Originally Posted by Witton Park
The FRA Ltd Junior Race Entry Form on page 17, use of which is mandatory, (see Rule 8 Entries on page 14) includes:
Date of Birth:_____________________________________ Age: _______
There is only one logical "age" to follow a DoB unless a RO defines another criterion of "age" for his race.
Graham - I might have missed something but this isn't what I was on about. When you look at a junior race how do you know how the age groups are calculated? That was my query.
That should be in the ROs information that I would expect to be submitted to the calendar.
Lecky is saying it should be age as of 1/1/13 for all junior races unless otherwise stipulated.
What is the correct logical age?
1. Age on the date of the race?
2. Age on the 1st of January for this year?
3. Age on the 1st of January for the date of the competition?
4. Age on the date you completed the form?
5. Age on any other unspecified date?
Richard,
1. When RO were invited to submit their races for the 2013 Calendar they were specifically advised of the change to Rule 10 to age on day of race and not 1st Jan and that the FRA Entry form would become mandatory.
2. The 2013 Junior Entry Form clearly suggests that age is day of race (because it follows and is on the same line as DoB) which is consistent with the new Rule 10.
3. If a RO wishes to use some other formula than age on day of race that is up to him but I agree it might be useful to his race day organisation to publicise/ have publicised this, eg in the Calendar, but the FRA does not organise races for RO: it merely sets overarching rules.
4. I do not think it mentions 1st January anywhere in the 2013 Calendar so no one should assume this date is generally meaningful.
Graham
So Graham, you are saying that Lecky is wrong.
I'm not here to say who is right and who is wrong.
But if we have the last FRA Junior Co-ordinator saying 1/1/13 (unless otherwise stated) and the last FRA Chair saying age on day of race (unless otherwise stated) then we clearly have a problem.
I've stipulated age on day of race for mine on 3rd Feb - just to be clear :thumbup:
I think there are two things here that are not quite right.
1 A logical person completing the form would spot the redundancy in asking for 'Date of Birth' AND (unqualified) 'Age' and wonder if there must be some other factor in determining Age than date of birth and the race date. "What's the trick" they might think.
That person might be applying a different form of logic to what Graham, or I myself, would use, but it's not unreasonable for them to think that way and this could create unnecessary confusion and dialogue.
The form would be clearer if instead of Age it said 'Age on race day' or 'Age on 1 Jan'.
And, given that, the form would be better if it did not have Date of Birth on it at all, for four reasons
a) the form would be simpler
b) the deliberate redundancy is insulting to competitors as it implies that they could (mistakenly) or would (deliberately) complete a clearly defined Age field incorrectly
c) it is unreasonable to expect a team processing entries on the day to make this check, age (whatever rule) against DoB
d) date of birth is quite a sensitive piece of information and should not be collected unnecessarily
2 The use of the 'FRA Ltd Junior Race Entry Form on page 17' is not mandatory under 'Rule 8 Entries on page 14'.
The very first sentence of 'Rule 8 Entries on page 14' says that a race-specific entry form may be used as long as it includes all the items on the standard form that are now mandatory. (I'd take this to include everything except age classes and the FRA Limited footer.)
This is a good thing as some race organisers wish to correct extra information or use different age classes, or may wish to present a different layout that in their opinion might be better for competitors and organisers.
..nothing's changed..
(including sniggers in the background)
Last edited by OB1; 21-12-2012 at 05:00 PM.
It seems to me that a lot of people have become pretty confused as to what this rule change was about. This is compounded by posts in this thread that are basically wrong, including parts of the one from our ex-Chairman, and a not well thought through or communicated change to the rule.
The issue that was being "solved" was under age runners running too far in Senior races. The original rule Ten confused the issue by talking about "Ages are as at 1st January" as well as maximum distances. This has been changed to the age on the day of the race. So, it means that someone who turns 16 on the day of a race that is less than 10K can run that race. This should be quite straightforward.
It would have been clearer if the details in rule 10 had said that "16 or over on day of race - max distance 10k".
The other side of this is that race organisers have been encouraged to think that their Junior races could/should now be organised differently from the English Championships format. This is rather unhelpful.
Up to now, most, if not all, Junior Races used the Junior Champs age categories. This made it easy for parents to know what category their child was in through the year if running an FRA Junior race. The way to find this out was always to ask, "how old were you on the 1st of January this year?" Most kids had a good idea of that age. If they said 10, then they were in the U12. If they said 15 then they were U16.
The English Junior Champs age group format has been the same for years and based on Age on 1st Jan 2013 (for next year). This FRA Junior Champs age ranges are stated, slightly differently, on Page 108 where it gives the complete age ranges for each age group. I would hope all Junior Race organisers would adopt these age categories to make life easier. (It would have been sensible for the FRA Committee not to start suggesting people use different dates for junior age categories in the first place.)
Alan Barlow's post on the FRA website says "the English junior championship will continue to use 1 January as the qualification date. Clubs or races are free to choose their own qualification dates for competitions as long as they keep to the maximum distances detailed in Rule Ten." I'm pretty sure that has been edited since it was first put up, but now sums the situation up well. English Junior Champs is age on 1st Jan, other races can adopt that or otherwise (in my opinion, preferably adopt it).
As for the Junior Entry form. You have to have the Date of Birth, but asking Age does not imply the race categories are based on Age on day of race. If, as I would encourage, the organiser is sticking to the Junior Champs age groups then it MAY raise the question, "What age were you on 1st Jan this year", allowing the eagle-eyed entry person to clarify.
In response to Lecky (see above);
This post is an excellent summary of the status quo and also how it has come about.
Several saw this coming and tried to speak out about it but were put down in characteristically patronising form by both current and former FRA cttee members. It's a shame that the current confusion was entirely avoidable had others spoken up at the time instead of waiting until now.
Looking forward; This could go one of two ways, either nothing will change as most RO's will continue as normal or we'll get a complete dogs breakfast of a season as RO's get confused about the situation and arbitrarily change their race categories to 'age on race day' because they mistakenly think that they have to.
In an attempt to avoid the latter, can I suggest that the FRA cttee nominate one of their members to contact as many junior race RO's as possible to ensure that they clearly understand the rule situation and to encourage them to stick to 'age on 1st Jan'. Longer term it might be appropriate to consider making 'age on 1st Jan' the compulsory system for all junior fell races run under the FRA.
Incidentally, for those who still don't understand why this is such a big issue; several clubs operate their own 'club champs' series; picking a selection of local races and running a points based in-house competition. Just as in the FRA junior champs, all these races have to use the same system, otherwise juniors will change race categories at different times during the series and cannot be scored against each other.
Last edited by AndyA; 21-12-2012 at 09:38 PM. Reason: spelling
Andy - there isn't a rule situation that applies to age groups and that is perhaps the problem. The rule applies to Maximum Race Distances.
Below is how UKA handle this - these are the Cross Country rules and you can see that they have one rule to handle the max race distance but a clear framework for the age groups.
As the FRA rules are integrated in to UKA Rules now it might have been useful to use the same template which doesn't mean the same dates and age categories
just the same method for setting the rules out.
RULE 507 AGE GROUPS
For Championships and many other races young athletes are grouped into age
categories. The Competition Year extends from 1st October to 30th September in
the following year. (i) Under 13 Boys and Girls (School Years 7 and 8 and some
Year 6)
Cross country competitions for Under 13’s shall be confined to competitors
who are aged 11 on the day of competition or 12 on 31st August commencement
of the Competition Year as defined above.
(ii) Under 15 Boys and Girls (School Years 9 and 10)
Cross Country competitions for Under 15’s shall be confined to
competitors who are aged 13 or 14 on 31st August prior to the
commencement of the Competition Year as defined above.
(iii) Under 17 Men and Women (School Years 11 and 12)
Cross Country competitions for Under 17’s shall be confined to
competitors who are aged 15 or 16 on 31 August prior to the
commencement of the Competition Year as defined above.
(iv) Junior Men and Women
Cross Country competitions for Junior Men and Women shall be
confined to competitors who are aged 17, 18 or 19 on 31st August
prior to the commencement of the Competition Year as defined
above.
(v) Senior Men and Women
For Cross Country competitions a Senior is a competitor who is aged
at least 20
on 31st August prior to the commencement of the Competition Year
as defined above. Junior Men and Women may compete in Senior
events as appropriate and subject to the maximum distances for their
age group not being exceeded.
(vi) Masters Men and Women
Cross Country events for Masters shall be confined to competitors
who are at least 35 years of age on the date of the competition.
RULE 508 MAXIMUM DISTANCES
Age Group
Maximum distance
Male/Female
Under 13 years 3500 metres
Under 15 years 5000 metres
Under 17 years 6500 metres
Under 20 years 10000 metres
Seniors Unlimited
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