Hello all,
sorry for writing in English, but I just wanted to know whether some of you agree with me about these new rules, since this is probably best ski-jumping forum on the web (I can read german - to be honest google.translator reads it for me
).
Now, to get to the point : while I am OK with the wind compensation rule - especially since base wind is always set to 0.0 m/s - backwind always gives you bonus points, headwind always gives you minus points - simple as that, I really really don't like this gate change rule. I mean, we had 7 gate changes alone during last competition (4 of them in 10 minutes!), and it is really hard to follow what is going on when a jump of 130 meters is actually scored higher than a jump of 135 meters that happened only 60 seconds ago :brauen:...and then again gate is changed (by coach or jury, whatever), and the jump of 127 meters is now scored higher than 130 meters! And remember, this is all happening in a period of 2-3 minutes. If these new rules are to be used in winter (and they probably will), when all these gate changes start it will be more useful just to watch at the scoreboard and wait till the computer does all the calculations, than to watch jump itself, since you can gain very little from the distance itself. Also, I am 100% sure that the jury will be doing following two things :
- every single time a jumper who is not actually in top10 of gesamtweltcup jumps long, they will lower the gate. Which will kill the joy of watching ski jumping.
- also, if the distances are low from the begining of the round, they will set the higher gate. But, what is the point of jumping 125 meters from the higher gate if it will be scored exactly the same as 120 meters from the lower gate?? It is just confusing. In football for example we also sometimes have boring matches, but we don't do anything to make the boring match itself more interesting (for ex. reduce the number of players on the pitch), and there is always a winner in the end.
Also, just think of what could happen in ski-flying, where gate and wind factors would be much greater. We could easily see the jump of 185m scored more than a jump of 215 meters! And that would be - sad.
Of course, gate change rule has it's own advantages, competitions would be more safe and they will finish within the schedule - and tv stations will profit the most from it - but if you can't compare two jumpers judging on the distance they jumped (even if they had exactly the same wind conditions), than what's the point watching the jumps themselves. You could just as easily be watching the livescore only, since in reality you won't be able to calculate and remember all compensations without the computer doing it for you. You will get very litte actual meaning from the actual distance jumped.
And to be honest, I enjoyed first Zakopane competition by far the most, when there was zero gate changes.