Long & Short - Why Not Dual Youth Yet? By Eric Hayton
10/03/06
Lane Conditions - the Long and Short of it.
For many reasons, not the least is the long-term credibility of tenpin bowling, the WTBA and the three member zones have agreed that dual lane conditions are the way forward for major championships.
These conditions are designed to provide a better evaluation of a bowler's ability, and the theory has been put into practice for the last two years.
Team England too, with better control of lane conditions at some ranking tournaments, and with the use of a training session, have begun to provide some of these challenging conditions for our bowlers.
Obviously if the teams will meet these conditions at major events, then to go there unprepared would be foolish, rather like going to your local centre for a league match on dry lanes and taking only your most fierce big-hooking ball.
These conditions already apply to World, European, Commonwealth and World Youth championships, but at the moment do not apply to the European Youth championships. There is no logic that I could see for this, so I thought I would ask the man who will know the answer – Kim Thorsgaard Jensen, chairman the ETBF Tournament Committee.
Why Not Dual Youth Yet?
"The ETBF Presidium (and the European bowling society in general) was awaiting a final decision of the dual condition to be re-confirmed after the first couple of years testing. Then we could change our own championships to dual condition championships.
The last and final confirmation came after voting at the WTBA Congress (August 2005 in Aalborg) where a 40-10 voting clearly confirmed the dual condition to be in use for WTBA Championships, also in the years to come."
KTJ (pictured) continues, "Unfortunately the ETBF Congress was held two months earlier in Moscow (June 2006) and there was no congress due to be held until 2007, which could then only apply to 2008 and onwards."
"Therefore the ETBF Presidium decided to do an email ballot among the ETBF member federations to avoid an unnecessary waste of two years. This ballot included a number of questions for the adult European Championships, more or less yes/no questions, and all were accepted – the format being no singles, 2x6 games for doubles, semi finals and finals in all disciplines and a new Masters Knockout format."
"In the same email ballot we also explained why we, at this moment, did not want to introduce dual condition in the European Youth Championships.
Let me summarize as follows:
1) The youth championships do not have any discipline (singles) to cut away. Introducing a 2x6 games doubles would then mean two extra days for the federations to pay for (from 10 to 12 days).
2) Many more players attend a youth championships than adult championships, as both sexes still are together in youth championships, and therefore the schedule for a youth championship is much tighter and runs very late many of the days. To introduce semi finals and finals would be problematic and might cause a situation, where yet another day will be added.
3) The same might happen (yet-yet another day to add) for the Masters, all depending on the size of the host centre and the number of attending players."
Result
Column
Lane Conditions - the Long and Short of it. For many reasons, not the least is the long-term credibility of tenpin bowling, the WTBA and the three member zones have agreed that dual lane conditions are the way forward for major championships.
These conditions are designed to provide a better evaluation of a bowler's ability, and the theory has been put into practice for the last two years.
Team England too, with better control of lane conditions at some ranking tournaments, and with the use of a training session, have begun to provide some of these challenging conditions for our bowlers.
Obviously if the teams will meet these conditions at major events, then to go there unprepared would be foolish, rather like going to your local centre for a league match on dry lanes and taking only your most fierce big-hooking ball.
These conditions already apply to World, European, Commonwealth and World Youth championships, but at the moment do not apply to the European Youth championships. There is no logic that I could see for this, so I thought I would ask the man who will know the answer – Kim Thorsgaard Jensen, chairman the ETBF Tournament Committee.
Why Not Dual Youth Yet?
"The ETBF Presidium (and the European bowling society in general) was awaiting a final decision of the dual condition to be re-confirmed after the first couple of years testing. Then we could change our own championships to dual condition championships. The last and final confirmation came after voting at the WTBA Congress (August 2005 in Aalborg) where a 40-10 voting clearly confirmed the dual condition to be in use for WTBA Championships, also in the years to come."
KTJ (pictured) continues, "Unfortunately the ETBF Congress was held two months earlier in Moscow (June 2006) and there was no congress due to be held until 2007, which could then only apply to 2008 and onwards."
"Therefore the ETBF Presidium decided to do an email ballot among the ETBF member federations to avoid an unnecessary waste of two years. This ballot included a number of questions for the adult European Championships, more or less yes/no questions, and all were accepted – the format being no singles, 2x6 games for doubles, semi finals and finals in all disciplines and a new Masters Knockout format."
"In the same email ballot we also explained why we, at this moment, did not want to introduce dual condition in the European Youth Championships.
Let me summarize as follows:
1) The youth championships do not have any discipline (singles) to cut away. Introducing a 2x6 games doubles would then mean two extra days for the federations to pay for (from 10 to 12 days).
2) Many more players attend a youth championships than adult championships, as both sexes still are together in youth championships, and therefore the schedule for a youth championship is much tighter and runs very late many of the days. To introduce semi finals and finals would be problematic and might cause a situation, where yet another day will be added.
3) The same might happen (yet-yet another day to add) for the Masters, all depending on the size of the host centre and the number of attending players."
Result
KTJ concludes as follows, "We evaluated these questions to be too complicated for an email ballot (no real good yes/no questions) and we also wanted all (federations) to consider the situation very carefully as a consequence of the (most possible) financial implications of a move to dual condition in the youth championships, an implication, which did not exist at the adult championships as they had already been split.
Therefore the situation for the youth championships is unchanged at the moment and the next ETBF Congress (July 2007 in Vienna, Austria) will take the final decision (which will apply to EYC 2008).
However there is no easy solution for the youth championships without adding extra days and probably extra costs, unless alternatives are found, which then will move the format away from the format for the adults and that is exactly what want to try to avoid."
The Future
Therefore the situation for the youth championships is unchanged at the moment and the next ETBF Congress (July 2007 in Vienna, Austria) will take the final decision (which will apply to EYC 2008).
However there is no easy solution for the youth championships without adding extra days and probably extra costs, unless alternatives are found, which then will move the format away from the format for the adults and that is exactly what want to try to avoid."
The Future
Eric Hayton comments, "As the EYC is growing even faster than other championships, there will be another problem coming not too far into the future – will the EYC need to be split into separate boy's and girls championships for the same reasons the adults were split – lack of suitable venues large enough and to reduce cost?"
This would be a shame as the bowlers at the separated adult events certainly believe there is 'something missing' and wish that there was a way to overcome this.
Unfortunately the logic if correct for adults applies equally for youth.
However the practicalities of hosting large numbers of participants have over-ridden the ideal. In addition the dual lane conditions – as vital as they are for the sport's credibility - have only added to the scheduling problems.
For the development of bowlers, the credibility and fairness of the sport and good bowling in general dual conditions must be a part of EYC, even if this makes the event a little longer."
Eric Hayton is the owner and editor of the British Go Tenpin Magazine and was the team manager of Team England at the 2006 Women's European Championships.
This would be a shame as the bowlers at the separated adult events certainly believe there is 'something missing' and wish that there was a way to overcome this.
Unfortunately the logic if correct for adults applies equally for youth.
However the practicalities of hosting large numbers of participants have over-ridden the ideal. In addition the dual lane conditions – as vital as they are for the sport's credibility - have only added to the scheduling problems.
For the development of bowlers, the credibility and fairness of the sport and good bowling in general dual conditions must be a part of EYC, even if this makes the event a little longer."
Eric Hayton is the owner and editor of the British Go Tenpin Magazine and was the team manager of Team England at the 2006 Women's European Championships.