| I think I can help here? The reason adult or mature champion, young and baby champion exist is to allow for the fact that the Grand champion and the reserve champion ( second best fish in the show) goes to the very best ADULT fish in the show. There is also the jumbo award which is to go to the very best LARGE fish in the show. So there is a well thought out slot for each description of 'winner' in a show.
Additionally, koi are really judged on a sliding scale of criteria based on their age (which implies size).
Baby and young fish are heavily critiqued on pattern and color, for instance.
Young adults are considered based on body as an important element on a weighted scale as they get into larger sizes.
Full sexually mature adults are reviewed for volume and perfect imposing conformation and other quality elements.
A good judge will also recognize when size is an indicator of quality and when he or she is looking at a large pond grade fish. Elements of size and volume, which is also an assessment of bone structure is a form or a dimension of what we call ‘quality’. On the other hand, in warmer areas of the world, pond grade koi can get very large yet this is not an indication of quality as many of these big ponders will also show deformities and lack volume as it appears in high end genetic fish.
In Western shows the plot thickens! We often see super high class genetics competing with jumbo pond grade fish. The judge must sometimes reach down to a smaller size to get the ‘lesson’ right. This confuses many exhibitors as they say “the large fish always wins, why in this one case is a smaller fish winning?”
Other exhibitors are confused when brightly colored well patterned somewhat smaller fish do not win over competitors who possess exceptional size and volume but the pattern may not be as technically correct? This goes back to HOW large fish are judged as opposed to young fish ( as I mentioned above).
Hope this helps? JR
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