In heats where there
are only, say, four crews racing for three places then the programme
will read; "Last eliminated, remainder to Final" or whatever
the next round may be
Time Trials:
The results of the
time trials will be used to determine the race order in the subsequent
rounds as described below. Crews should also be aware that in the event
that racing is suspended due to weather conditions and later rounds
cannot be run, the results of the time trials may be used to award medals.
Therefore, to avoid
disappointment, we strongly advise crews to race their time trial as
if it were the final.
The Draw for
subsequent rounds:
This is best described
by an example - if we have 12 entries, we will have 2 races of 6 lanes
in the first round. The first 3 crews from each race will go through
to the final. The two winning crews will be RANDOMLY allocated to either
lane 3 or 4. The two crews that came second will be randomly allocated
to either lane 2 or 5 and the two crews that came third will be randomly
allocated to either lane 1 or 6. This method achieves a CHEVRON racing
pattern with the fastest crews in the middle and the slower crews on
the outsides. However, if the weather conditions are such that lane
6 is strongly favoured, the race committee may decide to alter the racing
pattern to ECHELON. In this case, winning crews will be allocated randomly
to lanes 6 and 5, second placed crews to lanes 4 and 3 and third placed
crews to lanes 2 and 1. Similarly, if lane 1 is favoured, the winning
crews will be allocated to lane 1 and 2, etc... This change can happen
at any time and would be announced from the raft marshals office.
Therefore, to avoid
disappointment, we strongly advise crews and coaches not to 'tactically'
try to come 3rd in their heats in order to get the lane they want -
such action could back-fire.