Karthik,
In another thread started by John (JVN), there is discussion of the Velcro strap on the gates. My group is hosting a scrimmage for local teams to prepare for World Championship and I want to set the fields up as close as possible to how they will be set up for World Championship. Reading all the materials there seems to be some ambiguity regarding the Velcro strap.
First- it appears that the strap must be fully applied to the raised gate for it to be considered latched before the last 30 seconds. Correct, or is the gate simply raised sufficient?
If the strap must be applied before the last 30 seconds, Appendix A leaves it rather vague on how the strap is installed on the gate. I have been to events where there were no straps, the straps were laying on the floor, they were screwed to the gate in various positions (some very low and some very high when the gate is raised), and at some events the strap was wrapped around one bar of the gate and had to be unwrapped before the gate was raised and rewrapped after the gate was raised. Reading Annex A, all seem acceptable except the no strap option (which seemed to be most prevalent by the way).
How will the straps to be configured at World Championship? This may seem trivial, but depending on how the strap is, or is not attached, some methods will take teams much longer to complete the task than other methods.
Thanks,
Dave Franc