False dawn

This possibility of putting a good rider, even your best guy, at 5 and shuffling the team according to their allotted gates, is new and maybe not fully exploited facility as yet. The Czech Republic showed us the way on Wednesday with Vaclav Milik at 5. The gates analysis is more subtle. Do you replace early, wait to see if the gates go the way we all "know" they are going to be and what about the possibility of TS rides? And don't forget the 6 ride maximum. At last, team managers have something to do. Unless, of course, they put the whole thing into ChatGPT

Ah but. If you have a North / South divide, riders can still double up. Sorry, I'll get my coat.

Somebody called offbeatdave was posting race information on the Live Updates thread. Not all the times were posted. If anyone can fill in the blanks that would be good 1 2 3 4 5 60.65 6 59.63 7 59.85 8 60.00 9 59.73 10 59.93 11 59.53 12 60.32 13 59.81 14 15 59.83

Live Updates obviously saw my post. But I have the evidence Serious point: They are looking for a texter.

You think you've got problems. Live Updates has this meeting titled as King's Lynn vs Leicester. Let's hope that none of the Peterborough team see this or it could be a bit one sided!

I didn't say it was valid or might work in Nick's favour. I'm just guessing in the absence of any public facts. Like everyone else.

The only thing that comes to mind is that Nick and his team are conducting their own blood/laboratory tests. If these show him to be innocent of drug taking and the SCB accept the evidence as admissible, that might help his case. He may, however, still be punished for non compliance with the testing procedure.

But what about a ref cam? That might be interesting.

Sounds like someone you'd let take the piss!

I think you are right. Sorry for my misleading post. I think the original statement said Leicester were allowed a facility.

I think the only options for Leicester, when Nick was suspended for 30 days, was to use guests/RR or to redeclare the team with a new rider and Nick being "sacked". Sadly, on the balance of probabilities, Nick is likely to handed a ban and I guess Leicester decided to act accordingly.

The argument about who should be picked for the GB team seems to centre around who was willing to take part (now or in the past) and the fact that this competition is "in Poland". I can't speak to the first factor so I'll stick to the squad that 's been announced. Tai, in interview, indicated how different the Wroclaw track is from the other tracks in Poland. I was dismayed to see immediately after this interview, a track as slick as a badger's bum. But (no pun) after extensive work after heat 4 and later, the track started to improve. In particular, those skilled at the outside run e.g. Dan, managed to make outside runs to come from behind. Seeing this, in the second half of the meeting, I was thinking how valuable Bomber would have been at reserve.

Can I just say.... "Well done Team GB".

He has another job on Monday's unfortunately.

Boy, you're really trying to make me feel old. I remember this meeting well. An exclusion was not the way we wanted to end. We dashed back home to Coventry and I seem to recall seeing the highlights on TV (VHS recording? Although it seems early for me to have a machine). It was Briggo commentating, if memory serves. It stuck with me what he said; after a collision of that sort, always look to see where the "survivor" goes after the point of contact. If he holds the line, he can argue the case. But if he ends up going wide, he's probably the guilty party. Mich went wide.

Is Simon leaving KL then?

Because riders in almost all instances operate within the existing rules quite well. Of course we could chose to make the rules more black and white including the addition of a 2 minute clock. But just because we have very few blatant exceptions, this course of action isn't warranted. Much of what's been discussed here has nothing to do with what happened last Thursday. A dislike of the amount of gardening is a good example. I would welcome a change in the rules to reduce the amount of messing about at the start. And we can debate that and how to achieve this. But the current rules are clear. If (and only if) there is sufficient time remaining within the two minutes, are riders allowed to garden. If a rider leave the pits with 30 seconds remaining, the starting marshal and the referee then indicate that the two minutes has expired, that rider is obliged to come to the tapes. If the rider chooses to ignore these instructions, he is delaying the start and is liable to be excluded. You might not like it but that's what the rules say and that's what happened. And for the record, it is my opinion that NKI was given adequate opportunity to comply and for reasons known only to him, chose to continue to prevent the race from commencing. It is perhaps even more telling that at the moment the referee flashed the green lights and some seconds later decided to put on the exclusion light, NKI was not gardening but was backed away from the tapes. The impression was that he was clearly being told to get on with it and he consciously decided not to. If a rider takes the pee or thinks he is above the rules he can be excluded for delaying the start. Which is exactly what happened. It is hard to arrive at any other conclusion than NKI decided he could ignore clear instruction from the referee and suffered the consequences. Fd bored now.

That's not quite right. As quoted above, the rules state that a rider may prepare his gate position only if there is time remaining within the 2 minutes. I agree it would be better to have a clear indication if there was time remaining. But, at the risk of repeating myself, we are debating what actually happened. There was clearly little of no time left in the case in point and the starting marshal and the referee indicated that it was time to start the race. For a any rider to ignore the starting marshal is one thing. Ignoring a clear signal from the referee is asking for trouble, at best. Arrogant, at worse. Changing the rules or adding additional equipment to deal with this, is not needed in my opinion. For what it's worth, I don't like the "normal" stating procedure in that a rider can spend the whole 2 minutes (or longer if he arrives even earlier) gardening. But we all know that the norm is for riders to come to the tapes in good time within the 2 minute warning, do some gardening and come to the tapes. If riders limbo dance the end of the time limit due to whatever reason, we regularly see them speed to the tapes, do little gardening and come to the tapes ready to start. NKI seem to want to make a point, doing his normal starting preparation when he knew full well he was late to the tapes. He delayed the start. The fans knew it, the starting marshal knew it, the referee knew it and worst of all, he knew it.

No wind up intended, honest. Your suggestion is eminently sensible. The point in question is the exclusion of NKI under the existing rules. Some seem to suggest that the referee was job's worth or that it didn't matter that a rider could continue gardening in direct contradiction to the instructions of the starting marshal and the referee. Or better still, the rules shouldn't be applied because the race had no meaning or the exclusion caused further delay. If the race had no meaning why did NKI spend so much time preparing for it or take part in it all for that matter?

So if you know you have less than a minute (actually less than 30 seconds) on the 2 minute warning left as you leave the pits, is it reasonably to take significant time gardening, ignore the starting marshal's instructions and to ignore the flashing of the green light by the referee?

It seems obvious to me that the central issue is the contract that has been signed with Artem Laguta. We all know that it must be a significant cost to the club (hardly a blip) and the party who offered to fund this has gone. And it may not be as simple as dropping the rider involved depending on the terms of the contract. Its hard to understand what is being discussed during this short lull in proceedings. The issues seem to be contractual which the British authorities cannot help with. So what do KL do? Continue to run at a heavy loss or shut?

The addition of a clock has been mentioned several times. With respect, can I ask what it would mean when the clock reaches zero? Does that indicate that riders have to be on track heading for the start. Or does it mean that riders have to be at the gate but still gardening? Or does it mean that riders have to be at the tapes ready to go?

No need for a clock. The 2 minute warning was sounded. An announcement was made A 60 second warning was announced. A 30 second warning was announced. NKI then emerged from the pit gate. He came to the gate at a reasonable speed but not with any sense of urgency. He then started a full gardening routine. This was permitted for a short time, but eventually the starting marshal called NKI forward to join the other 3 riders who had been ready to race for some time. NKI failed to come forward and the ref clearly felt that enough was enough. I have some sympathy for the view that this was not untypical. I had began to get a bit fed up with the delays at the start last night and generally, actually. But arriving at the start well within the 2 minutes and then gardening is one thing. Leaving the pits with less than 30 seconds to go and then expecting to take significant time preparing to race is taking the pee. And it wasn't just Leicester fans who cheered when NKI was excluded.

I couldn't agree more. The super-fluous heat is an invention by or for TV. But then to use a race formula which means the race winner can end up on the losing side is debatable for the faithful and downright bemusing for new comers and prospective new fans. So we're using this arguably confusing mechanism to decide results and in part, to advertise our sport. I'm tempted to say that you couldn't make it up, but that's not true.

You're very welcome. I am a nerd. I'm happy to own up to that well known fact. But my interest is during the meeting itself rather than preserving some sort of historic record. I like to get some view of a winning race time to assess later clashes in the meeting. It adds to my enjoyment but I don't expect everyone (anyone?) to share my view. This extends to other features such as gate stats. Last night's meeting was a particular case in point. The race wins and points scored from each gate is of interest to me and last night this played a significant part in the latter heats. Given that teams were permitted to swap gates between their allotted gates, and two gates were statistically were advantageous (3&4) both the pair of gate chosen and who started in which was of some importance. If you're really interested I can tell you who started in which gate in all races. And there speaks a proud nerd! P.S. it's "dawn", the time of day, not "Dawn", the girl's name. Sorry, I'm a pedant as well