Take Jump out of Sr Women Overall at Worlds

My 2 cents...

Just my 2 cents here! also being married to one of those women!Take away jump and you might as well take out overall, there are 3 events in this sport, like it or not! If you don't compete in all of them, you can't be the best overall There is not that many of them that jump( how much time are you gonna save)

There is a lot of emotions around jump.  I personally do not care for jump but that is b/c I am not great at it.  Does that me I want it eliminated ---NO!!  It makes me want to work harder and get more comfortable with it.  There is a lot of woman who are finding jump to be there thing ie:  Niki Brzoza and Terri Jones.  Were the scores lousy --yes but they were equally lousy they were my worst scores but it still made Terri and Andrea happy - it gave them both a medal.  I feel strongly at leaving it as is.  Kevin is right Overall should include Jump - it is part of overall.  There is going to be a time when the young ones move up and they wouldn't be happy if they have been training that event only to have it taken away.  I disagree with taking it out.  It should be left up to the individual

If you are going on scores declining in an event check out the jump scores from the 1999 US Nationals .  There weren't that many skiers jumping over 20m at the 2008 Worlds as there were at the 1999 US nationals. So you should chop Open jump if using that criteria.

Edited by Jonesy920x - March 05 2009 at 9:53pm

 You all also need to consider team overall points and how that works.. Most folks have no idea about team scoring and they only consider how it affects the individual... The Worlds is a TEAM EVENT...

Heather said it all when she said they were all "small but competitive"... THATS THE PROBLEM... They were all about the same distance because they were all safe ride overs...

What that means if the BIG Ladies jump was 7.5m (which was won gold) and the short jump was only 6m, then somebody with a 6m jump is getting 800 overall points.. Now we all know you could pull a sack of potatoes over the jump at jump speed and get it to go 6m.. Dont get me wrong here... I'm not calling any of you Ladies a sack of potatoes.... but a sack of potatoes in a wet suit could get 800 overall points while a Men jumper at about 50 feet (and I think we all agree it takes a lot of training and risk to get to 50 feet) only gets 600.. 

Therein lies the problem.. The team is gonna use the 800pts from the sack of potatoes and the guy who has trained his ass off jumping for years gets ZIP....When that 50 foot jumper only gets 600 overall points and the sack of potatoes gets 800 pts then SOMETHING IS WRONG..

As for it not being overall with only 2 events.. Well, I think that the ABC has already shown this is not the case.. Some divisions are not even allowed to jump.. And its not just the ABC who dont allow some divisions to jump.. Its that way everywhere..

From 78 until 86 women did not jump in any division.. Not open, not senior, not junior, NO women jumped in barefoot comps.. But they still had an overall and they still produced some great skiers..

The idea about the best 2 of 3 events (allowing jump to be optional for overall) was never a good idea.. If only one competitor decides to jump and she jumps 2m, she will get 1000 overall pts.. So if 1 jumps they will all jump.. You cant let somebody get 1000 overall pts for simply riding over a jump.. If 1 rides over they will all ride over..

In the not too distant past it took 11m or 12m to win Ladies jump.. Now it takes 7.5.. We gotta face fact that the Ladies just arent training to jump big, or dont want to train jump, or SOMETHING... I dont know why, but the distances have decreased every Worlds... I can only assume it has something to do with motivation.. I just have trouble believing that these ladies are so eager to jump and are really motivated to go big..

I only saw ONE jump that was not a safe ride over at the last Worlds.. ONE... and that was from a lady who was darn near killed on the jump and HATES to jump...

And Yes, we wont save a whole day by eliminating Ladies jump, but we will save 3 hours.. And we will have to find other ways to save another 3 hours here and another 1 hour, etc there until we have an event we can run in 7 days or less... There IS going to be change..

You all want to save Ladies jump so that means we need to reduce the number of skiers someplace else... Tell me WHERE??? Who do you want to leave out??? Maybe if we all realize and acknowledge that it is going to take a sacrifice from ALL of the skiers to keep the door as wide open as possible we wont have to tell a guy like Holtzy he cant ski in a Worlds at all...

Don't skiers that enter in OPEN and SR or OPEN and JR ski twice ? Maybe some time could be saved there? Either by counting their score twice or letting them enter in only one category?  Or best score counts as open and second as SR or JR?

Edited by 1FootDan - March 06 2009 at 1:19pm

Foot,

       I don't ever remember skiing more than two rounds in any worlds that I skied. I think if you want to reduce the time it takes to complete the worlds there are a couple of things we could do.   

 

        First don't let skiers dual enter. If you’re skiing for your country on the open team then you shouldn't ski the Jr/Sr worlds as well. I'm not picking on one person the system allows this now and in my opinion I don't think it should.

        Second if you let everyone ski the first round and then cut the field down to the top 10-15 skiers to the second round. Then give the medals to the top three scorers in that round then you could also cut time that way. That's just my two cents worth.

  

DMJ

Foot,

As a "senior" skier and former jumper, I vote to leave senior women's jumping in place.   It shouldn't be about time, it shouldn't be about whether some man thinks the distance is deserving............it should be about applauding the pioneers who get out there and get it done.  Some times the winning distance is a reflection of where the sport is at the moment.   The pool of women skiers who jump is VERY small, but to discount their efforts is a shame.   Maybe we should alienate other factions of our sport while we are at it, after all there is such an overwhelming number of barefoot waterskiers around the world.  At least these ladies are still out there giving it their all and skiing.   It's much easier to not ski and belittle the efforts of those who do.   

 

If a skier isn't comfortable with jumping, they shouldn't jump.   It is the same personal decision that needs to be made by every skier (male or female).  Frankly by the time a skier is a senior, they are more than old enough and surely capable enough of making the decision that is right for them.   There isn't a medal in the world that could make me do something that I didn't want to do.   If someone jump's due to "team" pressure then they accepted the position on the Team without making it clear their position on skiing or not skiing an event.  Can someone over commit? Sure.  Can someone change their mind? Sure.  Can someone think they'll have more time to train and not due to life circumstances? Sure.  But that doesn't mean that all SW jumpers shouldn't have the opportunity if they so desire.

 

So let's not take away the opportunity for the senior women who want to jump, because removing jump or removing it from the overall calculations does absolutely nothing for the future of ALL female jumpers in our sport.   The only way we get better SW jumpers is to have a bigger pool of women jumpers of all ages.   So let's not take away any motivation or opportunity for the younger women of today, who will be the senior women of the future. 

 

As far as the team scoring and the advantage for teams that have women jumpers.    SO WHAT.....  I'm pretty sure that the motives behind that argument have nothing to do with tournament time, safety or promoting women in barefooting and have everything to do with the failings of all of our countries to promote more women in barefooting.  

 

The answer is more female skiers and more female jumpers.........not less and certainly not less opportunities to showcase the women out there skiing.

Foot,  I have a lot more I want to add to this discussion, but for the moment, let me clear up a fact you obviously aren't aware of.  ALL age divisions in th ABC CAN jump and the scores ARE counted in the overall.  That was changed several years ago because the skiers wanted it, including the juniors. 

Dan,
Does the ABC still have jump proficiencies??? i.e. Do skiers have to meet certain requirements???  Is every division, from the youngest to the oldest, a 3 event overall?? Can someone who has never jumped show up to Nationals and be allowed to jump??? 

• Forward rope on foot, basic and reverse, each held for 5 seconds.
• Forward one foot basic and reverse, each held for 5 seconds.
• Forward surface hop from a position between 2.25m and 7.75m outside of the wake on the driver's side of the boat using a jump handle.
• 6 1/2 forward wake crossings or 5 one foot forward wake crossings in 15 seconds.

With respect to training and learning to jump.   Joel Brookshire taught me how to jump and Verlon Cross signed off on my proficiency card.   I couldn't agree more that all jumpers need to train and practice, this is an extreme sport with all of the inherent dangers that the word extreme implies.   But eliminating SW jump scores from overall doesn't improve anything, it only moves us backwards.   Sounds to me like the change should be to the administration of testing and requiring demonstrable proficiency around the world.

LS
You were in the WBC meeting where this was brought up so you know it was not Australia who brought this up.. It came from PA.. YOUR CONFEDERATION... your comment "Australia will have some in fifteen years" makes this look like some kind of nefarious team strategy put forward by Australia... which it is not... and you well know it..

Right now I am also not in favor of eliminating it from the overall but I think we need to at least BE FAIR in our public statements about this subject..

By the way, here is something to put in your pipe and smoke.. Australia has the BEST Lady skier who has ever lived.. Gizzie Hallaz.. the current LADIES WORLD CHAMPION who had 3000 overall points at the end of the tournament.. (that means she had the highest score in every event) Oh yea, they also have Ashleigh Kate Stebbeings who had 6000 overall points at the end of the tournament and is now THE ONLY 3 time Jr World Champion and is also the current Open Womens World Champion..

So this is not about who has what in their arsenal.. This is about trying to fix a problem that has been growing worse every Worlds.. Specifically, people going over the jump who do not train for the jump event... If anybody thinks that is a safe practice then they need their head examined..

And here is another one for anyone who thinks that the utmost in sportsmanship wasnt the order of the day in Otaki.. Ask Derek Koch which junior team would have won if Australia had told Ashleigh Kate Stebbeings to hold back and tie with Samantha Payne in tricks, which would have given Australia 2000 overall points in that event...