LogoIncident: A WDC decision affected a competitor's results on multiple rounds
2j1a 9p1 9p2
BCMAryaCubingChallenge2019
A competitor had been disqualified after an investigation by the WCA Disciplinary Committee found they were guilty of cheating in a WCA Competition over multiple rounds. Applying Regulation 2j1a), the results of the first round of the competitor should be changed to DNF.
The WRC has decided that the results of the following rounds the competitor participated in should be removed, and not disqualified. Regulation 9p2 states that the competitors who advance to the next round must be determined by ranking or by result in the preceding round.
Therefore, as the competitor does not have a valid result in the first round, he doesn't meet the requirements for advancing to the next round and should not have competed in it.
The WRC understands that this decision is the best for maintaining consistency of the Regulations. The results should be removed because they were null and void, and not voidable, as they didn't meet the requirements to have happened in the first place.
This is also consistent with the decision taken on this Incident Log, in which the WRC decided to remove, and not disqualify, the results of a competitor in a round of an event they shouldn't have competed in due to a mistake they made in a previous round.
As a side effect, this stance could reduce the number of possible competitors that are able to advance to the subsequent rounds due to the Regulation 9p1:
9p1) At least 25% of competitors must be eliminated between consecutive rounds of the same event.
As a consequence, some competitors, as has happened in the past, could hypothetically not have advanced to the following round and their results should have been removed.
To prevent those innocent competitors from being harmed by the disqualification of the results of a competitor in an incident they were not involved in, the WRC has agreed to preserve their results, regardless of the number of competitors being able to advance in a previous round.
This is also consistent with the precedent set on this Incident Log, as follows:
More generally, this is what WRC decided to apply when results were wrongly entered, and someone mistakenly proceeded to the next round:
- Keep the results if the competitor proceeded thanks to an error in someone else's results
- Remove the results if the competitor proceeded thanks to an error in their own result
As this has become a reoccurring incident, the Regulations will be updated to reflect this understanding of a flexible interpretation of Regulation 9p1 in the special circumstances here described.
Additionally, as this is the first time the WRC has adopted this stance, this understanding should not be applied retroactively, but only on incidents that happen from now on.