuse to travel to events.

Long gone are the days of the best racers being from one given area.

Paul,
The Mountain Challenge in West Virginia will most likley not affect the top of the rankings since this competition has "only" prime status. But for those who have not got their 8 results for the year yet (8 for Pros, 6 for Ams), like Vlad, it certainly will get them a little push up in the ranking. Even more if there where 8 or more pros in the start field. Then they will get Pro points instead of Open points. Even though Mollica won for example it will not change his ranking point for the year. But the top is not everything. I think it just as funny seeing the battle between slalom buddy's further down in the rankings. A good example is Sam and Niall above. That will be a very interesting match for 2005. And what I understand there are many many more friendly competitions like that going on. And this was one of the intentions with the ranking in the first place. To give everybody a yearly challenge at whatever level you are and by that giving people an extra reason to travel and compete on those slalom competitions that are organized.

As I have said before this data will be possible to be drawn out on http://www.slalomranking.com later on. I still think that some could be of general interest already now. Like the 2004 amateur top 3. David Pirnack is so far the stongest amateur seen in this ranking. He is not far from a rank grand slam. Just look at those results.

Point Place Event - David Pirnack, USA 2240 points
330 1 The Farm 4 - Sold Out
330 1 The Farm 4 - Sold Out
330 1 U.S. Championships
330 1 La Costa Open
420 3 Morro Bay, USA
500 1 Morro Bay, USA

Point Place Event - Vincent Berruchon, FRA 2008 points
264 4 Paris World Cup, FRA
277 3 Antibes, FRA
297 2 Antibes, FRA
330 1 Paris World Cup, FRA
420 3 Cologne, GER
420 3 Cologne, GER

Point Place Event - Heiko Schöller, GER 1972 points
264 4 Grüningen, SUI
264 4 Grüningen, SUI
297 2 Antibes, FRA
297 2 Antibes, FRA
400 4 Cologne, GER
450 2 Cologne, GER

I have never seen David Pirnack but looking at his results (not those above who only shows his Am placements but the "Open" results) he looks ready for trying it out with the Pro's next year. For Vincent and Heiko I don't see any urgent signs for going Pro yet. Unless they personally want to. Funny enough there are others further down that most likley will go Pro next year. Henrik Madsen who took 1:st and 2:nd in the Cologne Major and Anders Hellqvist who took 1:st and 2:nd in Paris World Cup and 2 wins in Antibes. Both Swedes. Both ready to take on the Pros.

There is still not a sharp edge between Pro and Am class. For me a couple of important wins in the Am class normally is a good sign to go on up to the Pro class. This has worked fine so far since it becomes natural to do. There is nothing more to prove in the Am class. The tricky bit is what to do with the Pro class if it gets too crowded. Can Pros that doesn't hold the standard step down a class? Would that be back into the Am class or another Open/"Pro challenge" class? This is a tricky one for the future because I still like the idea with the AM class to start out with. Then if you make it there you try the Pro Class. But then? If you manage to hold out until you are 45 we could shake life into the Legends class. But up to 45 we might need something more if more and more skaters starts slalom like Gods.

For you who suddenly got an urge to give your view on the Pro/Am subject can do that on AM/Open or PRO. Discussion also exist on if to use the division at all at Pro and Open or A-Pro/B-Pro?.

Not until the results from the West Virginia contest are added, Kenny got 2 first places there, and the rest of the competitiors got some results!