Hot Lunch
Master Black Belt
Criteria for gold:
1. You beat someone
2. No one beats you
Criteria for silver:
1. You beat someone
2. Only gold beats you
Criteria for bronze:
1. You beat someone
2. Only silver and gold beat you
When should everyone get a medal?
- Thread starter skribs
- Start date
1. You beat someone
2. No one beats you
Criteria for silver:
1. You beat someone
2. Only gold beats you
Criteria for bronze:
1. You beat someone
2. Only silver and gold beat you
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
No. If you beat one person you should get bronze.
You need to beat at least 3 people to get gold
Or you didn't earn it.
Hot Lunch
Master Black Belt
There's just one problem with this. If there's only two participants, the winner can't be third place - which is what bronze is.
OK. …?
Yeah, I understand that’s the reasoning. I just don’t agree. If I win no matches, I’d expect to win no medals.
Nobody’s talking about giving medals for running a competition, so that looks like a strawman.
I disagree, in the case of a competitor who doesn’t manage to win.
In that case, at least gold bested everyone else in the division. Gotta draw the line somewhere, and with so many competitions having small divisions, it makes sense you’d often have folks medaling on only one or two matches.
An interesting stance. That could be reasonably argued. I don’t know I’d agree, though.
HighKick
Master Black Belt
But you did show up, hopefully did your best to compete, and paid the tournament fees.
I totally get the sentiment and have been there more than a few times. I guess my best answer is to not show up for the medals, but to do your best and let the chips fall where they may.
J. Pickard
Brown Belt
in what way? Like biased judging or just too few people in your division? If it's the latter, then anyone competing knows that if they got 3rd out of 3 or 2nd out of 2 then they got last place. Still seems simple to me.
It's the latter. Yes, they know they got last. To me, though, it doesn't make sense to award any medal to someone who doesn't do better than anyone. The medal is meaningless, at best.
Mind you, I'm completely on board with what I'd refer to as "commemorative awards" - things that are given simply for successfully participating in an event. They're nice mementos, and I have several. But if I went to a mud run and joined the competitive wave (many of them have those) and turned out to be the only over-50 competitor, I wouldn't expect to receive the gold medal for my class. I'd be happier if they said they'd use my time in the next younger class, or even the open class, to see if I'd place.
I'm sure there are some folks who would be upset about not receiving a medal if they were one of 3 competitors, even if they lost to both of the others. But I also don't really care. That feels like the same vibe as folks who gather meaningless MA ranks and "honors" and use them to talk themselves up. A competitive person is most likely driven either by the competition, itself, or by the prize/symbol given as a result of besting others in competition. I seriously doubt there'd be any substantial number of people complaining if a ruleset was used where you had to win against someone in order to receive any rank medal.
HighKick
Master Black Belt
I can't think of a tournament I have been to where only one person showed up for a division to compete. Maybe in an older adult division That is the only scenario I can think of that would qualify for your "doesn't do better than anyone" assertion.
I do get the idea though. As a competitor, you want to compete. Whether than is 1 or 100. But unless you have a good way of knowing who is showing up for a tournament, it is just luck of the draw to me. Usually, for regionals or circuits you can get a good idea of your competition.
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Look back early in this thread. I wasn’t the one who brought up the idea of there being so few competitors that everyone got a medal.
