well, ideally that is what it should be, let them getting on their jobs, professionally. typically, in the early rounds of a tournament there are 5 or 6 courts ongoing at the same time. allow them to have a break in-between matches, you are talking about 2*6*10*1.25 (contingency) = 150 international umpires as line judges! ok, 149, i'm going if they let me!
Sorry, that was not my suggestion. That was what the international line judges told me.The key problem in the past was domestic line judges favouring home players.(The other problem you hypothesised would be a long shot and not considered a problem.) By the way, hcyong noted that line judges were rotated after each game so each line judge looked at at least two different lines per match.This procedure evens out fatigue and minimises bias even further. It's not easy to qualify as an international line judge.You first have to qualify for your local BA standard,then get accredited and recommended and then selected.Probably will need quite a few tournaments' experience. Frankly ,with the international line judges doing such a splendid job, there's no need for hawkeye. What needs to be fixed next are umpires.BWF umpires have wildly differing standards.
sorry that if i'd misquoted you. i'm not disputing the high quality of the line judges at the recent UC/TC at all, just saying that if just using impartial judges for the matches not invloved home players may not be sufficient. we all know that how important of the MS2 in the final between BCL and LHI that ended first game in 28-26. one bad call will probably ended up with LHI won the game and the match, and KOR as the champion!
Can someone confirm??.. ..i believe in one of the matches (either in QF or SF), i saw U.S.' Paisan R. helping out as one of the linejudges??..if not, maybe as one of the side court officials??..Or maybe the person looks like Paisan??..did anyone else notice that??..
I'm still wondering.. ..(sorry if i might've skimmed through all the posts for the answer)..But, what if: There are 3 matches involving the host nation's player or players??...And say, if there were only 10 international line-judges available, how will they divvy/assign up those international linejudges into those matches? Would the international linejudges be divvied-up/assigned and mixed in with the local line-judges??..Or are they going to fully utilize and involve international line-judges PLUS the idling umpires to "referee" the 3 matches involving the host nation's player or players??.. Thus, if the latter were implemented, i'd imagine there would need be around at least 24 (8 line-judges for each match) international/non-local line-judges/umpires. And that's only for 3 matches; if there were more, then they probably would need more??..
^^Hmm..^^ ..actually what i meant to ask was, what is the minimum no. of international line-judges/umpires needed in order to maintain this type of line-judging standard??..10?? 20?? 30??..
I don't think so. In badminton, all judgments involving line judges are made when there is no "flow" at all. I think the umpire should be allowed to overrule basing on video-replays. And there should be regulations about the number and angles of cameras for all super-series and higher level tournaments.
I found this quite funny during the match between Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlzakQ1ZccI&feature=related watch the call by the line judge
I must sat that the quality of Linesmen for this TC/UC is good... coz sometimes i called/shouted out yet the birdie was "in" But I'm sure that KOR or CHN team would "hire" me to be the linesman Joke aside... No biased calls towards the host nation... kudos to the linesmen and umpires
View from one of the International Line Judges I am a very infrequent visitor to this forum and have only just read this thread but I thought I would say a few things albeit very late. I was one of 10 International Line Judges selected by BWF to officiate at this event. I was one of three from Europe, and the rest came from around the world. Unfortunately the persons selected from Canada and Africa failed to appear so there were only 8 of us there. Yes we had to pay our own air fares but accommodation was provided and we were given a daily food allowance. In my case my air fares were in excess of £600 which I paid for myself. At the event we joined some 50 local Indonesian Line Judges all of whom had woked at events previously. We were divided into teams and all five courts had ten line judges on court all of the time. The briefing we received from the Refereeing team lead by Keith Hawthorne was that whenever Indonesia were on court in either competion then the Intenationals were to be used on that court. With only 8 of us and not being able to do 5 matchs on the bounce we were split into 5 and three plus the locals making up the other members of the on court team to ten. Yes we rotated lines after every game so we never sat on the same line for two consecutive games. The number of locals used was cut twice before the finals but the Internationals were used fully right through the event. I have to say that I did not see any of the locals at any time give anything other than what they saw as the right decision. There were few if any over rules by the Umpires (whose standards varied considerably). In accordance with our instructions the unsighted signal was given where necessary by the Line Judge. I saw only one or two 'disputed'calls one of which was given by a German International who afterwards was apologised to by one of the coaches concerned as the TV replays had shown the Line Judge was correct. As for using 'Hawkeye' I was party to some discussions by high ranking BWF officials prior to this event who stated that they were considering using the system but at present it woul not be used. For those wanting to be considered for the Olympics where there will be 10 used again you are far to late, the applications were accepted from November until January and selections were made in February. An example of the selection is that of the three selected from Europe one is a very experiencd Belgium Line Judge and the other two are Eastern European Umpires (what experience they have as LJ's I have no idea). The other 60 plus LJ's will come from China. or those who are interested in being a LJ at big events I suggest that you contact your National Association. There is no formal training other than in Australia although the BWF are considering introducing a formal system of training and acreditation. The problems are who is willing and able to give up 4/5 days at a time if not more and pay out considerable sums of money in travel. Personally in the last season I have travelled from the UK to events in Norway, Manchester England, Austria, Denmark for European Champioinships and Indonesia for the T/U Cup finals.
Woody, thanks for sharing your experience with us. it is always nice to have dedicated people like yourself who is making badminton a better world by making small personal sacrifices that you mentioned.
Thanks.. ..for sharing a bit of your personal experience and insights, Woody ..Btw, just curious, will you be joining the badminton event, in the OG this yr?? if not as a LJ, maybe as a spectator??..
I am afraid I will not be there as a LJ or as a spectator. I have worked as a Volunteer at the Manchester (England) Commonwealth Games in 2002, Melbourne (Australia) Commonwealth Games 2006 and the World Police and Fire Games in Adelaide (Australia) in 2007 so I have travelled extensively working as a general volunteer. I did Volunteer for Beijing but did not get through the selection process. Unfortunately I did not find out I wasn't selected until the end of May 2008 far to late to make any other plans. As there was never any guarantee about the availablity of tickets for any events I was not prepared to travel on the off chance of geting tickets.
Hey there Woody! Good to hear the feedback you gave - i just joined up on BC forum ... finally! BTW I was one of the international Line Judges at the Thomas/Uber Cup - the one from Australia. I am also an Umpire but not international level just yet. However, just to clarify over here in Australia we do not require Line Judges to be Umpires. We have many experienced Line Judges who have never umpired a single game but sacrifice their time by helping out at events around Australia and also abroad. I am very much an advocate that you do not have to be an umpire to be a very good Line Judge. We had a great team over in Jakarta and I really enjoyed every minute of it A few of us even met some of the Badminton Central Crew over there like Louisa, Lou and Michelle (they are the only names i could remember - sorry bad memory!) who were also staying in the same hotel as us.
