Pro and Open or A-Pro/B-Pro?

[Eric Moore]

Someday I'd like to throw a race, and if I were to do it now this is how I would organize it. When racers sign up for the race, they self-classify as Amateur or Elite. If I have guaranteed prize money and there is no insurance issue, then maybe I call the Elite class the Pro class instead. But for now I'll stick with Elite.

Everybody qualifies together. The fastest 32 (or 24 or whatever) out of EVERYONE qualify for bracketing in the Elite class championship. An amateur might win and take home the prize money...if so, good for him! We can all argue about whether he's a pro now or not, but it makes no difference for my race or any race run in this way.

Now we look at all those who classified themselves as Amateurs, and the fastest 32 who failed to qualify for the Elite class are bracketed and compete for the Amateur class championship. The winner might get a shiny new Roe or Pocket Pistol.

Note, anyone who classified themselves as Elite and failed to qualify for the Elite class bracket is DONE FOR THE DAY! They do not compete in the Amateur bracket. Amateurs can move up with a good qualifying time, but Elite racers cannot move down.

So you might be thinking, why would someone classify themselves as Elite? There is nothing to gain! Well, you're right, but I bet people classify as Elite anyway. As JG alluded to previously, do you think the BLR guys will check off "Amateur" next to their name? Do you think guys like Mollica or Mitchell or Carrasco are looking for a second chance with Ams if they have an off day? I seriously doubt it.

I suspect that self-classification is at least 90% effective at dividing people into appropriate skill classes, but if people mis-classify the system is somewhat self-correcting. If somebody who really rips mis-classifies themselves as an amateur, chances are they will qualify for Elite anyway and it won't make any difference. If you mis-classify yourself as Elite and don't qualify, you have a short day and next time you know you're really an Amateur.

With this system Ams get see how they stack up against the best, but they still get a chance to gain race experience against competitors of similar skill.

Someday when there are hundreds of slalom races per year and 10,000 participants around the world, we might need an official definition of what it means to be an "Amateur". But for the forseeable future, self-classification is the only reasonable way to do it.

[Hans Koraeus]

Interesting approach. It is very much like it works today in Europe anyway. You enter Pro or Am class. If you enter Pro and do bad you will not qualify for the head to head and you are done for the day. Normally Pro and Am often have different courses though.

The new interesting approach is that all qualify in the same course and that ams that somehow might manage to place (top 32/top 16) is then (also?) qualified to enter the Pro class. For me the interesting thing to divide Pro and Am is to give them different courses that better suits the level of each of these groups. But I guess it could still be done in the head to head finals. And should ams that qualify for both Am and Pro be forced to select Pro or should they be able to enter the two classes?

It's a good idea for letting the top Ams now and then have a chance to try it out against the Pros. There have been ideas in the same directions already. In Paris this year we had an idea of letting the top 3 Am qualifiers to be invited into the Pro class as well. But maybe it's enough that this is done automatically in the smaller competitions during the year where there is not enough racres to divide into Pro and Am classes.

[John Gilmour]

but it isn't always about times.

I decided at the worlds it would be interesting to take an AM and give him PRO strategy for each opponent and see how far he would last in the AM category.

It worked- he went far and was taken out only by the winner of the AM's on Sunday.

So I'm not sure that qualifying times alone are enough- when it comes to head to head racing....for single track I think it works well enough- except perhaps when course conditions are rapidly changing.

[Eric Moore]

John - You're absolutely right that the eventual winner of the race can be decided as much by who has the best race strategy as by who is simply the fastest. But you can't quantify the quality of strategy when seeding people in brackets, so you have to do it based on times. Qualifying is always based on times. So if the Elite or Pro class is truly supposed to be the best skaters, then you have to take the fastest times of the day and put them in that bracket, regardless of how the people who laid down those times classify themselves.