Re: Re: Open-X 4 Females?
I think we did the first one at NUC in Toronto in 2001, but of course that wasn’t Unicon. Yes, the event is still small, undeveloped, and misunderstood. Since it’s misunderstood by almost everybody, we still don’t have a solid picture of what we want it to be. We’ve made major changes already, but for the most part nobody actually reads the rules.
The road races don’t get enough respect. Because they are not listed as “required” events by the rules, the awards unfortunately can be whatever the host chooses. Disgraceful that at a Unicon the women’s category would be discarded. If they advertised a women’s division they should have awarded one. Final host-end decisions on that stuff are often made by Andy Cotter, so you could ask him about it for Unicon XII…
Indeed it does. One’s mode of transportation to the convention often determines what we will ride in that as well. I will have my Coker in SLC, but not in Tokyo!
Blame it on the judges then! Yes, it is their fault too, but it is equally the fault of the competitors and all of us, for not understanding what we want the event to be.
The very first running of Open-X, in Toronto, I believe, should have been won by Dana Schneider. She went out and did a bunch of really hard tricks, and had zero dismounts. Everybody else fell a lot. Based on the original set of judging criteria (which was different from the current version), she should have been the clear winner. But judges picked someone who did more “new” stuff. I believe the judges had the spirit of the event in mind more than the specific judging criteria. Now the rules are weighted more to originality and creativity.
Good question. And I believe it has two answers:
- To create as many awards as possible, a disease we suffer from in the USA more than the IUF.
- Because it’s still a physical sport, where each sex has some advantages or disadvantages over the other.
Continuing with #2. First the basics, for Worminton who asked before. Males and females have different muscle tissue (and other obvious differences) Female muscle tissue has a higher fat percentage than the male version, so men are generally stronger. That is a super-simplified version of why genders are split in most sports.
Ever wonder why some sports are only for women? How come there is no men’s version of uneven parallel bars or balance beam? Is it because of possible crotch damage if they make mistakes? I don’t think so, but of course there are even more sports that are men-only.
For Freestyle, let’s look at figure skating. Notice the men’s and women’s performances have a generally different style. The men are more athletic, with more quad jumps and strength moves. The women’s are usually more balletic, and you generally see more flexibility moves. Though they could compete against each other, I think there are both enough participation, and enough physical differences between the sexes to make it sensible to separate them.
I believe the same applies to Freestyle and Standard Skill, though on a smaller scale. Dividing the sexes also promotes more participation, we hope.
For Standard Skill, you can always compare scores. But for the most part we don’t see any big trends that differentiate the men from the women.
If Freestyle were to get a lot bigger, it would be possible to separate Pairs Freestyle into three groups; male, female, and mixed. Ever notice how skating is only mixed? Why not boy-boy and girl-girl? Yuck, you say (me too)? Other sports do it. How about Artistic Bicycling? The Doubles category is athletically extremely hard (not to mention dangerous). But it’s either boy-boy, girl-girl, or nothing. I think the Artistic Bike people are a little too serious about their sport. If they were to make it a little bit more “fun” I’m sure they could get lots more growth!
