Thanks Andy for a reasonable and clear summary.Originally Posted by AndyA
Can someone please just confirm this is the position with a simple yes or no.
Thanks Andy for a reasonable and clear summary.
Can someone please just confirm this is the position with a simple yes or no.
No - see above.
CVFR have a junior champs series throughout the year and always have done . This is easily broken into age cats as per FRA champs and we award prizes accordingly. Usuallu we pick 10 races for the series. Next year this will be harder to orhganise as some of the races the kids do will be in corresponding age cats and will be easy to work out who beat who and what points they get, however some of the races the do will be age on day of race and will therefore bring complications to working out our own champs series as juniors may/will be racing against different competitors in different races. I bet FRA and whoever never considered the CVFR junior race series when they made thses changes. Damn you FRA!!
By which - do you mean your post No78?
If so then that's a bit confusing because you seemed to be agreeing with me in that post!
Your post No 78 (if I may summarise) states that the vast majority of races use the 'age on 1st Jan' system and that a small minority of races use different systems such as 'age on race day' or 'schoolyear' and that these other systems have arisen for various reasons.
The news item on the FRA site states that the maximum distances specified in Rule Ten will (from 1st Jan 2013) will now apply on a 'age on race day' basis rather than the 'age on 1st Jan' system currently used.
I accept that, having read Rule Ten carefully, ROs have actually always been free to choose their own age system; I suspect that most were completely unaware of this (it was news to me) and have always used the age brackets and the 'age on 1st Jan' system because they thought that they had to!
With that in mind; here's another version;
As I understand it (Version 2!);
Ignoring the 'qualifying for senior races' issue, which, as a junior coach, isn't my main concern;
The RO of a junior race has (and has always had) the choice of operating an 'age on race day' or an 'age on 1st Jan' system and is actually free to choose any qualifying date, so could choose to align their race to the school year system used in XC, T&F etc. if they wanted to.
The races must comply with the maximum distance restrictions already in force, irrespective of which system is chosen. This distance restriction will, from 1st Jan 2013, be categorised in an 'age on race day' format, in a change from the current 'age on 1st Jan' system.
If their race is to be a champs race then they must stick with the current 'age on 1st Jan' system.
The above is, hopefully, an objective statement of fact based on the details in the FRA news item - am I correct in my understanding?
The reason I'm pursuing this line of enquiry is not pedantry; it's to try and get past the confusion and misunderstanding which has got us close to 100 posts on this subject!
FellJunior; I'd be grateful if you could have a look at Version 2 above and see if it makes sense. As one of the junior coaches that will have to explain the situation to juniors and their parents I think it's really important that everyone knows where we stand at the moment.
I'd agree that, in the short term at least, probably little will change. My concern would be that, as races evolve and change we may see a gradual divergence of systems in place which will actually make it more confusing for parents to understand which race their child is doing, rather than less confusing.
It will also cause problems with junior club champs as CCR mentions; at Clayton we also have a junior club champ series, which could be adversely affected by this. For the same reasoning that affects the national champs, every race in the series has to use the same system; we already have to exclude BOFRA events as they run a different system.
Last edited by AndyA; 12-10-2012 at 03:49 PM. Reason: typo
Our club Junior fell championships are based on results achieved in the Pennine clubs Grand Prix series. For next year we will only pick races that use age as of 1st January which the organiser can so choose do do as per the ' new ' rules. This will make working out the stats at the end of the season just as easy, can I suggest to Calder Valley that they adopt a similar strategy and liaise with the event organisers accordingly.
For next year we will be basing our own club fell champs on the Fra series rather than the Pennine Grand Prix series, hopefully this will help to focus juniors and parents alike more on the English Championship , if you are gonna race it should be against the best !
I'd be careful AndyA and CCR as you may get accused of hyping this up and bring the wrath of the FRA down on your heads :w00t:
I can't believe that you are still unclear, you must be a right pair of tubes
The Woodentop races, Ilkley Harriers, Bingley Harriers, Hellifield and Shepherds Skyline races are using age as at 1st January 2013, hope this helps clubs to pick their junior championship races for 2013.
There is no real need for Junior Race Organisers to do ANYTHING different from last year. Keep using age on 1st January to define their age groups using the table in the Handbook for guidance if required.
This rule change is really only needed for Senior Race Organisers.
Luckily most people do not read the forum or, for that matter, the FRA website, so won't have been alarmed or confused by this thread which, to my mind, is making a mountain out of a molehill.
Having said that, the arguments for the rule change could have been made a lot clearer in the post on the FRA Website about this.
the rule change
The rule change is really a clarification for senior race organisers. Whether it was necessary is a different point altogether.
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