At 07:30 06 July 2009, Peter Purdie wrote:
Your (US-centric) problem is introducing a subjective word 'fair' into
rules which humans have to apply (I am even willing to concede here that
lawyers are human).

What contitutes fairness? - exactly equal gliders and instruments (and
crew, etc, but you are not borrowing my wife), now that's fair. Or not,
depending on how you argue it.

In UK the siuation in question is simple. The gate opens, not at the
CD's whim, but with max height at 3,000ft AGL it opens 10 minutes after
the last glider in the class starts to be towed. For every 200ft added
to
max height, add 1 minute. No ifs, no buts. The only thing the CD can
do
after that is cancel the task and have a rebrief before the gate opens
if
it is UNSAFE to continue.

Nobody pretended that gliding was fair when I was a boy in the
Nationals.
The winner was the pilot with most points after the last day, however it
panned out.

With 20/20 hindsight everything is clear, unfortunately that is not, by
definition, available at the time a problem occurs.
Peter has described the UK position accurately except the Director can
also cancel a task for sporting reasons as well as safety reasons and may
also change the location of the drop zone. In the case described the
director could have cancelled launching, recalled the field and wither
scrubbed or rebriefed. If the gate had been opened then the result would
have stood. Once the gate is opened there can only be a retask if ALL
competitors land back.
Under UK rules it is not permitted to cancel a competition day if a
competitor finishes the task and in the case described above the day could
not have been cancelled. I have to say I have great sympathy with JJ in
this case as he, and the other competitors have been subjected to gross
unfairness. It is not their fault that the problem arose. The jury have
acted unfairly to many in an attempt to be fair to a few. I suggest you
need to look at your rules.
I know soccer is not the most popular game in the US but if after a game
it was discovered, and it frequently is, that a winning goal has been
allowed which was either not a goal or the result of a foul the result of
the match still stands.