Joined: 23 Aug 2003 Posts: 351 Location: San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 1:59 am Post subject:
C'mon guys, freestyle competitions are already hard enough to run. Let's not invent a new category out of the blue. Please try to follow the IFPA event guidelines where possible. Doubles Freestyle is already well defined at http://ifc.footbag.org/contents.html in the official IFC Rules. Let's use that event category list unless there's good reason. (Note that the rules above are out of date; I am still waiting, now 6 years and counting, for anyone to help me update them. But the important change is that teams in freestyle may only be 2 people, no longer 2-3.)
Also, I'm not sure I understand exactly how you will constrain the competition to "just French people." Is there a blood test? Will players need their passports? Is there an exception for people with "domicile francaise" or "carte jaune" subway passes?
Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 175 Location: Paris, France
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:44 am Post subject:
Steve from what I've gathered/heard, it's a global lack of creativity, rigid rules and trying to make footbag fit in the organizational mold of say the ATP that has made the US scene a little less exciting than the Europeen one. I, for one, welcome new events, and also enjoy the more established common ones. Footbag, like many other sports does have to evolve with time.
Joined: 23 Aug 2003 Posts: 351 Location: San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:57 am Post subject:
Hahahaha. Good one, Monsieur le Nationaliste. But seriously, on the topic you didn't answer.. How will you keep non-French people out of the event? Will you also require that freestylers not use the English names of the tricks? I'm confused about this whole direction I see you guys pursuing. Where will you draw the line? I'm really curious.
Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 175 Location: Paris, France
Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2003 9:09 am Post subject:
Steve stop being such a brat you know how this goes: every one is welcome, we like our europeen neighbours, we have germans and swiss players coming. I think what Grisha meant was that th french chmapion (and second best 3rd etc..) will be crowned at this event. I think. I mean this is coming from GRISHA TALLENBACH after all (it's a german name, for those of you who might have thought it was french)
Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 175 Location: Paris, France
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2003 9:04 am Post subject:
... secretly wants to be french..
back on topic: we're fairly few freestylers in France (two dozen at most) and thus we don't shun non-french competitors at our comps. We do like having oversees players coming to France to shred with us. But yeah if the french championships final had 7 czecks and 1 frenchman, well, it kind of defeats the point of having a french championship in the first place no?
Yah, I'm having a hard time figuring out Steve's objection to this. I've always wondered why it was even considered to have 'Nation X National Championships' with a Nation Y winner. It makes no sense.
As for how, it's called "Identification". They don't have a whole lot of trouble figuring out the logistics of how to keep 15 year olds out of bars, do they?
Joined: 23 Aug 2003 Posts: 351 Location: San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted: Sat Oct 04, 2003 2:48 am Post subject:
Colin Kennedy (ckennedy) wrote:
I'm having a hard time figuring out Steve's objection to this. I've always wondered why it was even considered to have 'Nation X National Championships' with a Nation Y winner.
My objection is mostly that it's just a name (we call things "X National Championships" because X country's club is hosting the event). Sure, some day we'll be big enough that we can have qualification events and a well-defined feeder system and it'll all be part of a massive federation of footbag organizations... Or, maybe not.
But either way, that time's nowhere near "now" and I am sorry if we try to jump to that point now, we're going to be in for some pretty bad results.
The sport is tiny. I'd like to see us recognize we're tiny for now, and either come up with different names for the events if that is really the issue (which I don't think it is), or hold so many events that the Czechs aren't so starved for footbag that they would even spend the time to go to France.
But honestly, right now, the more people we have competing, the more people will work hard to beat them and the sport will improve. Having events that disinvite non-locals is really a backwards philosophy because it basically ends up telling the best players, "don't bother to show up and inspire us, we don't want you beating us."
Joined: 23 Sep 2003 Posts: 32 Location: Espoo, Finland
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 12:57 am Post subject:
I had to reply on this one. I think this National Championship thing is something we Europeans are really used to in every sport. Same thing with European Champion title. I remember this same conversation while back when state-players where wondering why #4 player is claiming to be the Euro Champ (reason being he was the best European player). I don't know why it's so hard to understand.. it's just the way we like it over here And I do think myself it's a cool thing to have your national champ. Every year the Finnish National Championships have been the biggest event organized in Finland.
Now, after Steve's last post I can really see why he is complaining about this. It is a good valid point. I for one would love to fly all over Europe's championships and be part of them (_if_ I would have that kind of money!), but since you can't compete at all it's not that tempting to go.
So, I think there are four options that we have ..
1) Give up the whole idea of having national championships (which I strongly disagree and don't see happening here in Europe)
2) Do it the way we did at least Euro 2000 (the last one I was able to go) so that Open is really Open to everyone, but the best National Player wins the title. I think this is a good one, except a whole bunch of people from other countries show up. Then it could be pretty bad (say none of the national players get to the finals!)
3) Have an Open category where everyone can compete AND have your own National Final taking Top8 (or whatever) National players from the Open category. I think this would be the best way to go. The only drawback I can see is that it takes some extra time + effort from the national players. But then everyone can compete + you can have your National Champ.
4) Suck it up. If you aren't National you ain't competing. This one is kind of discouraging other people to come and because of that I don't think is the best one. I do see the point behind it though.
So which one is it? Or are there others? Comments? Bring it on
Joined: 23 Aug 2003 Posts: 351 Location: San Carlos, CA, USA
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 6:57 am Post subject:
Juha Linnanen (pillar) wrote:
thing is something we Europeans are really used to in every sport.
But this is footbag. We're not like every other sport.
Plus we're TINY which is my whole point. Until we're big enough to have national leagues and official federations (which is my dream, don't get me wrong), we need to be inclusive not exclusive.
It seems to me like people are confused because there are two different issues here:
(1) The name of the event. Nobody gets confused because Wimbledon has winners from other countries, because Wimbledon does not have as its title, "UK National Tennis Championships" just because it's hosted in the UK. But the fact is in footbag, we like terms like "French Open" or "US Open" because they give us more legitimacy with the media. So what if in reality we have players from other countries?
(2) The meaning of "open" vs. "intermediate". The whole point of open competition is to let the best players compete with the best players at the tournament. Who cares what country they're from? Who cares whether their hair is blond or brown? What does it matter if their ancestry is German but they grew up in Cannes? Until we have 100% complete coverage of all countries where footbag is played, the whole sport should remain "open" and people should be excited, not upset, to compete against the top players in the sport in the "open" division. Perhaps countries who don't have strong competitors, and who would be upset when someone came from another country and "beat" them, should focus on the "intermediate" division, since that's the division where the next tier of players battle it out. And if a country's players have not yet developed to be at a level where they can hold their own against a pool of "true" open players, then it's best to have those players compete in an intermediate division. If you want to exclude players from another country, then simply limit the competition to the intermediate division -- I seriously doubt the top players from Czech Republic would waste their time to travel to France to compete at the intermediate level.
But honestly this whole discussion is moot. Instead of wasting all this energy year after year arguing over who can and can't compete in European tournaments, I really wish you guys would just keep doing what you're doing -- which is great! -- and just keep having a lot of competitions and/or festivals. Forget the policital stuff. Just have the events, see who comes, and be happy! Saying things like "reserved for French players only" is just a waste of breath and a turn-off. This sport is great, and it's growing fast everywhere, especially in Europe. Let's not risk stunting its development just because we are trying to get there too fast. Remember even though we want it to be huge, it's still very, very small.
Joined: 23 Sep 2003 Posts: 10 Location: Espoo, Finland
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2003 1:05 pm Post subject:
This is the way that I and what it seems, the most europeans think. You can reach certain levels in whatever sport you are playing. These are:
1) National Champion. This would be Finnish Champion to me, best in Finland.
2) European Champion. Best in the whole Europe.
3) World Champion. Absolutely the best player in the whole WORLD!
Now, these three levels don't work if you ignore the name of the tournament making it open to all world. The title, the value of the tournament doesn't no longer exist if we invite all players there as competitors. It's just a tournament, it could be Rovaniemi pro bagger open tournament sponsored by santa claus as well as the Finnish Opens. It lost it's meaning. This is probably why some people don't respect world championships and are not coming, because basicly all the worlds events are the same. When you say that it is Finnish Championships, it is! The winner is best player in Finland, period. That's why we are having this competition at the first place, right? And that's why all are coming to Finnish Championships every year. To me, there's three big events every year, Finnish Championships, European Championships, World Championships where I can compete and test my skills. I expect that all the competitors who need to be at those three events will be there so we will see who is who. We also have some freestyle happenings and different contests but these aren't so valuable. I also think that because of US players don't respect the title of the tournament so much, some of them aren't competing. I would be pissed myself winning some tournament and people saying to me that "ah well but mr. x wasn't here so your winning doesnt count" and finding that it's just the same who's winning. I would be really happy if all footbag players would just participate in three major tournaments in a year, I think it is more that we are doing now. Long live the national tournaments!
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you know how this goes: every one is welcome, we like our europeen neighbours, we have germans and swiss players coming. I think what Grisha meant was that th french chmapion (and second best 3rd etc..) will be crowned at this event. I think. I mean this is coming from GRISHA TALLENBACH after all 
(it's a german name, for those of you who might have thought it was french)
And I do think myself it's a cool thing to have your national champ. Every year the Finnish National Championships have been the biggest event organized in Finland.
