Equipment & Facilities Specifications Subcommittee Annual Meeting Indianapolis, IN 5 DEC 2013 Bob Springer opened the meeting at 3 PM and greeted the 49 attendees. The following committee members were present: Jo Burrows Charles Day Win Eggers George Kleeman George Leaf Bruce Long Richard Messenger Jon Turner Tony Wayne Meeting Minutes: Last year s EFSS meeting minutes were approved. Agenda: The agenda for this meeting was read and approved (Appendix A). Bob briefly introduced the Jo-Jo Throws discus, and passed around a 1.6 kg example of the discus. The intent was for everyone to see it before discussing the subject during New Business. Old Business 1. Action Items for 2013: There were no action items from last year. 2. Goals for 2013: Publish two newsletters in 2013. Status: Two newsletters were published, with 879 copies distributed in February, and 889 copies distributed in October. These numbers are up from last year. 3. Bob summarized the implement inspection reports from 2013. The full report is contained in Appendix B. Two other comments were made about the report: a. Bob would like to submit rejection statistics for the HS rubber discus to the NFHS, but more reports from the field are required to generate meaningful data. b. Some inspection reports contained the number of disqualifications, but not the total number of implements inspected. Hence, rejection percentages can not be calculated. 1
New Business 1. Rules Changes for 2014 A condensed list of USATF rules changes, which concern equipment and facilities, was posted in the electronic library and is not repeated here. A large part of the discussion concerned the pole vault box collar: - The collar is mandatory for NCAA meets, effective 1 DEC 13 - The collar is optional for high school meets in 2014, but mandatory in 2015. - The box collar is not being considered for USATF because it is not an IAAF rule, and the IAAF is against it. George Kleeman announced that the recent WMA rules changes have not been officially published yet; therefore, USATF will not consider them this year. Primarily affected are the WMA rules changes to the shot maximum diameter, alteration of the 750 gram discus dimensions, and a change in the women s age groups that throw the 500 g javelin. High school rules change of note: Implement Inspectors are no longer responsible for pole vault inspections. However, the subject of starting block inspections was left out of that change, and they technically still fall under the Implement Inspectors. 2. Goals for 2014: - Publish two newsletters - Gather & disseminate more information about implement inspections and implement problems 3. Action items for 2014: none were assigned. 4. Discus Marking Device (aka Jo-Jo Throws discus) Bob described the discus and its history. It is made by a small company in California for the purpose of better identifying the spot where the discus lands. This is done by installing a small chamber in the middle of the discus which is filled with powdered chalk, like is used in chalk lines. Either side of the chamber (top & bottom of the discus) has a tight-mesh metal screen which retains the chalk under most conditions. However, during the impact of a discus landing, some chalk is ejected and leaves a mark on the ground. The sample provided by the company was a modified VS Athletics 1.6 kg discus. See pictures in Appendix C. Several points and questions were brought up: - For a flat landing, the chalk mark would not represent the point where the distance measurement would be made. 2
- Is the discus legal for competition? The chalk chamber and retention screens represent a path of airflow through the discus. Answer: As long as the screens are in place, the discus is legal. The through-flow of air would be minimal. However, if a screen pops out, the discus should be impounded. [During the testing of this discus prior to the annual meeting a screen did pop out.] - What happens if the chalk gets water-logged? Since there was no answer to this question, Bob agreed to try the discus in wet conditions when he returned to Seattle. - How should the discus be weighed during implement inspection? Answer: With an empty chalk chamber. - (comment) This would create a situation in competition where some discus landings are accompanied by a chalk mark, and others are not. Could this create inconsistent marking by officials? - The general consensus in the room was that this discus was more appropriate for practice than for competition. Bob agreed to send the discus to David Katz for IAAF technical committee evaluation after conducting the wet chalk throws testing. With no further business to discuss, the meeting was adjourned at 4:50 PM. Ivars Ikstrums Secretary 3
Appendix A 4
Appendix B: 2013 Implement Reports Summary of Reports College, Open & Masters Per Total Repairs Rejected Cent Indoor Shot Men 348 40 17 4.9% Women 383 26 24 6.3% Total Repairs Rejected High School Per Cent Outdoor Shot Men 434 15 47 10.8% 265 9 55 20.8% Women 528 9 27 5.1% 280 14 57 20.4% High School Rubber Discus Total Rejected Per Cent Discus Men 902 68 38 4.2% 447 24 45 10.1% 10 10 100.0% Women 1074 50 33 3.1% 568 31 48 8.5% 32 26 81.2% Javelin Men 656 4 58 8.8% 286 6 28 9.8% Women 731 11 48 6.6% 302 11 18 6.0% Hammer Men 438 21 48 11.0% Women 503 29 50 9.9% Weight Men 213 27 7 3.3% Women 251 27 6 2.4% Total 6461 327 403 6.2% 2148 95 251 11.7% (Combined Events on next page) 5
Combined Events College, Open & Masters Total Repairs Rejected Per Cent Indoor Shot Men 79 27 1 1.3% Women 104 27 2 1.9% Outdoor Shot Men 64 12 7 10.9% Women 73 11 11 15.1% Javelin Men 111 1 10 9.0% Women 112 0 3 2.7% Discus Men 129 26 6 4.7% Total 672 104 40 6.0% Conclusions: For those implements other than for high schools, the biggest problem is the hammer as usual. From the reports, it would appear that part of the problem is the lack of time to get the hammers repaired in time. As before, care of shots is a concern although most of those rejections were for light shots. The major problem with the javelins is the location of the balance point. Given the length of the javelin and the minimal weight, any slight change can move that point and cause problems. Javelins are difficult to repair at the meet. I m not sure why the indoor shot for the combined events has such a small rejection rate, although it could have to do with the small number of shots handled. The three that were rejected included one eight pound shot, one slightly light and one that was too soft. The high school shots have a very high failure rate. I suspect that is a result of too small a sample. One or two meets had high failures due to surface problems and that skewed the results. In that state, as with most states, there is little done during the season and so the problems are found late in the season. The results on the high school rubber discus must be taken with a grain of salt. That is based on just a couple of reports and so may not be truly indicative of the actual situation. My suspicion is that it is real data, but that is only an opinion. To get good data there, I need more reports and those reports need to include the number of rubber discs checked as well as the number rejected. Since these are not really repairable, no repair numbers were kept. The number of repairs is probably smaller than what actually happened. Some meets did not report the number of repairs and so were listed as not having any. In some cases that was due to time constraints on the inspector. It is more important to get the implement repaired and into competition than in keeping track of how many were repaired. 6
2013 EFSS Meeting Minutes Appendix C: Jo-Jo Throws Discus Top and bottom of the discus Removable center plate with screen Spanner tool for removing the center plate 7
Chalk container Closeup of the screen 8