An Official’s Journey through the 2009 Nationals
The Journey there
Arriving at Brisbane Airport on Wednesday September 30, on a flight that is paid for by the National Governing Body is always a good feeling. Knowing that one of the perks of being an official is the possibility that the flights and accommodation are paid for, is fantastic!
Funny that, because all the (3) people I sat next to on my flghts (one to Sydney and then to Brisbane) were all on business trips too. So really, none of us paid our own way.
There was a plan beforehand, to possibly hire a vehicle for our West Australian official’s use. There were quite a few of us this year. Raffaele DiRenzo, Richard Huynh, Aleisha Vincent and Roy Khoh from ATA-WA. Additionally, M. Rajendran and Jenny Crutchet from ODK in WA; and Harry Kim from SWTA.
Unfortunately, the decision was to just catch taxis and cabs everywhere instead. It was difficult because we all arrived in Brisbane at different times and days. Despite being only about 20 minutes away from the airport, the cab-fare was just over $50.
Luckily, the place we were accommodated at – Carindale Hotel – was actually part of a shopping complex, no surprise it was called Carindale Shopping Centre. So getting extra food and accessories was only about a 200m walk away. Too bad we didn’t get much time to do any shopping.
The Venue
The first day of the competition was supposed to start around 11am or noon at the Sleeman Sports Centre. On the same day, starting at 9am was the Taekwondo part of the University Games. Harry Kim was competing in that and so 3 of us went early for that purpose. You can see Harry’s fight at the 2009 Australian University Games here.
Being an official, we are aware of the rules and regulations required to hold a competition. Upon arrival at the venue for the University Games, we were absolutetly shocked and surprised! The safety aspect just didn’t look right. Of course, given the venue and circumstances – the officials involved in organising that event took their own precautions and padded up all those (3) large pillars adjacent to the 2 fighting areas. Hopefully we can provide a photo here so you know what I’m talking about.
Luckily, the actual Nationals was held in a different building. The floor space was HUGE. They had 8 mats set up. Seven of them the standard 8x8m with 1m border each side (that’s 10x10m all up); and one court that was larger for the creative patterns.
Despite the large floor space and competition area, the grand-stand seating seemed a bit small and inadequate. It really became a problem on the sparring days because of the bigger crowd, and some spectators had to be ushered down to some additional seating on the competition floor.
There are 2 sports for Taekwondo Australia. Or rather 2 sides to the sporting aspect of taekwondo in Australia. The technical and the more glamorous fighting.
The Technical Competition
Surprisingly, of all the WA officials, none of us were actually scheduled to officiate on the first of the competition days – Black Belt Technical Patterns. Raff and Jenny weren’t in Brisbane yet. Raj was volunteering to assist that day – and the rest of us were competing that day.
Three of us started that day around 9am for the Uni Games and the others around 11am. As usual, it turned out to be a long, long day. Many of us left early after our own event were finished. That means we left at 8:30pm. I needed to buy white shirts to be able to officiate the following day. Luckily it was a Thursday with late-night-shopping and the shopping complex was right next to the hotel. Raj stayed to the very end, and he arrived back in the hotel room around 11:30pm.
You can find some of our performances on youtube or in the Videos from the 2009 Nationals article.
Some of us did well, and some of us not so well. Competition was quite thin and we still needed to perform to progress to the inaugural "Champion of Champions" event the following day. Out of us officials, Richard Huynh and Roy Khoh scraped through to the next day’s event.
Friday October 2, 2009 was for the colour belt patterns and family poomsae. It turned out to be a great idea to move the family poomsae from the first day to the second day – considering how late the first day went.
Starting at around 9am; Raj, Richard, Harry and Roy officiated (judged) on different courts. Aleisha was part of the volunteer crew looking after the entry of scores into the database.
Come around noon, Richard and Roy had to be removed for the Champion of Champions event. I would have to say that this was the most fun of the technical competition because it was a bit of a change and showcased the best of the best from different (black) belt and rank levels.
There would only be two rounds. Each gender would compete against the winners from other Dan ranks in their own age groups; 14-17, 18-35 and so on. Only the winners would progress to the final round. Two awards were presented, Champion Male and Champion Female. Both Richard and Roy were eliminated in the first round.
Later that day, during discussions, Greg Butterworth quietly congratulated Richard Huynh for his efforts. It was actually to commend and acknowledge to Richard that the "Champion of Champions" event came about from an email that Richard had sent to them. So if you enjoyed competing or watching that event – or even looking forward to striving for that honour in years to come; make sure you give a "thank you" to Richard when you see him next.
Luckily, the second day’s competition finished rather early at around 4:30pm. It allowed ample time for rest and relaxation and to rearrange the venue and courts for the sparring competition, the next day.
The Fighting Competition
The courts had been rearranged and there were now 6 courts available for competition. One great feature was the use of projectors and screens to display the court’s score for the audience. Although it was only available to one side of the audience because they only had 3 projectors.
Being the premiere event for the sport of Taekwondo in Australia, this obviously drew in the bigger crowd. The crowd also imposed some safety issues with regards to seating availability and leaning over the guard rails – almost stopping the competition entirely. Luckily, they behaved (most of the time) and competition was allowed to resume accordingly.
The first day was for the coloured belts. As always each court had to have a variety of officials from each state and we were all split up. Somehow, Jenny and Harry found their way to the same court – same with Roy and Aleisha.
Being the first Nationals with the recent WTF rule changes, we all had a briefing on these changes so we could start implementing them. It won’t be discussed here because it already has been in the article referenced and also in our discussion forum regarding the proposed changes to the WTF competition rules.
The only main difference between what we in Western Australia had done in the State competition and here is the way we scored the additional point for the "turning kicks".
At our WA state tournament, we had used the latest scoring software that allowed for multiple score presses in quick succession. So it was up to the corner judges to score the two points if they saw a valid back-kick, spinning-kick or 360-up-in-the-air-roundhouse. See the July 17th comment by Kim Seng about this new scoring software.
Here at the Nationals, the software was updated to allow for 3 points to the head – but the technical assistant in front of the computer had the job of scoring those additional points "if s/he saw a point come up for the attack".
This created numerous "Protests". Many times the additional point was added in much, much later than when the attack happened. The coaches of the players would normally react within a second of the score not going up by the 2 points. Then the centre-referee would have to stop the match to attend to the "protest". Obviously, that slowed down the match progress and extended the day’s play.
The initial expected finish time for the coloured belt day was something like 4pm. As the day went on, it just kept creeping later and later, until the day was finally finished around 9pm. We were not looking forward to the following day because we already knew, beforehand, that the expectation is to finish by 7pm. Going on trends, that could mean a finishing time of midnight!
The Black Belt sparring day came and again we had a briefing before proceeding. The major different today was that we had a videographer/journalist/researcher going around the floor the entire day. He said he was filming for a documentary about the long term effects of sports injury – ranging from world-football, netball, basketball, AFL-football and plenty others. Being a physical contact sport, it would be pretty easy to get injuries on film this day.
Fortunately, or unfortunately – depending on who you are – the black belts delivered. There were numerous injuries that day, from as little as bruises to complete knock-outs where the player had to be stretchered out.
Our court (Aleisha and Roy’s) had the honour of at least two knockouts. One severely injured and stretchered off and another just counted out. I had the privilege to count one of the kids out. I actually cannot remember if he got stretchered out. There were numerous personnel attending; the coach, 2 medics and the documentary film-crew-team. It all happened quite fast and all I remember is Aleisha telling me that this incident was captured on film for the documentary.
The day kept dragging on, but luckily we actually finished at a decent time. The final fight finished approximately 9:30pm or so. I have one of the last fights on youtube – a player from WA (SWTA) (again!).
Finally
This year’s Nationals was great to attend. It was the largest by competitor number and provided the attending officials with good experience. Both with getting to know the rules (for the lower Referee ranks) and getting to know the new rules (for the more experienced Referees). With such a great location as Brisbane (and Gold Coast) is, I guess we should have stayed even longer to enjoy the attractions.
Two things to do in the future. Thank Richard Huynh for the "Champion of Champions" event, and watch out for a documentary about the long term effects of sports injuries for images from this Nationals.
Roy Khoh says:
November 1st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I wanted to mention, on the side, that I was happy to find that the Uni Games had the corner judges score all the points (as it should be). Meaning the “turning kicks” were scored by the double-presses on the hand-controller.
Then to turn up on the first day of the actual Nationals and find out that we were NOT using the double press mechanism was a bit of a let down. Obviously, as an official, I just had to follow along with the rules that were being used that day.
Our court had a volunteer as Technical Assistant in control of the computer – and the two qualified officials at the table had to constantly tell the volunteer when to add the extra point in. I have to mention that Ian (the volunteer) did a great job.
I think it is important from the spectator’s point-of-view to have the instantaneous feedback of action to score. There is already about a 1 second delay for standard points, we do not need another 3 or 5 seconds for the additional point.
Kim Seng says:
November 1st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
You are right in your comments.
For whatever reason given, it is obvious the decision made NOT to use technology to assist with the instant scoring of the 2nd point for the back kick or the continuous turning kick is WRONG. There were more than a dozen discussions (from coaches, referees and other officials and spectators) with me over this, as you know the rules were fully implemented in the WA State championships held in August (by WA) BUT not at this 2009 Brisbane Nationals. side note: I was informed that other states also implemented the correct process as WA..
It was pointed out to the Referee Chairman at the competition on the Saturday and the Sunday competition of this flaw but no changes and amendments were made. This was disappointing, and now hearing that the uni games implemented the correct process, made it now more disappointing that the Nationals did not implement the correct process.
Besides being hampered by SLOW action and SLOW proclamation of the additional point, what was implemented was against the rules, which ONLY allows the judges to score the points and NOT anybody else. Having a volunteer to add the additional point is definitely against the rules, not even a technical assistant (one who must be a qualified referee) can add that point unless directed to do so by the center referee and even so the referee has to confirm the point-s with the corner judges in any case. ONLY the refereeing corner judges can score the points and the center referee, if in a referee-judge review session and by majority decision, can confirm those points and direct those points to be added; nobody else can add points let alone score points in a match. note: (The Review Jury has a duty and they can ONLY confirm or reject the points appeals lodged by the coaches, they do not score points).
So in a nutshell what was implemented at the Brisbane Nationals was WRONG, and if there were any official protests against the process used, the protest will win.
Having said the above, it is pleasing to note that WA implemented the process correctly and it appeared that the uni games also implemented the process correctly. Even the world championships implemented the process correctly and the corner judges “scored” the “additional points”.
Another rule process that was NOT implemented correctly was the Review Jury process.
Roy Khoh says:
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:49 am
hmmm, other than the use of the word “Protest” that I had already “quoted” in the article – I didn’t really think we did too badly on the review jury system.
Yes, there were some odd things happening – though I thought the process we were told to follow was correct, considering we did not have a video replay system available.
And for the record – Aleisha and I picked up on the use of the word “protest” the moment we saw them. Writing the article, I couldn’t quite remember the terminology we used at the WA state comp.
Obviously, the forgotten magic word is “appeal”. Simply because we do not want to confuse it with an official “protest” that requires its own procedures.
Kim Seng says:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:27 am
The duty of the Review Jury is to act as an independent arbitrator to any coach appeal to a point or points not scored or scored wrongly by the referee-judges or any infringement given or not given by the referee. This independence is very important because the appeal is actually raised against the officiating officials of a particular match – ie against the factual judgment of the officiating referee and the judges.
What I observed was there were no specific Review Jury who acted independently to the coach’s appeal, in many instances the arbitrated decisions were made by one or two referees who were sitting at the front table, who had other duty tasks and in some cases, junior referees were used to “discuss” situations and then participated in the appeal review process. I believe there were no records taken or written down as to what those appeals were and who appealed and record kept of the appeal and result of the appeal, including keeping tabs on the number of times a coach failed in his appeal and hence reducing his overall quota for his-her player during the course of the competition.
The Review Jury cannot do any other task other than to arbitrate on any coach appeals. In some cases, I observe the technical assistant was involved in discussing some of the situations. According to the competition rules the Review Jury must be a very experienced and highly qualified referee, but junior referees were used.
As Roy had pointed out in his comment post, the use of “Protest” cards is WRONG, as these are APPEALS, and the protest is another process to be followed.
Irrespective if there was a video used or not used, the independence of the Review Jury is important, otherwise it will be just an extension of the officiating officials. I also observed the referee calling up the judges to review situations and in this time the coach still had his valid appeal lodged but not processed. I had coaches come up to me and asked why the process was not followed as per how it was implemented in WA or as implemented as an independent review process in accordance with the competition rules (albeit without the video).
As in Roy’s comment post, yes I too observed there were odd things happened. At the recent world championships, the Review Juries appointed for each court stayed throughout the 5 day competition as Review Juries and they did not take part in any officiating role, such was the independence required of the Review Jury.