Also, regarding appealing about distraction, I don't know for a fact but I suspect that it wouldn't succeed, the reason being that it's difficult to determine what amounts to a distraction, and what distracts one person may not distract another. It would be an easy way for a less scrupulous competitor to abandon a difficult scramble. If any delegates are reading, it would be good to know what they would do.
This problem is addressed in
Article 11: Incidents of the regulations.
There are several types of incidents that can occur. The situation you are referring can mainly come from two origins: a disturbance derived from 11a2), which obviously grant an extra attempt for the affected competitors, and disturbances that fall into 11d).
Disturbances caused by other competitors can be tricky to decide and they will always fall under the fair judgement of the WCA Delegate.
The affected competitor should follow the steps of 11e) and provide all possible details, in this case, multiple witnesses of the issue can be taken into consideration. But ultimately it's always a decision made by the WCA Delegate, who takes into consideration the level of disturbance and the intent. It's not an easy decision to make most times and it always depends on the situation at hand.
Just a note: although recommended, BLD events don't have to occur in completely silent environments, and some background noise is accepted, particularly if the conditions are the same for everyone, so what some may consider disturbing may not be for others, so it has to always be something noticable. It's advised for those that tend to get distracted to of course wear earmuffs.
Here are two examples:
This first one, I would give an extra for the competitor that would claim a distraction from the loud announcement close by:
On this second one, although the noise being unbelievably loud (and blind events would possibly not have occured), I would not grant an extra if a competitor claimed he was distracted because of the background noise, as it is the same for everyone and is not a particular intereference on one competitor's attempt.
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