Marcus Rietema wrote:It's been very interesting coming into the slalom world this year and not having any knowledge of who the top Pros, top Ams, influential characters, hard workers, etc were. I'm still learning all the time. What was really nice is that I was able to come in and look at the whole scene without any bias or prejudice. I see a lot of good people with a lot of heart working very hard. I also see people, for whatever reason, determined to stick with flawed ways. I hope that in the future this process of determining who is an Am and who is a Pro can be looked at.
Marcus,
I've had some discussions with my buds here on the East Coast and there's a growing opinion about there not being "pro" and "open" or "amateur" slalom skaters.
Developing "A" and "B" brackets at every race would be more competitive. With this there would be no more assuming certain racers will always race against other certain racers. We would have instead racers bracketed into an "A" or "B" bracket at every event and that means the fast guys race the fast guys and the slower guys race each other.
As an example there will be no "pro" racing at the Dixie Cup Pump Cone Fest Duals on Saturday. On race day there will be qualifying. Everyone qualifies the same. Afterwards there will be FOUR brackets of 16 racers each for a total of 64. The "A", "B," "C," and "D" brackets will have nothing to do with "pro" or "open" status. As such anything can happen. Maybe one of the fastest guys in the world gets squirrelly and falls on his first run. In his second run he's tentative enough so that all of a sudden one of the top racers in the sport finds himself in the "C" bracket. Yes, that really could happen. This is also the way The Farm and some other races operate.
We have "Pro" and "Amateur" in the World Rankings and it could remain that way. If a "pro" wins the "C" bracket that means he is 33rd overall and that's his points award. The idea, though, of segregating certain racers just because they declare themselves a "pro" may be a little ahead of where this sport is right now.
Of course, I also know this response belongs in Section 10 and not here, but hey, rules were meant to be broken!