Slalom events and rankings update

Hi everyone, just a quick update on Slalom skateboarding in Australia. Bernie Griffiths has stepped down from his ISSA role as Senior Steward for Australian Slalom and I have taken on this role. First up a huge thanks to Bernie who has run the slalom rankings for many years now, for your efforts over that time, we would not have a National Ranking for more than the last decade without Bernie.

Dan Monaghan and Imi McMillan are both now registered as Organisers with ISSA. This means they can organise and run the International 25 Cone Races. It is unclear what roles ASRA will have for slalom as the AGM has not taken place. If anyone is interested in being a more active member of ASRA in relation to slalom please speak to Duddy or Imi. They have both nominated for ASRA board positions. Historically we’ve always run directly with ISSA and used ASRA as the required registered Australian association to run the official points ranking. 

ASRA has not been directly involved for many years with slalom events or provided any support to local slalom events other than the website to host the event listings and rankings. We hope this can change going forward and ASRA can once again be more involved in helping run more events in Australia, for slalom and the other disciplines of skateboard racing under their umbrella. Slalom is growing faster than any other discipline in the last few years and the 23/24 season has had 7 races across 2 events with 1 more event to go!

This brings me to the points rankings and running slalom events in Australia. It is compulsory to advertise the event on the site of the national skateboarding body (being ASRA) 30 days before the events to receive National or International ranking points. This is to document events, results and rankings on the website of the national sporting association, which in turn assures that it has a voice backed up by its own history and data, so that we meet the criteria for Skate Australia to accept team nominations put forward by ASRA.

This was not done last year for the NACCOS event, however the expectation from organisers and racers was that the event would have points for national rankings. The event was advertised on Facebook on the main Australian slalom group, which has more slalom people looking at it than the ASRA site, so very few if anybody in the community missed out on knowing it was happening. 

With that in mind, we have decided to include Category 6 points for the Hybrid and Tight, and Category 5 for the GS. The events were very well run, well attended with interstate riders, and was a lot of effort from NACCOS for the first big event outside the Nationals for many years, we think it is fair that it should get points.

This will change the outcome of the current national rankings which are only based on the Canberra Nationals event at this stage. The riders affected by it knew the NACCOS event was happening well in advance and also expected it to have points as it was announced as such.

Because ASRA has very low activity these days and the Slalom groups and pages on social media generally have more activity the recommendation for future events is to ensure it is on ASRA for points, promotion to potential sponsors, official records for peak sporting bodies and government, but also promote across as many other online channels as possible for maximum exposure to competitors and spectators.

The upcoming Millsy’s GS event (date to be confirmed) will be added to the ASRA site when and will qualify for points. 

We also had a tight slalom race at the Nationals, there were several issues with this race:

• It was not officially announced as part of the ASRA and other promotional listings
• I made an announcement that we would try and run a tight course, and that was done on the day after the main event
• People put in a decent effort to set the course and some believed it was eligible for points
• Others believed it was a fun race at the end of proceedings and didn’t take it seriously
• Times and DQ’s were not recorded properly
• No official riders meeting or practice runs

Because there is confusion, and because not all of these issues above are defined in the rules of slalom, and it won’t affect overall rankings, it has been included as a Category 5 race. 

Please contact me by private message or phone if you have any issues with these decisions on rankings. The ISSA representatives have discussed it and agreed, and the points have been added to the ranking.

The national ranking will be used as one of the criteria for the World Skate Games qualification. We are also working on some things that will make this process and running events more transparent with a clear set of rules and definitions, and a structure where decisions can be made fairly and without any perception of bias. We don’t want a self appointed group of just the ISSA registered people making all the decisions, we now need others to step up and take an active role in agreeing to rules, and taking an active role governing your sport.

I am working on:

• Forming a slalom committee with representatives from the different regions
• The role of official ISSA organisers and Stewards being transparent and consultative through this committee
• More accurately defining what constitutes a points ranking race in Australia and ensuring slalom committee agreement, and awareness with event organisers
• Defining selection criteria for attendance at world events offering places based on national selections with involvement from the slalom committee

As an aside, the 25-cone race which ran adjacent to the hybrid at Nationals is an ISSA developed event that allows registered countries, over a 3-day window to compete and register their times. We’re currently awaiting the 2024-2025 dates to be released, it’s a good way to have more local low key races and events. This series does not count in the national ranking points because it is an international series. 

Finally, I am new to this, it’s a bit different to just helping run the Nationals event so Bernie will continue to help me in the transition, and event organisers keep in touch to ensure we’re properly set up for races and rankings. I welcome any feedback and we will be asking for feedback as we develop the things I’ve mentioned above.