This is our 2nd article on Race Rules – helping you understand all sections.
In our Race Classification we have 4 event levels and we split them into A, B, C and D.
A level events – these events are World Championships, the best of the IRF, and are split into 4 divisions (Open, Masters, Junior and Youth) and each of those divisions have 2 categories (men and women). Their rules are:
- they are held in R4 (4-man rafts) and R6 (6-man rafts) in alternating years. 2013 is R6;
- counties entering must be up to date members of the IRF – this means all membership paperwork is to be in order and all fees are to be paid up;
- these teams are to be selected through fair and credible selections – this means that the event must be open for all possible teams to enter, the event must be announced timeously so that all teams have enough time to plan to attend and the event is to be run fairly for all teams. If a member does not run fair and credible selections and another team complains to the IRF, they will have to rerun the selections or resolve the problem so everyone is happy with the result before they can send teams to the WRCs.
The following rules apply ONLY to the Open division as this is well established now:
- there must be at least 3 continents represented;
- there must be a minimum of 8 nations competing in the men’s category, and 4 in the women’s category;
- only 2 teams per division are allowed to attend – the top men’s team and top women’s team.
- should have at least 2 continents represented (the word “should” is used here specifically so that this is what is aimed for but the event need not be cancelled if this rule is not met);
- should be a minimum of 6 nations competing in the men’s category, and 3 in the women’s category;
- each member federation may enter however many teams are allocated by the S&C Com which will be decided on an event by event basis and announced ideally no later than a year ahead of the event;
- all youth and junior raft races should be limited to maximum class 3 rivers;
- only Overall medals need to be given if there are less than 6 teams in any category;
- if there are 2 or more teams in any category (men or women) then they compete against each other in their own capacity (they do runs at same time as rest of categories and have a separate scoring sheet).
Because numbers of teams attending the Youth, Junior and Masters events is sometimes still low there are now rules to handle this so that even if a team is the only team in their category they can be confident they will be racing and will know who they are racing against. Rules for dealing with low numbers of teams:
- if there is less than 2 teams in any Youth or Junior category, both categories will be combined into the Junior category. (So if there is only 1 Youth women’s team they will race with the Junior women.);
- if there is only 1 Masters Women’s team then they paddle in the Masters men’s section;
- when teams have to combine into other categories that teams’ country is then accepted as having 2 teams in that category (and can be called, for instance, Russia Junior and Russia Youth to differentiate them);
- if combining is necessary it needs to be announced at the closing date for entries for that event.
Many of these rules under Youth/ Junior / Masters are fairly new as these Divisions are new – so we hope this helps you understand how these rules work.
Other Race Rules Articles:
