Hi, my team had a great season and we made it the farthest our school has ever been. We are in the finals and we will probably be playing the same school we lost to during the regular season. There's is one catch to this school that I am worried about. Their gym floor is horrible. I did not believe it myself, but at the beginning of the matches, my players were complaining about the floor. It was too slippery and it felt like it hasn't been waxed in a while. At the end of the games, when we lost, I took the oppoturnity to hit a few shots on the court and I hardly could run. If I tried, there would have been a big chance I could have fallen. They did have wet paper towels on the side of the courts, but they were worn out, torn, and dry. The opposing school's managers only put 2 towels per court and never changed them. During one of these games, one of my players, slipped, fell, and rolled. It was very hard for my players to keep their balance and I fear this will happen again. Our school gyms are not all that great either, but the opposing school's team floors are the worst than ours. After playing at the opposing school, my players dared not complain about our school gym floor, which I find absolutely fine. They were waxed last year. I've been looking through some badminton handbooks, and nowhere does it state anything about court floor conditions- only dimensions. Is there anything in the International Rulebook stating this? Thanks. (Hehe I'm also wondering what happens if you hit the birdy onto the pole and it bounces into your opponents court? Is it legal?)
last question first, if the shuttle hit the pole and bounce in, it is lost of serve or point by the hitting side. i dont believer there is a rule on the floor surface or condition. you can submit a complaint to the school board on safety issue, inform them that if reasonable action is not taken , they are liable to future lawsuits from injured students. Being on the home courts, your opponents would have an advantage because they more familiar with the slippery floor. Next year, if your team make it to the final, make an effort to compare the school gyms (your and their) and come to an agreement as to which gym to play on. If both gyms are crappy, then make a request to play in one of the newer school gym in your town.
Otherwise take you own towels and make them wet - don't expect them to supply any. You could brush their floor(bring your broom or mop)...but only on your side of the court. Do the same when you change ends. Aree with everything Cooler writes.
something familiar happened with my old school, we were in california southern sections quater finals (CIF) and we were away, the court seemed noticably smaller and we lost by 1 or 2 games. we filed a complaint and the board of CIF took a while to answe back, in the mean time the other school heard about it and fixed their gym. The next day my coach went back to the school to measure the courts but the school wouldnt let us go in the gym until after a few hours!!! (of course we heard some weird noises) obviously they changed it since when my coach went in to measure it, it was the right measure, and the board said they cant do anything since we didnt complain before the game was over, what im really mad about is that they didnt let us go in the gym, and that is really weird since the floor seemed cleaner than before, their excuse is that they were cleaning up... bullshit!!! costs us one important game
I'm just wondering why in the world is there no rule on gym floor conditions? What happens if an opposing school offered a scrotched gym to play on? Given a hypothetical situation, What happens if there was sand on our side of the court and when we switch sides, only then they will do something about it? What kind of rules are there to prevent these kind of things. Does anyone have a link to the International Badminton RuleBook? I'm also wondering if there's any sort of rules on "cheering". When the games are played, there are games going all at once on all 6 courts. If the audience cheers for a specific court, it is not fair for the other games in play, because it will be distracting.
There should be tournament specific rules that cover this. Something like the home team should provide adaquate and safe facilities. What you describe is not safe and your team should have refused to play under those conditions. There was too high a risk of injury. Depending on the tournament rules, either the home team will be disqualified or a reply should happen at your venue. Joe
I can't find any tournament specific rules on "Court" conditions or anything like that. Most of the local rules refer to the Official Law Book of the BC Badminton Association, and the BC badminton Law book refers to the rules in the International Badminton one. What happens if this exact same situation happened elsewhere in the world? What would the IBF do then?
the floor condition is more common sense and general safety concerns than rules. It would be extremely difficult to quantify a rule for how clean, or how much adhesion that is acceptable. General cleanliness would be a common courtesy by the home school, but unfortunately at many schools you (or coach/teacher) may not even be allowed to sweep a broom across to wipe up excess dust or dirt if the union/labor agreements dictate. Another situation that results from poor gym conditions are the home team may (fair or unfair) use that as a home advantage. Although these types of conditions may affect all players, if the home team practices more in those condition, they will have a slight favorable advantage. If the condition does persist, contact the league administrators and bring this to their attention. The main reason sited would be unsafe gym conditions, and bring up your own players accidents. Chances are other teams that have played in that same gym might bring up the same concerns.
Not sure what they were cleaning up? Your concern was that the court was noticeabley smaller than regulation? If they re-marked the lines, there should at least show some signs of repair - smell pain remover/old faded markings, etc? Removing lines especially in an older gym will leave traces, unless they went and painted the entire floor over. Mighty extreme measures, and would affect the entire school, not just the badminton team.
Perhaps you can train your players to have a better concentration, to ignore disruptions. I remember when I was trained before, disruptions, cheering, booing, etc are part of the training - trying to break my concentration, confidence, etc. Perhaps you can incorporate such a training with your students? Again I would not advice doing them to all students because the psychological affect might be different from one student to another. Just thought I'd share. Cheers.
Tonten. Surprised you asked this question. Obvioulsy you have not been to many tournaments. I was shouting my head off at this years HK Open for one match whilst another match was going on simultaneously. Do you think it is reasonable for the 2nd match to be stopped or points replayed because a crowd of people are cheering/applauding for the next court? If you allow distractions to affect you, you are losing the game. Perhaps you are already losing and looking for excuses.
The one should argue "for reasonable safety from injury". If the union argues, then can reply "perhaps you could do the job better then". After all, a person's safety should come as being important.
you will be surprised sometimes what would be allowed or not by union agreements. sometimes job security and protection comes way before safety concerns. there is a community center close by where for the past many years, all the patrons would help with setting up the posts and nets, and sweep up the gym in preparation for play. half a dozen extra pairs of hands gets the gym set up in a matter of a few minutes. we have been doing this like forever as long as I have been with the center, at least over a dozen years. one day, a supervisor dropped by, then all of a sudden starting the next session we were told by the employee we were no longer allowed to set up the net or sweep the floor. so we now have to wait 10 or 15 minutes while this one person to setup the nets. if the floor is dusty, he has to get the broom and sweep. if he was busy with other duties, the sweeping may have to wait until he can get to it, even if the sweeping was more convenient to be done by one of us players. unions....
it's true. Janitors of canadian public school in canada are unionized. Badminton in the evening are considered additonal work hours and janitor(s) must be paid overtime. So, while we play badminton for 3 hrs, janitor sit and watch us play. The sucking part is that he doesnt sweep the floor before our badminton session. He sweep the floor after we leave. We play plastic shuttles and wear separate court shoes, the floor actually slightly cleaner after our badminton session than before we begin playing.
No problem with overtime. Would it be a problem if you clean the floor first, then let the janitor clean it again before the session? Then no excuses for a clean floor.
oh i forgot, regarding noise distraction, i think it is no different than other lives sport competition (except for golf and chess, where the commentators sitting inside a closed room whisper or talk softly as though they were next to the players )
bah... there's a reason why I prefer no cheering. There are usually 6 games going on at the same time and a large crowd watching. There are only two-four coaches moderating the entire gym and we are usually on the courts, watching and judging the games. Parts of the audience may be cheering for one court, parts of them may be cheering for another. But other parts of the audience may be deliberately distracting the players, by clapping their hands right before a player serves, or an audience member yells OUT!!! while a player is receiving a serve when it is not really out to distract him. 5 years back, this exact inccident happened. The coach from the opposing school had already warned the audience not to yell, shout, or anything like that. While the coaches were busy judging the other games, it happened. Someone yelled something on purpose to distract one of our players and she twisted her ankle. That game could have determined if we won or lost. Although her ankle was swelling, she continued to played, knowing that we are not allowed to substitute any players into the game after 5 minutes into a match, or else we forfeit it. It's really hard to catch people doing things in the audience whe there are so little people to watch them. Heck, there are even troublemakers in my school. They come to the games and start throwing things into the court and pieces of paper at our players just to cause trouble (This happened last year, but they got in trouble for doing so. I was lucky that I had someone to watch the audience). heh I have never been to any tournaments =(
Oh and an update on the gym floor thing. I asked my atheletic director about it and he says that nothing can be done about it because all the schools are under the same contract or whatever, and that they have the same people waxing the floors and cleaning the floors every year. The qualitiy of a gym in a Vancouver public school should reflect the qualities of all the other vancouver public school gyms. Quotes to me, "You just gotta suck it up" hehe
As was mentioned in another thread, you have to be mentally tougher to withstand the distractions...or even use them to your advantage (motivate you to do better). A line can be drawn so whilst heckling would be acceptable, anything personal abuse would get the person who said it thrown out. Same as throwing things on court, that's dangerous so the person is asking for themselves to be thrown out. It's part of the game to be mentally tougher; remind your team to be mentally tough to distractions and only focus on their game. Not events around them.....even it is personal abuse. The sweetest satisfaction is to win, and let those people know you knew their dsitraction tactics but were prepared for them Once I played a team match being the last pair on court (doubles). The opposing team were really loud even clapping to some of our mistakes. I responded by shouting very aggresively after winning each point (trying to out shout the opponents audience). My partner was a bit worried about my shouting (rather like Camilla but with a deeper voice). As it happened, with all the shouting, our opponents felt the pressure and cracked! We won the game. I know the opposing team from before and know that they are a noisy lot. I don't hold any hard feelings towards them for it Just managed to develop a tactic that time that worked!!! It won't work all the time so you have to devise other strategies that may help you. Some people like to remain cool, calm and collected in the face of distractions - makes it obvious you are superior.
