How not to run a match

Or "How World Shoot XVI was run"

My son Ben did very well, and none of the things that were so messed up effected him much so this is not a sour grapes kind of thing, just an observation.

First off, you know I'm a communication guy. I like everyone to know what's going on, and like to know too. I'm sure the fact that there were dozens of languages involved at World Shoot doesn't help, but the dissemination of information was horrible. Squad lists weren't final until into the first day of shooting. Schedules of times to be places and doing things were posted sporadically if at all. Website updates, even for those who had access were non-existent. There was an easel in the hotel where stuff would be posted once in a while, but not enough and not often enough. The vast majority of our information came by word of mouth often several people deep. So you know how accurate that was.

I'm also a punctual person. I'm never late, and I like things to start on time. Nothing at WSXVI started on time. Sometimes things were a hour or two late. Waiting around kills me and there was plenty of it. Sometimes 4-5 hours a day.
We were hardly ever done on time it goes without saying. Both afternoons we shot we finished up in sub-standard light. Many shooters had to shoot their last stage the following morning.

Shooting in the USA has me spoiled. I am used to the rules being followed. Particlarly by the match officials. Several stages were changed in the middle of the match. For instance: there was one stage with pull handles that opened ports for the shooter to shoot through. The intent was probably to make the shooter shoot strong hand through one, and weak hand through the other. Early in the match someone figured out that the cords were long enough to hook the loop handles over a door knob, so that it could be shot freestyle. For a day and a hlf that's how everyone shot it. Then the CRO decided that it wasn't what the intent of the stage was so they shortened the ropes. No more hooking them. They didn't consider that changing the stage. Throughout the match they added no-shoots around swingers, moved targets, and changed the angle of a slider. There were at least 10 of 30 stages changed. They should have been thrown out. Only one was.

The one that was thrown out was a stage that Eric Grauffel thoroughly trashed. He lost enough points on that one stage that he would not have won the match. He searched the stage for something wrong. He found a screw that had come loose on a prop (less than 1/4 inch I was told) and arbitrated it. AND WON! The stage was removed from the match.

Eric G. had three bad stages. He got the one thrown out and the other 2 he got reshoots on for BS reasons. The one he had an alpha-mike. The RO showed it to him, he acknowledged it, and it was pasted. Then a minute later his dad wanted to see if it was a double. Of course it had been pasted. He arbitrated that his dad never got to see the miss and was of course given a reshoot.

On another stage he got a perfect double on a 25 yard swinger. On another EG got 3 hits that clearly went through a wall. After that all walls were declared soft cover if you asked, but not if you didn't. That was halfway through the match by the way.

All in all we had a good time and Ben shot very well. All the US shooters did, but the way this match was run was very dissappointing.