AUSTRALIAN SCANDAL FROM GLIDING INTERNATIONAL MARCH 2020 ISSUE

1. The World Women's Gliding Championship staged at Lake Keepit in Australia concluded on January 17 leaving a rather nasty taste in the mouths of 9 of the 10 competing countries.

2 A collective protest from team managers saw the International Jury penalise all Australian pilots with 250 points each, materially affecting the final placings in the championships.

3. The Gliding Federation of Australia appointed a legal/knowledgeable pilot to carry out an investigation of their behalf. The 16 page report has been released with the conclusion that an appeal against the Jury decision is unlikely to be successful and so now world gliding has to wait for any advancement on the Australian policy or whether the situation is being accepted and they now move on. Officially Australia has penalised the officials involved with a severe five year restriction on activities.

4. Well meaning Australian pilots have been extremely vocal on their web site with a multitude of postings, some particularly nasty.

5. Since January 17, Gliding International has recorded all events, all emails, all reports and the adjudicators analysis. Gliding International having followed the unprecedented scene covers it in considerable detail, highlighting some of the emails posted. The jury report and the investigators report are in our 18 page article on the episode. The magazine is totally non judgmental on events. Only reporting known facts.

The issue also carries the stories on

* Schleicher new AS33
• Remarkable test flights of replica Wright Brothers Glider, and the Lilienthal Glider. Both flown together in Germany
• Airbus announce a new wing design
• How the Bush-fires in Australia are affecting gliding.
• Do you know why Glider wingspans are measured in metres?
• And an aircraft is being built with a totally new base material. First one half built. This is a scoop!
• Washington State University have announced that small manufacturing changes can double the life/power/storage of an existing battery. This is the break-through we have all been waiting for.

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Anyone have specifics, simply explain?

R

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 5:48:28 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Anyone have specifics, simply explain?

R

Simple explanation is that a member supporting the Aussie team got the base data of the tracking system, which was designed and intended to provide data to all users with a 15 minute delay, in real time, and was able to make this data available to the Aussie team members. This can provide a large advantage
UH

.... you left out the case for their defence ... the data was publicly available on the internet and any team could review it had they been aware.

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 8:54:59 AM UTC-5, Stephen Szikora wrote:
... you left out the case for their defence ... the data was publicly available on the internet and any team could review it had they been aware.

Liar.

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 9:03:24 AM UTC-5, Tango Eight wrote:
On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 8:54:59 AM UTC-5, Stephen Szikora wrote:
... you left out the case for their defence ... the data was publicly available on the internet and any team could review it had they been aware.

Liar.

Let me amend that. The claim that this was "publicly available" is a lie.

Public disclosure is what is reasonably required for information used during a comp. This information wasn't publicly disclosed.

T8

You can easily and legally purchase lockpicks online. What you do with them, however, may be illegal. Just because "everybody" can get lockpicks does not mean you can use them to circumvent the law.

Same with the tracking data.

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 1:54:59 PM UTC, Stephen Szikora wrote:
... you left out the case for their defence ... the data was publicly available on the internet and any team could review it had they been aware.

So, the fact that everyone could cheat is a justification for cheating?

On Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 8:54:59 AM UTC-5, Stephen Szikora wrote:
... you left out the case for their defence ... the data was publicly available on the internet and any team could review it had they been aware.

The IGC implemented the time delay to minimize the possibility of tactical ground support via tracking. This was a deliberate act to circumvent the rules.
Tactical ground support through tracking has become a very important (critical?)tactic to achieve success at this level of competition. Many believe it has changed the sport in an unfavorable way, to the point where some competitors have decided to not compete. Some countries feel the same way.
Tracking is a way to allow spectators to enjoy the event.
IGC is trying to balance having good competition with spectator experience.
These actions threaten that effort.
UH

A few additional points to those UH also deserve mention.

First, the overarching Rule here is in Annex A, Rule 5.3: "The following limitations are imposed so that the competition shall, as far as possible, be directly between the individual competitors, neither controlled nor helped by external aid." The 15 minute time delay for tracking information (a form of external aid) was imposed to support that rule and its spirit. Anybody who found a way to circumvent that time delay knew - or should have known- that they were circumventing that Rule and the spirit of that Rule.

Second, there were procedures and methods by which a team having doubt about the propriety of a certain information source ( and passing that information on to its pilots) could have inquired whether it was permitted under the rules. Those procedures were not taken by the offending team managment - undoubtedly because they wanted to keep it secret and maintain a dubious competitive advantage.

Third, it is hardly a "defense" to a charge of unsporting conduct that others could have (but did not) engage in the same conduct.

Lastly, the real victims here are the Aussie pilots who were not part of team management and had no role in the decisions or implementation of the method and could do nothing except what they were told to do by team management. This is particularly true for the new competitors on that team. They could not turn off their radios or "unhear" the information passed along (which may well have been useless to many of them). These pilots were penalized not because of their actions, but because of the bad decisions made by their team management. While the contestant point penalties seem appropriate as a sanction, the more severe sanctions on the team management seem particularly warranted. Their decisions tainted the contest for everyone, but particularly for their own team members.
ROY