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Did You Know...

... that the $100 rejudgment option was eliminated last week in Stockholm?

posted Jan 31st, 2006 - The International Parachuting Commission (IPC) held its annual meeting last week in Stockholm, Sweden's capital on the shores of the Baltic Sea in Scandinavia. The IPC delegates from 47 countries had to prepare for anything but skydiving since the winter in Sweden can be very cold.

Italy's IPC Delegate Sara Sacchet provided the NSL News with an update after returning from the meeting. She confirmed that there are no changes of the dive pool for the 2006 season at all. The meeting decided over some minor changes of other rules, which included the elimination of the $100 re-judging option.

Norway's IPC delegate Pal Bergan had presented the Norwegian proposal to eliminate the former option for teams to get a re-judging of one competition jump for $100. The eliminated rule had this language:

Rule 4.11 Formation Skydiving – Rejudgement

Competitors may request to have one of their own competition jumps rejudged. The request must be made in writing in English to the Chief Judge within 30 minutes of the score of the jump in question being posted and shall be accompanied by a rejudgement fee of US $100. Once a request for rejudgement has been received by the Chief Judge it may not be withdrawn and the rejudgement will take place. This rejudgement is only permitted once for each team during a competition. Rejudgements fees shall be retained by the IPC.

There were a few occasions at competitions during the 2005 season where teams tried to win back scoring points that the judges had not awarded during the official judging session. However, the NSL News is not aware of many cases where the judges changed their mind and the score sheet after the $100 re-judging.

Revised scores after re-judging or not, the Norwegian proposal for elimination was based on the athletic background and other reasons. The purpose of the Norwegian proposal was explained in the agenda prior to the IPC meeting last week:

Proposal: Remove entire rule 4.11 as a general principle

This rule is degrading to the general principle of sports, and also to the qualifications of the judges and the quality of their judgement. Norway can not see any pertinent reason to justify a “pay per view” system within sports in general or our sport in particular. The rule is also in conflict with the general interpretation of protests against a judgement call, SC 5.3.1.3, which has been a guiding rule to dealing with judgements in our sport for decades. Why should one not be able to protest a judges’ assessment of a score, but be able to pay money to achieve the same result – a rejudgement? It is in our opinion a poor direction to our competitors, judges and external partcipants to the general principle of sports.

The majority of the IPC meeting obviously agreed with the Norwegian view, and 4.11 was eliminated from the 2006 rule book. The other rule changes can be viewed by clicking here. This document has been provided by Fiona McEachern from Australia who serves currently as the Chair of the IPC Formation Skydiving Committee. The complete and updated set of IPC rules for Formation Skydiving competitions in 2006 can be viewed by clicking here.

The NSL News will follow up soon with any information that concerns the situation for Airspeed member Thomas Hughes after the IPC meeting in Sweden. US delegate Marylou Laughlin mentioned that she planned to update the NSL News after returning from her visit at the IPC meeting.

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Did You Know... ... that the $100 rejudgment option was eliminated last week in Stockholm?

Did You Know...

... that the $100 rejudgment option was eliminated last week in Stockholm?