IJRU Competition Rules

# Processes

# Protests and appeals

The competition arrangers will designate an Appeals Committee that will hear and make decisions on protests and appeals within the competition. The Appeals Committee should consist of the tournament director (who will chair any Appeals Committee meeting but will not have voting power) and an odd number of voting members, at least 3. No more than one person from a country can be a member of the Appeals Committee. At least a senior judge, senior skipper and a member of the Technical Committees should be included in this committee. A member of the same country/delegation as the appealing party may not process an appeal, therefore a reserve member must also be appointed in advance. The reserve member has the right to attend and hear all other appeals where the appealing party isn't their country/delegation so as to ensure consistency, but they are not allowed to vote or voice their opinion during these appeals.

The Appeals Committee can hear protests on:

  • A scoring error related to data entry or calculation error
  • A decision by the tournament director or other tournament officials that is unfair or inconsistent with published IJRU rules
  • Scores in speed and multiples events only if it has an effect on ranking or pertains to the top ranked entry
    • For speed and multiples events, each delegation is allowed appeals with a deposit set by the organisers, in some cases the organisers may choose to assign each delegation a number of appeals tokens instead.
    • If an appeal is successful the deposit or appeal token is returned to the delegation; if not, the deposit is not returned and the appeal token is consumed.
    • If appeal tokens are used, delegations may submit more appeals than they have available appeal tokens, if the delegation runs out of appeal tokens before all of their appeals are processed, the processing stops.
    • These appeals will be processed from highest-ranking to lowest-ranking

Appeals will not be accepted on:

  • Other decisions or ratings of judges

It is allowed to make appeals on matters or scores pertaining to your own, and/or another delegation.
A delegation may not make an appeal for results if they do not have entries in the competition event, age-, and gender category the appeal relates to.

A successful appeal on speed and multiples scores is one that changes the score of the top ranked entry, or if it changes the rank of another entry. To determine if the ranking would change, the re-counted entry score is compared to the results as they were before any other appeals were successful. A delegation may mark multiple appeals as related, to determine their success, the re-counted scores of related appeals are compared together against the results as they were before any other appeals were successful.

To make an appeal the following process should be used

  1. The delegation head coach or designated representative discusses the issue with the tournament director. The tournament director will propose a recommendation (and may consult with the full Appeals Committee, but this is not required). There may only be one designated representative for appeals per delegation, who must speak English or provide a translator.
  2. If the designated representative does not agree with this recommendation they will have a set time from the official release of results to submit a written appeal to the full Appeals Committee. The appeal window for each official release of results will be defined and communicated by the Tournament Director with the official release of the results. The window must be at least 15 minutes. The appeal window can be cut short if all delegations sign that they will not be making any appeal before the end of the appeals window.
    1. The appeal must include contact details to the designated representative, and a description of what is being appealed.
    2. If an appeal pertains to an entry, the appeal must include the competition event, entry number, and athlete name(s).
    3. For appeals of scores, the score believed to be true must be stated.
  3. On appeal of other matters than speed and multiples scores, the designated representative will present their case to the full Appeals Committee, and the Tournament Director will present the recommendation they made.
  4. On appeal of other matters than speed and multiples scores, the Appeals Committee will meet in private, discuss the issue and vote on the issue. A majority is required to overturn the original decision of the tournament director.
    For appeals on speed and multiples scores, the Tournament Director or someone they appoint will select judges to re-count the video according to the video replay process, the result of this count will be the appeal outcome.
    • Note: If video replay is not available for the competition, the Appeals Committee will ask the designated representative for a video of the entry. This video must be filmed from the coach's box, with a still camera, where the athlete(s) are clearly visible throughout the recording, and the video shows the entire event: from the start of the timing track to the end of the event plus three seconds.
  5. The decision of the Tournament Committee is final and will be communicated to the designated representative, it cannot be further appealed.

If deposits are used the organisers will communicate in advance of the competition how and when deposits will be paid, and how much the deposits will be.

Appeals on speed and multiples scores that would change the ranking in medal or qualifiers positions will be handled before the medal ceremony, other appeals on speed and multiples scores may be handled later but before the results are published.

If corrections are made after awards are distributed, athletes will not be required to return any incorrectly given awards, but they may choose to do so as a show of sportsmanship.

# Injury and substitutions

Substitution of an athlete in an event will be permitted within the following guidelines:

  1. The Tournament Director is notified immediately of any substitution.
  2. The substitute athlete is not currently competing in the same event in any other age or gender category.
  3. The substitute athlete's gender and age must fall within the parameters of the event in which they are substituting for a freestyle event.1
  4. If substitute athlete is a member of another all around team, the team into which they are substituting an event will not be eligible for an all around placementt
  5. If a gender or age category change occurs with the substitution, any all around entries for the team in which the substitution is occurring will be nullified.
  6. Substitution must be requested by the NGB Head Coach or chosen representative.

1 At the discretion of the tournament committee, a change in age or gender division required by a substitute may be permitted if enough prior notice is provided and judging panels can be adjusted for the given entry.

# Starting order

The starting order of entries for preliminaries will be randomly determined separately for each division. In the Finals the starting order is seeded by increasing qualifying score.

# Withdrawal

If an athlete/team doesn’t show up on the competition floor within 1 minute of being called it will be considered a withdrawal from the event. It is the responsibilities of athletes and coaches to follow the competition progress even if the tournament runs ahead of projected schedule.

Last Updated: 2023-03-01

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