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Possible Mischief at Polish Nationals 2013

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mDiPalma

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In ‘Julius Caesar’, William Shakespeare writes, “Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.”

Good old William is right; mischief has been afoot…at the Polish Nationals 2013, during the BLD finals.

Consider this video:

At 20:32, the delegate speaks through the loud microphone, accidentally disrupting Marcin’s solve. Marcin is eventually awarded an extra attempt (WHICH WILL TURN OUT TO BE THE 23.80 WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT).
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BUT WAIT! AT 21:05 you can see somebody ELSE solving.

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He finishes his solve (a 1:27.03 DNF) at 21:39. THAT MEANS HE STARTED SOLVING AT 20:12 (BEFORE MARCIN!)

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He must ALSO have been disturbed by the microphone. But who is this fellow? At 9:19 you can see him doing PLL algorithms. Thankfully, he is wearing a name tag. His name is…. MICHAŁ BOGDAN!

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THIS IS HIS FACE. Does this look like the face of someone that deserves to be treated UNFAIRLY?

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NO! Nobody deserves to be treated unfairly. THEN WHY WAS MICHAŁ BOGDAN NOT OFFERED AN ADDITIONAL ATTEMPT, LIKE MARCIN WAS?

HERE’S A POTENTIAL REASON: the delegate unfairly addressed the needs of a faster cuber, LEAVING POOR MICHAŁ WITH A DNF.

You might protest, “But isn’t it the competitor’s responsibility to request an additional attempt?”

That it is, boy. That it is. At least according to 11e.

11e) If an incident occurs during an attempt, the WCA Delegate may grant a competitor an extra attempt, replacing the attempt during which the incident occurred. The competitor must appeal verbally or in writing to the judge and WCA Delegate at the time of the incident, before finishing the original attempt, to be eligible for an extra attempt. An appeal does not guarantee the competitor an extra attempt.

But at 21:01 in the video, we can see something curious.

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The delegate comes over and grabs Marcin by the arm and forces an “indifferent” Marcin to make an additional attempt.

From their gestures, but also from other sources, we see that Marcin did not request the extra attempt, but was forced to do it. This extra attempt would turn out to be the 23.80 WR attempt. This violates the protocol set aside in 11e. Marcin is not to blame at all– he was just following the delegate’s instruction.

Does the delegate have some sort of vested interest in Marcin doing well? He might. That would be wrong. But that’s not the point.

The point is that the delegate did not come up to Michał after his 1:27 DNF, grab his arm, and force him to do an additional attempt.

So what? Why does this matter? Well, it violates the WCA Mission Statement:

“The goal of the World Cube Association is to have
more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.”


So, we are left to respectfully request the WCA make one or both of the following actions:

1) Disqualify Marcin’s 23.80 WR attempt due to violations of 11e and their mission statement.
2) Issue a formal apology to Michał Bogdan for the unfair treatment and favoritism.

Thoughts?
 

AlexMaass

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I don't have much of an opinion on the topic but reading through this post felt like I was watching a really intense Sherlock deduction scene.

The only thing I would say is that it seems kind of unfair to marcin to disqualify him for something that was not his fault.
yeah, that is unfortunate but he should not have gotten an extra attempt in the first place
(disqualify is not the proper word btw)
though he had a solve he did before he got up, so the solve would hopefully be replaced with that solve if the time of the solve is known (if not then DNF sadly)
 

aybuck37

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I like how your response was laid out. Very neat. If I had to pick one I would choose option 2, because an apology never hurts. And who knows maybe they don't even remember
 
D

Daniel Lin

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kinda is the delegate's fault for "forcing" Marcin to do an extra attempt

What do the regs say about what to do if a delegate messes up?
 

newtonbase

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At 21:18 I think you can see the delegate walking back towards Marcin. He hasn't had to try hard to force the extra attempt. He then approaches the guy in the black shirt, was that to offer him another attempt too?
Do we know that Michal Bogdan didn't get another opportunity? He did get a success after this.
I'm not saying that this was done correctly, I'm just offering a couple of things to think about.
 

BDQ

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Hi. I am that Michał Bogdan. I don't think I was treated unfair. I had a few extra attemppts in blindfold when something disturbed me and without any problems with delegates. At Polish Nationals 2013 everything was ok to me. I don't know how was it with Marcin. We only see something on this video but I don't hear what they were saying so we can just ask them. Thanks Aleks Mass for sending me that topic :)
 
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