Dear WCA Community,

Here you can find some noteworthy updates about the activity of the Disciplinary Committee over the months of August and September 2019.

The Committee is actively working on 5 cases. The WDC was also able to close 4 cases over the second half of August and 5 during September. The total number of investigations/cases in 2019 is now 45.

The main case the WDC was called to investigate during this time is the one concerning the official results in 3x3 One-Handed of 2017SHIR03 at Udmurtia Open 2019. The competitor has been found guilty of cheating in the event by prematurely stopping the timer with his solving arm during various attempts, both in the First and Final rounds. Video evidence was available and it confirmed what witnesses denounced. The competitor is banned from WCA Competitions for 2 years and all of the results achieved in 3x3 One-Handed at Udmurtia Open 2019 have been disqualified.

As anticipated in the last Monthly Digest, the WDC decided to publish the report for the case that affected the Ukrainian Community at the beginning of the summer. Over the last couple of months, though, the WDC has conducted more investigations than usual where we saw competitors exploiting the lack of experience of judges to gain a personal advantage: for example, a competitor was caught applying moves during inspection, while another one was caught not resetting the timer intentionally, which resulted in a faster result getting registered on the scorecards. These cases were resolved using video evidence, when nobody noticed anything during the competition. As a consequence of their actions, these competitors were banned from WCA Competitions and the affected results were disqualified. Because of this worrisome trend, the aforementioned report is currently under revision and it will be reshaped to show which WCA processes were not properly followed and how it’s possible to prevent easily exploitable situations during competitions.

Now, on a more pleasant note, I would like to use this space to publicly thank JP Bulman for his outstanding work for the WDC over the last (almost) 2 years. JP will shortly leave the Committee and we are currently working on finding new members. The selection process is going pretty well and I’m very pleased to see such a high level of candidates; the plan is to have the “new” WDC defined by the end of the month.

To conclude, we would like to remind everyone to make sure they fully understand the WCA Regulations and competition procedures. If you have any questions or are unsure about how to do something, please do not hesitate to ask the Delegate(s) of the competition. In addition, if you think the competition results are being compromised in any way or see suspicious behavior, find the nearest delegate immediately and report the incident.

Thank you all for your help in supporting the WCA Spirit and Mission.

Thank you, JP, for your very valuable contribution and best of luck for your future!