RUST magazine: Rust#16

This means the Australian team is given a three-hour penalty for each
day they don’t have that fourth rider. Even if all the other teams lose a
rider on Day Two, how can the remaining riders in the Australian team
recoup the three hours penalties from Day One alone?
In a competition where the differences between the top teams is
measured in mere tens of seconds per day, to claw back that one-day
deficit of 10,800 seconds (even if every other team loses a rider on day
two) over the next five days is simply impossible. Just as a jump-start
ride-through penalty in MotoGP spells game over, so the Australian
World Trophy team may as well have packed their kit at the end of Day
One, saved the expenditure on tyres, fuel etc and simply gone home.
Ironically in the Women’s Trophy category the FIM has effectively
allowed for a rider loss by maintaining the worst-score discard rule, so
while Australia’s three-woman team (also) lost arguably their strongest
rider (Jess Gardner) on Day One, with a ‘best two results from three’ rule
in operation, Australia still led the Women’s category at the end of the
day. A more stark contrast it’s hard to imagine.
It is a mighty shame when rule changes like this aren’t fully thought
through. The ISDE, so often called motorcycling’s Olympics, is a
flagship event. It is for all the federations of the world, for so many
typically amateur sportsmen and sportswomen, such a major investment
in time and money. To create a rule that leads to such an outcome does
not (in RUST’s opinion) constitute good race management. We can,
for now, but share sympathies with Australia (and the Austrian and
Colombian teams for that matter, who suffered the same fate on Day
One). And hope for next year this rule gets sorted. Too late of course,
but better late than never…
PS. Clearly this will be a matter of some debate, if you’ve got thoughts,
opinions – anything constructive – to say on the matter do be in
touch at editorial@rustsports.com we’d like to hear from you