Two penalties does not mean a Yellow Card by default

Penalties are often given to skaters infringing the rules of Short Track Speed Skating. A misconception of a yellow card is often claimed by coaches and referees. Two penalties on the same distance results in a Yellow Card on some competitions, but it is not a rule in the Technical Rules and Regulations of the ISU. However, the competition itself may add such rules to be applied during the competition. In case of the StarClass Series this would be the case. However, two penalties within the same race is granted a Yellow Card as stated by the rules.

Due to a particular case in Oberstdorf in the beginning of August 2016 where a Yellow Card was not granted by chief referee Nina Rau (GER), I talked to Gialt Besma (NED) to clear this up He explained that it was a rule solely on StarClass competitions. However, I also noticed that the line regulating this in the StarClass Series was missing in the StarClass Memorandum. It would have been removed by accident and should be added again in a next revision. This actually meant that the Yellow Card rule (due to double penalties on the same distance) shouldn’t have been applied during the StarClass competitions of last season, since the rule simply did not exist.

UPDATE: Since there is no new StarClass Memorandum available for this season, these competitions are still held with the rules of last year. During the team leader meeting of the first StarClass competition in Bolzano, I mentioned the findings above to the chief referee, Alessandro Mauri (ITA) who took the effort to check my claims and came to me to ensure that a Yellow Card would not be granted because of two penalties at the same distance because it was nowhere to be found in the rules.