WRC2014 Registration Progress.
So, many of us were wondering what’s the beef regarding the current pace of player registration for the World Riichi Championship 2014, in Puteaux, France. The event was slated for mid-July, and the official deadline on the site was set for May 1. However, each country’s has been micromanaged by their respective organizations, and the process is asymmetric, to say the least…
Here are the quotas as assigned, transferred, and acted upon in date of April
9 16 18 22 24 26 29, 2014.
Legend: Green = Quota filled; Red = Quota abandoned; Blue = Total lines; Yellow = Remaining seats to assign; White = In progess.
| Country | Assigned | +/- Transfer | Confirmed | Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austria (AT) | 3 | . | 3 | . |
| Czech Republic (CZ) | 1 | . | 2* | . |
| Denmark (DK) | 5 | +1 | 6 | . |
| Finland (FI) | 2 | . | 2 | . |
| France (FR) | 6 | +1 | 7 | . |
| Germany (DE) | 5 | . | 5 | . |
| Netherlands (NL) | 5 | +1 | 6 | . |
| Poland (PL) | 3 | . | 3 | . |
| Russia (RU) | 3 | +1 | 4 | . |
| Slovakia (SK) | 3 | . | 3 | . |
| Spain (ES) | 1 | . | 1 | . |
| Sweden (SE) | 2 | . | 2 | . |
| Switzerland (CH) | 1 | . | 1 | . |
| Ukraine (UA) | 1 | . | 1 | . |
| United Kingdom (UK) | 4 | . | 4 | . |
| BE, HU, IT, PT | 1 * 4 | -1 * 4 | 0 * 4 | . |
| **Europe** | **49+1** | **.** | 50 | **.** |
| China | 5 | . | 5 | . |
| Korea | 5 | . | 1 | 4 |
| “N.America” | 5 | . | 5** | . |
| Other | 5 | . | 4 (AU, AU, UK, US) | 1 |
| **Non-Europe** | **20** | **.** | 15 | **5** |
| *Total (exc. Japan)* | *69+1* | *.* | 65 | *5* |
The reasons why only half have managed to sign up at this time vary greatly. Some countries’ qualifying processes took until the end of March (Sweden had a competition, UK had a nomination bid). Other countries finalized their process on the New Year or even before, and some have registered (Netherlands, Denmark), whereas some have not (Germany). In many ways, it seems natural to let countries deal with picking and validating candidates’ registrations. But how long does it take for someone to confirm interest, to sign up, or to signal that they cannot attend? some countries are having this problem as we speak
others are either silent, or simply keeping to themselves. The WRC has no visible “pending” status in its registration page, maybe some yellow dots on their world map would be a nice addition.
We don’t want to impute any ill will to anyone, but it begs the question: was decentralization the best method of dealing with registration? At this point, it all depends on the tail end of the process: how to deal with fall-back options for players of the same country, before eventually swapping allocated quotas to countries with significant interest? That would be nice information to obtain from the organizing committee, although we are told that they are actively pursuing other activities related to the success of the WRC2014 as we speak. There is a news box on the WRC website, hopefully we will see something new there soon. Or the comment section below :)
EDIT (April 28): It seems like the risks have subsided on their own. As things stand, there are 60/70 registered. That leaves seats to Germany (2) and the rest of world (1+4+3=8). There still have been no official communiqués from the WRC team. Germany has re-iterated their three official choices (but with no progress on the registration front), the Slovakian team seems to be away on a trip to Japan (they registered now), and no news regarding the presence of other candidates or the reallocation of the Chinese and Korean seats.
EDIT (April 29): All Germans registered, and this closes the official European seating. Five others have already been designated. What remains is a reallocation of the 5 Asian seats (4 from Korea, 1 from China). As I have not heard news from the organizing team, it is difficult to speculate at this moment in time.
