The US Team selection process in future years

Good direction - and discussion

Since I have no skin in the game, but have been involved in Olympic selection is another sport, maybe I can add in a positive way.

We had huge problems and some sport still do with Team selection - it is not just us. Pure result selection diminishes organizers stress but sometimes the team can be weaker. Pure subjective selection always leaves someone not selected bitter.

The direction Tim Taylor is suggesting seems pretty logical. I agree.

There are only a few things that seem odd in Soaring selection compared to my experience.

1. the athletes (pilots) voting? I am not sure I like that idea. They could vote people onto a selection committee...... the Coach had allot of influence - do we have a National Coach?
2. a percentage of slots were allocated based on pure performance and a lesser amount of slots were subjective (coaches choice). this gives some flexibility to bring someone who is the type who performs best on the big stage.. (there are some who only perform well in high profile competition, it a fact of life)
3. Selection was/is done in phases and way in advance of the competition, but with the coaches discretion should someone fall off the performance wagon - this minimizes surprises.

In ending I would say one thing - look at almost every Sport where selection happens....... The ONLY ones who get it right are the Last Years World Champions - everyone else is still struggling to get it right

WH

All good posts with insightful comments on how to get better team results. I think most all were modifications to the hybrid system of this year. Thank you, all.

Anyone out there think a more subjective or strict objective system is appropriate?

I can think of two subjective scenarios that would make our nationals about choosing a national champion only and get the weight of WGC selection out of contests. Contest flying might be more enjoyable for newbies that way.

1. We pick a coach and the coach picks the team - that's it. Accounts for things like building for future years. Allows best pilots to cross over to different classes.

2. All contest pilots vote their dream team, pure and simple. I suspect we all have an inking who should go. Are we getting there with these rankings? This system would account for those cases when a pilot can't string together a series of good placings in one class within the three years.

3. The above options are subjective. The strict objective numerical rankings of the previous several years is another option. I know there are some out there who believe this is the way to go.

Does anyone out there want to argue for one of these systems?

XC

SSA(all members or all racers?) elects a coach. Coach picks the team. If the coach picks all his buddies and they get trounced, we pick a new coach. Pro sports teams are put together by a human with talent for picking talent. We need to find the soaring version of pro sports scouts and let them pick the team.
On Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 1:14:52 PM UTC-5, XC wrote:
All good posts with insightful comments on how to get better team results.. I think most all were modifications to the hybrid system of this year. Thank you, all.

Anyone out there think a more subjective or strict objective system is appropriate?

I can think of two subjective scenarios that would make our nationals about choosing a national champion only and get the weight of WGC selection out of contests. Contest flying might be more enjoyable for newbies that way.

1. We pick a coach and the coach picks the team - that's it. Accounts for things like building for future years. Allows best pilots to cross over to different classes.

2. All contest pilots vote their dream team, pure and simple. I suspect we all have an inking who should go. Are we getting there with these rankings? This system would account for those cases when a pilot can't string together a series of good placings in one class within the three years.

3. The above options are subjective. The strict objective numerical rankings of the previous several years is another option. I know there are some out there who believe this is the way to go.

Does anyone out there want to argue for one of these systems?

XC

I have been thinking along the same lines as TT. It is definitely preferable that the US National results actually count in the selection scheme and are not used merely to inform the voters. As TT suggests, the objective component from the contests should weigh north of 50% of the overall selection score. Voting results should have secondary impact.

Here's thoughts on a better way to do the voting: I propose that secret voting take place on the morning of the last contest day at each and every US Nationals contest for that class only. You must be a current category 1 pilot and you must be present to vote. The votes for the past two or three years will be combined just as the scores for the preceding years are combined. This will make the ranking results knowable at the end of the pertinent Nationals. This is how it should be to maximize opportunity for preparation among other things. This ensures that the voters are all dealing with true and current information when they do their voting. It diminishes opportunity for politicking and spreads the voting over multiple venues and time frames. Those pilots that actually attend both East and West contests will have more voting influence as is appropriate since they will have seen a wider spectrum of the contenders performances.

Elaborating on WH's point... it is not good to have people on a selection committee that are competing for slots. Although I trust all the individuals involved, I cannot see that as a worthy scheme; it will surely come under reproach repeatedly. It's not sufficient that you disconnected from the conference call when your own slot comes up for discussion.

I would like to see the selection committee unempowered except as they may be able to vote at the Nationals events. I see no reason to think that being on an SSA committee gives one especially greater wisdom in foretelling who will more likely win at the worlds. The same factors that the committee considers will also be considered by the wider set of elite pilot voters.

In my experience competitive Sport and Democracy don't really don't go together very well or produce a predictable amount of Champions. This does impact the US, since we love to vote - so without voting we have a melt down.