2007 Colorado Ski Challenge

Hosted by Laku and Cottonwood

June 8, 2007

 

Event Plan and Rules for Performance based Water Ski tournaments for 2007

 

Goals

  • To bring some excitement and competition back to our local tournaments as well as alleviate some of the intimidation for less skilled skiers who ski against more skilled skiers within their age division bracket.
  • Minimize any additional work in registration and/or scoring
  • Encourage participation in all rounds and all events possible as more skiers on site provide more excitement for each event and provide a larger pool of officials and workers to make the events run smoothly.

 

Click here for event Groupings

 

Rules

  • Performance groups have been assigned to Colorado skiers and unless we are way off the mark, the skier will ski in that group for the entire 2007 ski season.
  • New skiers not ranked will be placed in the appropriate group as determined by the Rules Committee.
  • The established groups are U20, U52, U66, U82, U88, U93, U99, and U120. The group name, such as U20 stands for “Under 20 buoys – prior year average”, In this case the 20 is also the baseline for handicap calculations.
  • Between Laku and Cottonwood there are 6 tournaments and 12 rounds of slalom. The top 6 scores (plus handicap value for each) will be added together for the skiers total challenge series score to determine season placement within each group.
  • In the event of a tie, best backup scores will be used. Ie. Best 7th, 8th, 9th ,etc.
  • The handicap value for each skier will be established prior to each tournament. It will not be recomputed after each round within a tournament. For the Laku Lift-off, the handicap is the difference between the baseline score, 20 for the U20 group and the skiers average determined from the 2006 ski season. The handicap for subsequent tournaments will be based on the average of the seeding value from 2006 and the scores from Laku and Cottonwood tournaments in 2007.
  • Current standings list will be posted at each Laku and Cottonwood Tournament.
  • The challenge series leader will be awarded with a traveling “Skier Bib” to wear during the next round in the series. It is a traveling award and must be passed to new leaders so they  can  wear it during the next round or event. The holder at the end of the season gets to keep the bib.
  • Bib’s are made of Lycra and several sizes are available to help ensure the skiers have a size that they can wear over their ski vest. The bibs are color coded Blue, Red and Black and have a numbers 1, 2 or 3 to indicate the current standing of the skier wearing the bib.
  • With proper sponsorship, trophies will be awarded to the top 3 placements in each group at the Laku Top Dawg Open, the last tournament in the Ski Challenge Series.
  • Any rule interpretations or deviations will be approved by the Ski Challenge committee consisting of 2 members from Laku and 2 members from Cottonwood. Initial Rules Committee members are Randy Hocking, Stacy Holbert, Steve Mills and Rich Borga  

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The Original Plan leading to the above Rules:

·        Create 6 to 8 ability level groups that skiers are assigned to at the beginning of the season. They will ski in these groups in all participating tournaments until the next season unless they increase their ability level enough for us to advance them into the next performance level.

·        The ability groups are not a behind the scene “Fantasy” group, they are the event groups that the skiers participate in.

·        Use the standing list as a source for the top three scores from last season. They can all come from one tournament or multiple tournaments. There is no penalty factor and erroneous low scores below par are ignored to enable the skier to ski in the true performance group.

·        Create a Series with any and all tournaments that want to participate. The Series champions can be recognized at the end of the summer.

·        Recognize the top two or three series champions for each of the six to eight performance groups.

 

Performance Group Details:

·        Six to Eight Performance Groups as identified on the attached spreadsheet. (Already sent to select individual for additional input).

·        Identify the groups as U20, U52 and so on

·        Groups are established once per year to minimize effort to organize running orders and avoid having to recalculate groups on a weekly basis.

 

Series Details:

·        Provide specific details on Laku Web Page, via email to Colorado skiers and any other beneficial public places prior to a certain date, such as May 1 as well as on site at first several tournaments. This can be used as advertisement purposes for potential sponsors of the tournaments and series.

·        Select one of two methodologies:

o       Provide points by the highest total or average from the top 5 (or some number) of tournament scores throughout the summer from all participating events, or

o       Accumulate points from each participating event counting all scores or top score, and in either case

o       Provide a bundle of Handicap Points at the start of the season to level the playing field for the series. (If the bottom skier average from last year is 5 points lower than the top and top five scores will be used this year, give the lower skier 25 Handicap Points at the start)

o       Also consider providing a nominal number of points for number of events participated in as either a skier or an official.

o       Provide an updated scoring spreadsheet by Wednesday after each participating event. The results can be posted or emailed at that time. Also publish and post current standing list at the start of each participating event. (Randy will volunteer to keep and update the spreadsheet. It should be a fairly simple process to update at the end of each tournament as the skiers and their performance groups have already been identified and documented at the start of the season).

 

Awards:

·        Skier placement bib’s (top 2 or 3) can be used for the current group leaders. They would wear the bib’s when they ski and then surrender when they lose placement. Surrender at end of current tournament if they are not going to ski in the next series event.

·        The Bib’s could identify the Series name and Sponsor (should we find one) and could be kept by the series champions and the end of the season.

·        All participating events would contribute a set Dollar amount per skier or event into a prize pool to fund the end of season awards.