AUSTRALIAN SCANDAL FROM GLIDING INTERNATIONAL MARCH 2020 ISSUE

On Monday, 2 March 2020 21:05:34 UTC+2, Roy B. wrote:

To suggest that a new member of a team should have disregarded their Captain's judgment and "call out" (in some unspecified way) what the team was doing strikes me as both harsh and unrealistic.

[BS intensifies]

So cheating is kind of ok if it's done by your team captain and you are kind of new to this game and don't kind of have courage to speak up. Well I guess that paragraph should be added to Annex A right away then. Sometimes it's just hard to believe what I'm reading here.

I wasn't there, but I can almost guarantee you that the other countries were listening in on the Aussie frequency. So they had the same info.
UNLESS the Aussies were frequency hopping, that would make it pre-meditated and the Aussies should be penalized

Allow me to clarify. This was unsportsmanlike and cheating, they got caught and were all penalized and/or disciplined, thank goodness. I am just withholding my judgement on who did or knew what until I see investigation results.


On Monday, March 2, 2020 at 9:46:34 AM UTC-6, Jim Hogue wrote:
On Monday, 2 March 2020 02:45:01 UTC-6, krasw wrote:
On Saturday, 29 February 2020 18:55:40 UTC+2, Roy B. wrote:
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.

Sorry but this is total BS. If you are a competitor flying WGC, you know the rules. If your ground team broadcasts what other competitors do in real time, you know very well that it is based on information prohibited by rules. And if you do not call out the cheating right away, you become accomplish. That's the choice these "real victims" made.

The 15 minute delayed information was available to all competitors, so transfer of tactical information (delayed) from ground to pilot would be considered a normal activity. Perhaps the penalized competitors thought (or were led to believe) that the information they were receiving was the 15 minute delayed info, not the real time info. I don't know. I don't think it can be assumed that they knew that the info was real time and not delayed. Perhaps the Gliding Federation of Australia report might reveal if the penalized competitors knew they were getting real time vs delayed information. Is it publicly available?

Well the whole situation is “ premeditated�. When racing turned into who could scam the most information (flarm location tracking, ground/managment relayed information, onboard active wx etc), racing became a different test; not one of pilot against pilot and pilot reading the wx, to one of information managment and who has the best information systems. One of the reasons many great fliers lost interest in this aspect of the sport.. In the end Sara still kicked all their butts doing it the Streideck way; fast efficient self knowledgable flying!!
Dan

I wasn’t defending anyone or anything, just stating their position.

On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 8:49:48 AM UTC-5, Stephen Szikora wrote:
I wasn’t defending anyone or anything, just stating their position.

What would make you "almost guarantee" that everyone would be listening
to the Aussie frequency?Â* Are the Aussies known to always cheat?Â* That's
not been my experience having made five trips to that wonderful
country.Â* Do you think it was "home team advantage" and therefore
everyone monitors the home team, no matter in which country the contest
is held?

Suck it up people.Â* You got caught, got your pee pees whacked
(figuratively).Â* Move on...

On 3/3/2020 3:54 AM, wrote:
I wasn't there, but I can almost guarantee you that the other countries were listening in on the Aussie frequency. So they had the same info.
UNLESS the Aussies were frequency hopping, that would make it pre-meditated and the Aussies should be penalized

--
Dan, 5J

On Tuesday, March 3, 2020 at 11:06:07 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
What would make you "almost guarantee" that everyone would be listening
to the Aussie frequency?Â* Are the Aussies known to always cheat?Â* That's
not been my experience having made five trips to that wonderful
country.Â* Do you think it was "home team advantage" and therefore
everyone monitors the home team, no matter in which country the contest
is held?

Suck it up people.Â* You got caught, got your pee pees whacked
(figuratively).Â* Move on...

On 3/3/2020 3:54 AM,
I wasn't there, but I can almost guarantee you that the other countries were listening in on the Aussie frequency. So they had the same info.
UNLESS the Aussies were frequency hopping, that would make it pre-meditated and the Aussies should be penalized

--
Dan, 5J

When I flew in WGC my team captain(wife Dianne) had 3 radios going all the time.
It was very helpful to hear stuff like "our friends are going in 5 minutes".. Now with sophisticated tracking, much more information can be made available, when permitted. She may have been able to tell us when they were going, but could not tell us where they were.
Additionally, there are other ways to communicate besides "public" radio.
FWIW
UH

On Tuesday, 3 March 2020 18:06:07 UTC+2, Dan Marotta wrote:
What would make you "almost guarantee" that everyone would be listening
to the Aussie frequency?Â* Are the Aussies known to always cheat?Â* That's
not been my experience having made five trips to that wonderful
country.Â* Do you think it was "home team advantage" and therefore
everyone monitors the home team, no matter in which country the contest
is held?

Suck it up people.Â* You got caught, got your pee pees whacked
(figuratively).Â* Move on...

On 3/3/2020 3:54 AM, wrote:
I wasn't there, but I can almost guarantee you that the other countries were listening in on the Aussie frequency. So they had the same info.
UNLESS the Aussies were frequency hopping, that would make it pre-meditated and the Aussies should be penalized

--
Dan, 5J

Not at all - But at a WGC you will see ground crews monitoring 4 or 5 different frequencies.

Some more info.

Australian had access to life tracking data through a sub page on the tracking website. The page was not password protected and completely availible to everybody that knew where to look.

Other teams knew australia had life tracking data during the comp but that was no problem because they thought they had it through private OGN's.

At least 2 and likely more teams had access to live tracking data through private OGN's.

The IGC specifically didn't make having life tracking data illegal because it is so easy to get.

The rapport found thÃ*t the way Australia obtained the life tracking data was not illegal since it was publicly available on an open website but unethical because the teammember had worked with the website during other comps and knew about this point.

Australia would have likely used an OGN to get the tracking data as some the other teams did if they hadn't had known about this webpage.

Concluding, this was not cheating, other teams had or could have had the same information which is allowed by the rules.

The ICG rules that allow teams to obtain and use tracking information is the core problem.