Nautique Banning Freddy Winter From Masters

[The_MS]

Awesome

[rockdog]

Keen to see this weekend what changes, if any, have been made to avoid the fiasco of last year happening to someone else. I think I'm more interested in that than the skiing 🤣

[Wish]

Would be interesting if someone would straight up ask a Nautique rep at the Masters (prob plenty of them there and higher-ups) why Nautique chose to stay silent and let everyone speculate…

[UWSkier]

24 minutes ago, Wish said:

Would be interesting if someone would straight up ask a Nautique rep at the Masters (prob plenty of them there and higher-ups) why Nautique chose to stay silent and let everyone speculate…

Because that would require them to climb down from their towers and address the commoners.

The Nautique fanbois all seem to be cool with this decision though.  Like the cheering crowd at the end of the last season of "The Boys..."

[Wish]

When it hits the hights of comedic satire you know just how bad Nautique and the Masters look to the general public because most of us laughed.  😂😂😂😂 well done Bob ..well done!! 

[Jmoski]

It would be great to see Freddie’s fellow competitors band together and boycott the Masters, after all they could be next…

[rico]

If you don't know what happened, go watch the video on the masters website Day 2 Semi Finals: 4:23:20

The facts are we don't know what really happened. 

On the judging, I believe there is a tower right by 6 ball. Looking at how Freddie came into 6, having to throw his ski around the buoy, it would have been a difficult call to make even with the best view.

My understanding of the rules is that, in order for the calls to be reviewed, the judges must have disagreed. We know the boat called 6 and we assume the tower called 5 and 5. Since the video review was not available (Freddie not in the shot while turning the buoy), The initial score, majority 5 stands. 

The hear say... some say that they believed judges were watching the video on screen instead of watching the skier live. I am not sure what the judges configuration at masters is, but I was told it was a one tower configuration. In his comment, Dano said the judge have a great view of 6 ball, however the tower location would not really be a normal position for judging. If someone can confirm it would help understand the call.

Some also say tower judges did not make a call until review. Again I believe judges have to make a call, then review if necessary. If judges were not sure whether Freddie went around 6 because they could not see it, the rule says the benefit of the doubt goes to the skier's favor. This suggest that the tower judges did see Freddie go inside 6 and stood by their initial call. 

The tech: All this could most likely have been resolved with a good video of the action. I am sorry for the person holding the camera in the boat, however, we can see on the replay that they were filming ahead of Freddie before 6 ball, then behind Freddie after 6 ball... Taking boat video is an important job, and skiers at 39, 41 go very fast. I am not sure who was in the boat but they did not seem experienced enough for the job of tracking a skier at this level. I don't think they should have been put in this situation. There was also a comment on the video, that the judges can use any video available to make the call, which is not correct.

What was the right call? Only Freddie, the boat judge, the tower judges know. Or do they? Who had the best view of the action? Boat judge, tower judges? I guess we will never know. (but I think boat judge 🙂

Should Freddie be banned? It's complicated.  The Masters LOC does not have any obligations to make an official statement to explain what happened. It seems Freddie may have been emotional about it (no sh$t, I would have). Some say Freddie remained polite. It seems the judge may have been intimidated. Who knows... 

Apparently, the LOC at tournaments can ban anyone they want for no reason. 

For the Freddie fans, it was a bit of a risk for the Masters (LOC) and Nautique (the money) to not make a pubic statement. The fans will wonder whether it is because they didn't have a good enough reason but they did it anyway. Maybe they don't give a crap. Maybe they think one less non Nautique skier in the mix. Maybe Freddie broke someone's nose and kicked them to the ground... (2nd degree, he did not) We will never know.

The 2023 US Masters of Waterskiing

It is happening, with the same Chief Officials. Will the towers and cameras be the same. Will there be more drama? People will watch, there will be a new Masters champion, and we will just have to move on and hopefully see Freddie be invited in 2024.

P.S. Actual still frame of Freddie not running around 6 ball -:) Happy Masters week-end everyone!

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by rico

[dave2ball]

Kudos to @rico for taking the time to research and write  out the cliff note summary. 

[Horton]

55 minutes ago, rico said:

On the judging, I believe there is a tower right by 6 ball. Looking at how Freddie came into 6, having to throw his ski around the buoy, it would have been a difficult call to make even with the best view.

There is no judging tower near 6 ball. There is a gate camera tower over there.

 

58 minutes ago, rico said:

The hear say... some say that they believed judges were watching the video on screen instead of watching the skier live.

This was a rumor. I believe this was a misunderstanding.

 

1 hour ago, rico said:

Dano said the judge have a great view of 6 ball, however the tower location would not really be a normal position for judging. If someone can confirm it would help understand the call.

"Dano said" Seriously? Dano is a super nice guy but not a source of technical information.

1 hour ago, rico said:

If judges were not sure whether Freddie went around 6 because they could not see it, the rule says the benefit of the doubt goes to the skier's favor.

I believe the USAWS rule book has some verbiage to this effect but the IWWF rule book does not. Please feel free to double check me on that. As I understand it if the judges could not see Fred go round 6 or not then the score is 5.  There is no benefit goes to the skier clause. 

 

1 hour ago, rico said:

This suggest that the tower judges did see Freddie go inside 6 and stood by their initial call.

Exactly the root of the problem.

 

1 hour ago, rico said:

All this could most likely have been resolved with a good video of the action. I am sorry for the person holding the camera in the boat, however, we can see on the replay that they were filming ahead of Freddie before 6 ball, then behind Freddie after 6 ball... Taking boat video is an important job, and skiers at 39, 41 go very fast. I am not sure who was in the boat but they did not seem experienced enough for the job of tracking a skier at this level. I don't think they should have been put in this situation.

There is a rumor ( IDK if true) that the camera person was not a skier and had not idea.

 

1 hour ago, rico said:

There was also a comment on the video, that the judges can use any video available to make the call, which is not correct.

You are correct that only the designated official video can be used. 

[Andre]

So many rules for such a simple sport...

[dave2ball]

@Andre  true. It’s amazing what it takes to count to 6

[Wish]

Watching current Masters I noticed the camera on the top of the pavilion seems to get a really good shot of ball 6. No idea how any of this works but is that footage something that got recorded or is the camera that’s being streamed the only one getting recorded ?? Would be interesting to see that pavilion roof top footage.  

[lpskier]

It’s up to the CJ to designate which cameras are “official.” And that has to be done before the tournament starts. Good to see the potential corrective efforts. Kudos to Rhoni.

The fallacy of this thread is that it assumes that Nautique banned Freddie. My guess is that’s incorrect. My bet it is that it was the IWWF. And “banning” Freddie from the qualifiers may make sense. If he can’t ski the Masters and there are only so many available spots at the qualifiers, then giving a spot to someone who can’t qualify is taking a spot away from someone who can. 

[Horton]

1 hour ago, lpskier said:

The fallacy of this thread is that it assumes that Nautique banned Freddie

Nautique ABSOLUTELY banned Freddie from this years event. Not an assumption.

The MCQ events were full of skiers who had no real chance to ski Masters. Freddie was specifically excluded by Nautique which is arguably a breach of IWWF ethics rules.

[ral]

Please notice the following 2023 IWWF rule amendment on cameras:

2022:

5.13: Video Specifications
Video to be used:
For Judging purposes and record review process, only video from the official cameras can be used.
The official camera may be any video from the same view (example from boat) as determined by the Homologator and Chief Judge

2023:

5.13: Video Specifications
Video to be used:
For Judging purposes, only an official video, as determined by the Homologator and Chief Judge prior to the event(s), can be used. This may be any video as long as it captures the same view for the entire event (eg. from the boat).
For a record review and approval process any available video as determined by the Homologator and Chief Judge can be used.

 

[lpskier]

@horton Did I miss something? Where is the proof it was Nautique? All I’ve seen is speculation. 

[Horton]

@lpskier

It is a small sport. It is not hard to talk to people who know much more than they would state on the record. I did a bit of research for an episode of Distance From Center that we never recorded.