Incident at Asian Championship 2014

Natan (2014-12-10 12:36:19 +0000)
Dear Community, An incident happened at Asian Championship 2014, in which the judge administering the third 3x3 blindfolded solve of the final round of Kabyanil Talukdar (2013TALU01) failed to place the required opaque object in Kabyanil’s line of sight. This was noticed immediately, and a decision was made by the competition delegates, in consultation with two Board members attending this competition, whereby Kabyanil was given a replacement solve. The Board has heard arguments for keeping the original solve time and for keeping the replacement solve time, and has come to the following decision: The original solve time will be accepted, and the appropriate changes will be made in the database. Therefore, the time for the third solve will be 25.93 seconds now, and the new mean will be 27.63 seconds. This does not affect the placing, but it does make the new mean a World Record. Thus, the marker will be awarded and the announcement of the results of this competition will be changed to reflect this. The Board has based this decision on the merits and circumstances of this particular incident. We feel that basing decisions on precedent is only valid when circumstances are virtually identical. In this case an official made a procedural error, and we can use additional evidence of what exactly happened. This criterion for the making of decisions will be evident in future announcements. The Board will also make an announcement on a past case shortly. In the incident at hand, it has been decided to accept the original solve time for the following main reasons: - The incident happened without the competitor causing it or noticing it. - The incident happened without the judge's intention. - The reconstruction of the solve shows that a proper method and sequence for blindfolded solving was used. - The relative position of the competitor’s head, the blindfold, and the cube makes it unlikely that the competitor could have looked at the cube during the execution. We take the opportunity to make community members aware of the importance of focusing on the tasks assigned to all of us as judges and scramblers. We thank all members who contributed to the resolution of this case. -Natán Riggenbach, on behalf of the WCA Board
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