On-line Slalom League

[james_shoemaker]

I've been bouncing the idea of an on-line handicapped slalom league (like a bowling league) around in my head for several years. Skiers would post results weekly with placings updated Sunday night. Obviously just for fun as there's no way to prove the scores (short video of each run I suppose). There could team results, individual results, even be virtual tournaments. The trick would be to figure out how to make a handicapping scheme that would be fair and competitive. Is there a formula where you can combine a 32-off skier and someone without even a reliable full pass without being unfair to either?One of the reasons I keep thinking about it is my daughter waterskis adaptive and loves the course, but struggles to get a clean pass even at very low speeds so competitions don't work well for her. She had fun in a bowling league because of the handicapping and this may be a similar situation.Any interest/ideas?

James

[jgills88]

Last year the Ohio Waterski Association did a virtual slalom league with scoring based on bowling! Our solution to the vast mismatches that can happen was to divide skiers into divisions based on their averages so nobody was directly competing against someone on a vastly different level. Off the top of my head the tiers were "Never ran - 26, 15off", "28-32mph", "34-36, 22off", and "28off+". We also had an overall leader board based off of competing against a skiers own average.

It was fun! Inconsistent turn out, which can be expected from a first time thing, but hopefully we'll market it more consistently and get more people involved next year!

[rodecon]

Several years back I was part of "Wednesday Waterski League" which was set up and run by some local skiers but was online based and nationwide

My remembrance of the general formula was teams of 4-6 people (only the 4 top scores counted in the books) the first 3 weeks scores were to establish an average for a handicap individually, then after that all scores were either plus or minus that average.

So skier A could be a shortline skier with an average of 2@39/34 and score 3@39 on Wednesday night and skier B could be a beginner with an average of 4@15/28 but if they skied a 2@15/30 on Wednesday night they outscored skier A by 3 balls.

We had a TON of fun and skiing in this league is what gave me the confidence to ski in AWSA tournaments, good stuff!

[rodecon]

@wskierman8@nleuth

[james_shoemaker]

We participated in one from our lake a few years back, but there was so much manual work for scoring that it didn't happen the following year, I was thinking of doing something completely automated on the processing side. Skiers input their data and the program does all the math and comparisons. Is there already a platform for hosting these leagues or is it still a manual process?

[jayski]

https://www.wrldwtrski.com/home

https://www.ballofspray.com/forum#/discussion/23219/introducing-world-waterski-league

[ETskier]

So, would we turn in every practice score, or just the best of the week? I think turning in video would end up being cumbersome for the administrator. The honor system plus naming your witness would cool. Like local play golf, everybody signs the the scorecard.. PP, ZO, hand drive, dont care, honor sytem in play. We could even do a virtual finals, all on the same weekend.

[jayski]

@ETskier video was to the answer that most accepted to deal with "legitimacy".

But it can be done anyway, if your group or wished an 'honor' system WWSL can accommodate

[Web]

@rodecon and others... WWL was a great time and glad many were introduced to tournament rules. Correction though, the average was a rolling top 3 or something like that, not first three scores. Keeps the sandbaggers honest !!