IATC Round 1: Consequences, Accountability and the cost of progress

If you’re even a little active on axe throwing social media (first, God help you), you’re aware at this point of the fall out from the IATF’s decision to disqualify throwers from BATL and Celtic Axe due to throwing outside of the 3-day, IATC Round 1 window. Now, I don’t know if I can really condense all of the discourse that’s happened, but I do wanna point you to a few sources, in case you, you know, haven’t kept up with it at all.

First, the explanation from the IATF. Next, the conversations happening on this post from affected throwers, affected venues, and a whole bunch of others.

In short: Two venues had throwers complete IATC Round 1 outside of the designated 3-day window, and the IATF disqualified throwers from those venues.

First, a sort of disclaimer/setting of expectations

I’m just some little guy. I don’t have any deep understanding or insider knowledge of the decision-making process of the IATF, nor of the venues in question, or of the throwers affected by the enforcement of rules. I’m just a person who processes information by writing, and that’s what I’m up to, here. Frankly, I think if you want smart commentary on this whole mess, you should check out AALOTO’s podcast that covered this in detail:

But I have been part of a few in-venue discussions about it, and it’s a hot topic in the IATF right now, so avoiding any post about it felt dishonest. Or cowardly, maybe? Maybe neither of those things, I dunno.

But let’s get into it a little bit. and by “it” I mean my own very personal, totally not-backed-up-by-anything thoughts.

First, rules is rules.

I think the first feeling I felt (when first finding out about the whole hullabaloo) was “yep.”

Is yep a feeling? I guess it can be.

What I mean is, I saw the thread of action and consequence. The FO after the FA. I didn’t feel any sort of schadenfreude about it, surprisingly, just a sort of “well, they didn’t throw during the window, so yeah, of course those throwers shouldn’t have their scores count.”

The thing is, none of this should have been a surprise. The IATF made it clear (to me, at least) that in order for IATC Round 1 to count, it has to happen, you know, during “IATC Round 1.” I didn’t necessarily need to understand the consequence, as I kinda inherently assumed it would be something like “well, you didn’t do it, so we’re not counting anything.”

But expectation and balance is important, too.

As time went on and affected throwers/venues/the IATF started to release supporting statements/comments, I started taking a more nuanced view (to my credit, I’m very proud of myself for not just blurting out a bunch of nonsense for the sake of views, as I’m often want to do).

The nuance came from a few insights/clarifications. Namely, that some of the throwers assumed their venues…and I want to be careful with my language here…had cleared the out-of-Round-1 throwing with the IATF? Or that there wasn’t really an issue with throwing out of the specified IATC Round 1 time, maybe?

I guess what it came down to, for me at least, was something I could see myself doing, too: not checking for myself, and relying on my venue to say whether it was okay or it wasn’t. In fact, I think even if I knew better and my venue said “well, we can’t do it during the 3 days of Round 1, so we’re gonna do it [some other time], I would assume they cleared it via the IATF.

That’s not to say I put some sort of angry blame on the venues. I don’t, truly. I think venues have enough difficulty and challenge as it is, and trying to balance Round 1 alongside running their businesses is probably hella challenging.

The nuance also came from really thinking about whether the punishment matched the “crime.”

Again, I’m gonna try to be really clear: I think being disqualified because you didn’t follow one of the big rules for Round 1 is reasonable. You didn’t follow the rules. BUT!

BUUUUTTTTTT:

I also think it’s unreasonable to be so very harsh kinda out of the blue. I can’t recall this happening like it did this year in the past – so it feels very much like a sudden lock down on rules.

And here’s where I have a real, honest opinion about what happened around IATC Round 1 this year:

To be direct: the IATF would benefit from having levels of clear, written, actionable consequences for things like throwing Round 1 outside of the Round 1 window – and having that sort of clear language across the board.

Right now, the only “rule” in the IATF that I’m actually clear on is the foot fault rule:

• The penalty a player receives from a foot fault increases with the number of times they fault during that particular session of play:
  • On the first fault, the player forfeits any score attained on the throw where the fault occurred;
  • On the second fault, the player forfeits the remainder of the throws within the round where the fault occurred;
  • On the third fault, the player forfeits the match in which the fault occurred and if that fault occurs during league regulation play they are done throwing for the night:
• This could also count as an absence if that player is not able to make up any of their unplayed matches on another night (ie; being required to leave on Week 7 of league with matches remaining.)
• Faults reset each session of play.
• In a playoff or tournament scenario, the 3 fault rule still exists for that session and if a third fault occurs, that player forfeits and is considered out of playoff or tournament contention.

Why am I talking about foot fault rules when sharing my thoughts about the Round 1 drama? Well, because it might be the clearest, most easy-to-enforce part of the IATF ruleset. There are clear levels of “punishment,” clear “this is what happens now” explanations and clarifications on how this rule changes based on outside variables.

I’m a firm believer in…wait…I’m actually not. Let me rephrase: if you’re gonna have a governing body that decides how your sport functions, it’s important that the governing body in question over-explains everything.

For my part, I like the IATF. I appreciate what they do for throwers and for the fun community they’ve helped bring together. I certainly don’t have the wherewithal to run a worldwide federation (outside of the Society of Highly Introverted Throwers), so I’m not trying to call them out — rather, I’m trying to point out something that could be (and should be) a focus: clarification, simplification, and clear step-process.

I guess if I had to put a fine point on it, it’d be:

Enforcing rules for a rules-based sport is important. It’s also important to fully explain the consequences for breaking those rules — and to have levels of consequence when applicable.

Again, I don’t think that little statement above is the end-all, be-all. For instance, I don’t think violence between throwers should have a multi-tiered consequence plan. But for things like, you know, foot faults or missing a league night AND MAYBE EVEN for throwing outside of the Round 1 window for the first time, there should be levels of actionable consequence.

And maybe that consequence should just be on the players, and maybe just the venue. Maybe the consequences between those two should be different (and have different levels based on the rule that was broken).

IATC Round 1: I don’t effing know, throwkin.

Hell.

The long and short of it is this: throwers are responsible for knowing the rules. Venues are responsible for knowing the rules. The IATF is responsible for making the rules clear, and for making what happens when rules are broken clear.

In all of these cases, the affecting/affected parties are all accountable for what they did, and the punishments they’ve encountered (whether it be disqualification, or angry confusion, or momentary distrust), are likely going to stand. I don’t necessarily think there are any bad actors involved, just a lot of assumptions and missing communication. We’re all guilty of that at times.

And if we as a sport want to lock in our rules and our expectations, we’ve gotta get so much clearer about what is expected and required as members of said sport. IF that is a goal. If we’re just here to faff about and have fun, well then maybe it’s less important, in some regards.

Thanks for coming to my T.A.B. talk.

Oh, P.S.: IATC Round 1 is, overall, a remarkably flawed way to determine the best throwers in the world and I wish we did something else kthanks.