SA champs is a joke !

[Danger Dassie]

is this the extent of your knowledge regarding where the officials fit in? if so, then let me educate you. the Officials are an independent association and organisers rely on their "expertise" to officiate the event. if they do a bad job, toughies, you just hope that the imcompetents don't last long as an official and find something else to stuff up on a saturday afternoon.

 

So essentially no one is liable then?

[Lucky Luke.]

is this the extent of your knowledge regarding where the officials fit in? if so, then let me educate you. the Officials are an independent association and organisers rely on their "expertise" to officiate the event. if they do a bad job, toughies, you just hope that the imcompetents don't last long as an official and find something else to stuff up on a saturday afternoon.

 

Why do I need to be an expert on the politics behind the event? What has the 'extent of my knowledge' got to do wtih anything? I trained for the event and I paid to enter it. It's provincial champs - you expect things will at least go as smoothly as the average PPA funride. Same deal for SA's.

 

If the officials are unreliable then how about getting Racetec to time the event? Or is it the officials job to sort that out too? How about getting some cameras on the line so you can see who is finishing and who isn't? How about checking the results before you publish them to make sure you haven't awarded two places to one rider? All down to the officials?

[Chrispy]

You got it all wrong.

 

CSA organised the champs,chose the route and did the negotiations with the local authority. Don't blame Hendrik and Barry. They did what they were told to do.

[Guest agteros]

is this the extent of your knowledge regarding where the officials fit in? if so, then let me educate you. the Officials are an independent association and organisers rely on their "expertise" to officiate the event. if they do a bad job, toughies, you just hope that the imcompetents don't last long as an official and find something else to stuff up on a saturday afternoon.

 

 

You got it all wrong.

 

CSA organised the champs,chose the route and did the negotiations with the local authority. Don't blame Hendrik and Barry. They did what they were told to do.

 

Oops, MORE egg on the face (of CSA)!

ccc2, what is your link to this all? You are way to defensive!

[AuctionLamb]

If CSA want big sponsors to come on board to help cycling then they must give a better show than this. Sponsors look at how these races get organised and see if it is feasible to sponsor. By the looks of it...no sponsor will come on board till next year.

[GLuvsMtb]

Same old problem - Too many chiefs and no indians at CSA.

Everyone's got some fancy title, but no one actually does the hard yards.

If CSA was a business, then they'd be in serious trouble. Its worse than Escom if you ask me.

How to fix this?

Get professional event orginisers (we have many good ones in SA) to run the events, and PAY THEM!

[Guest coenie]

is this the extent of your knowledge regarding where the officials fit in? if so, then let me educate you. the Officials are an independent association and organisers rely on their "expertise" to officiate the event. if they do a bad job, toughies, you just hope that the imcompetents don't last long as an official and find something else to stuff up on a saturday afternoon.

 

Applying the PPA take on things? Do you work for PPA?

 

CSA is and should be responsible....

[Delgado]

Typically South African! Talk big and deliver effall.... except make great excuses. Especially love all the "World Class" jibes! What a joke....

Edited February 7, 2011 by Delgado

[Wyatt Earp]

Typically South African! Talk big and deliver effall.... except make great excuses. Especially love all the "World Class" jibes! What a joke....

But it is, it is right up there with the Cirque Du Soleil.

[Java001]

@ Gary Painter - yes, you heard correct. There was no advance publicity and PE people were only informed about the The Herald Volkswagen race and knew nothing about SA's. No ads, signboards, posters. Spoke to local media ... they thought it was practise & warm-up for the weekends Herald race. When a local radio station heard it was SA's, they tried to contact the organisers for detail to broadcast, but eventually gave up.

 

As also posted elsewhere, let me as PE cyclist, share a few facts, opinions and rumours with fellow hubbers – please note that I am not involved in ECC or with CSA.

Not many of us REALLY knew how and why East Cape Cycling ECC (incorporating Eastern Cape Cycling & Border Cycling) became the host of the SA’s. Rumour has it that they claimed to have been the first to have made a deposit of a few R million to CSA – a lot of the other provinces seem to think this never happened?

Government has never made big funding available for cycling, so most licensed riders know that CSA serve the political transformation agenda – it takes from cyclists to give to 20 million non-cyclists hoping that 200 will become cyclists.

I think this is called “taking cycling to the people” or is it “taking from cycling people”? Think also of the upcoming Cell C Tour that will ignore good cycling roads and do potholed township routes around PE.

 

The Eastern Cape as poorest province is the political home of the ruling party; add to this a few people involved with ECC and CSA that want to and have perhaps already laid their grubby paws on LOTTO developmunt funding ……………

 

ECC are hampered by a chronic lack of funds, resources and manpower. Club involvement of its approx 26 clubs is minimal and at a recent AGM almost no Clubs even attended. This is well known to CSA – the 2010 ECC President currently works for CSA?

 

As alluded to by an earlier post/thread, ECC and it’s 2011 President elect Shane Bradfield, DID NOT choose the SA route – ECC recommended to CSA the usual quite safe cycling routes on the outskirts of PE that is used for most local races as well as The Herald & Engen races e.g. Greenbushes, Seaview, Maitlands, van Stadens etc.

 

CSA decided that they needed to take cycling “to the people” so insisted on a route through Humewood/Central/Walmer/Summerstrand and this was later amended to Humewood/Central/ Walmer with the Summerstrand section being regarded as “dangerous”. Had CSA perhaps bothered to obtain input from local clubs and riders, they would have realised that neither the original nor the amended route was safe unless there was going to be 100% full road closure.

 

They would also have been told that full or even partial road closure at the Beachfront and suburbs would be almost impossible to achieve during weekdays (even if CSA were able to spend R 350 000 to R 1 mill to pay the Metro for full road closure). With most of the championships being held when people were at work, there would be few if any spectators along the route. Add to this that marshals consisted of untrained pdi’s with bibs and flags, who in a few instances were seen to fall asleep on the job, and things were always going to get messy.

 

CSA preach rider safety, because that is the politically correct thing to, but rider safety was NOT their main priority when the route was chosen; to justify the amended route they later issued a statement that read “The safety of cyclists is the one thing the board of Cycling South Africa (CSA) will never ever compromise on even if it means upsetting a lot cyclists and spectators”.

 

I saw most of the road events on the Thursday and Friday – NOT a single event could be regarded as safe, by even the wildest stretch of the imagination. That there were no fatalities was quite amazing.

 

Many competitors simply pulled off due to safety concerns and close calls with cars and taxis on the route. In order to avoid accidents many cyclists had to come to complete stops at many places on the route, which effectively ended their race as they were pulled off by the officials if their lap times were more than 10% in excess of the leading riders.

 

The agony and embarrassment ended on Saturday afternoon when all was done and dusted and many wildly irate competitors started their return journeys home.

 

A few hours later at 6.00 am on Sunday morning The Volkswagen Herald Cycle race started and when prize giving started at 1.00 pm, it was evident that this event had gone off with relatively few glitches. What was different ? With only a few changes, the organisers and race director were the same ECC people that were involved with the SA’s. Big difference was proper road closure where needed and although the routes all started and ended at the Beachfront, it utilised established routes in Walmer, Seaview, Greenbushes, Maitlands areas BECAUSE THE SAFETY AND NEEDS OF THE CYCLISTS motivated the choices, NOT some inappropriate and misguided CSA ideas.

['Dale]

So sorry to hear about this...

Really wanna see cycling in SA excel.

 

Tch, Tch, Tch!